Click-click. Click-ding. When planning to meet, Devin Guthrie says if you can’t see him coming, you’ll certainly hear him. He’s right. He walks up with a casual wave and warm eyes magnified by black frames, as his backpack rattles behind him. Coated with clinking metal planet pins and obnoxiously large cat keychains, the bag is a noisy ode to his eclectic interests, a physical tribute to a multi-faceted life.
Guthrie is part of the newest class of Dean’s Ambassadors, a select group of L&S students who meet once a month with Eric M. Wilcots, the Mary C. Jacoby Professor of Astronomy and Dean of the College of Letters & Science. Wilcots started the program to be a communication channel for students to express their thoughts, concerns and ideas relating to the College. Each of the 32 ambassadors is a champion of a different cause and were selected for their unique perspectives. A senior majoring in environmental sciences and environmental studies, Guthrie’s perspective is shaped by a jumbo-sized kaleidoscope of activities, all of it contributing to his purpose as a researcher, creator and activist.
Guthrie’s career as an environmentalist began 77 miles away from UW–Madison and three miles north of American Family Field in Milwaukee’s second green oasis: Washington Park. Only a short walk from his childhood home, the park is home to the Urban Ecology Center. While he credits his parents’ fishing trips and backyard campsites for first getting him outdoors, it was because of the nonprofit, which turns polluted areas back into natural, livable environments, that he discovered ecology, the study of how organisms interact with one another and their physical environments.
As a student, Guthrie values the flexibility of an L&S degree. “With L&S, I have a wide range of courses that I can tie into the major,” he says. Some of his favorite L&S classes that contribute toward his major include environmental literature, ornithology (a class about birds) and a science fiction class offered by the English department.
Armed with a variety of informative and inspiring courses, he now faces the challenge of getting others to pay Earth the same dividends he does.
The first step is generating awareness. Getting people to work for the planet, especially when they likely won’t live to see the impacts of their actions — good or bad — has always been one of the biggest obstacles for the environmentalism movement. It’s something Guthrie is painfully aware of, and it has forced him to think outside the box. His solution is science fiction.
The founder and president of Science Fiction Club, he’s spent the semester planning meetings to read and write stories, watch movies, listen to guest lectures and play games. Media such as N.K. Jemisin's the Fifth Season, Guerrilla Games Horizon Zero Dawn, and Studio Ghibli's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind all explore environmental futures, allowing him to reflect on the present. What started as a fun hobby is something he now believes could be used for change.
The way he sees it, science fiction is an art, but it’s also a way to make people excited about the future. It encourages them to dream of what could be, which is exactly what the cause needs.
As he resolves, “Science fiction — it’s an inspiration.”
Guthrie is also highly concerned with the accessibility of his field. He’s on the board for Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability (SEEDS), a UW chapter that’s a part of the national Ecological Society of America (ESA).
“The goal is to support students who typically aren’t seen within environmental research and [to create] diverse communities,” he says. “It’s a really cool program, because they fund us to do research, fund us to go to their conferences, to go on field trips and do surveys. It’s a really good ‘in’ for people who typically aren’t represented in those fields to see, yes, this is realistic for me. And I can do meaningful research as an undergraduate.”
It’s that quest for meaningful research opportunities that brought him to his most recent endeavor, one he hopes his role as a Dean’s Ambassador will help facilitate. The Green Fund, a program that’s a part of UW–Madison’s Office of Sustainability, gives money to students for projects related to sustainability and environmentalism. Guthrie wants to use the funds to create a garden on Bascom Hill, near South Hall. He’s already begun mapping it. This means answering questions like, “where do water lines prevent us from planting?” and “why are serviceberry trees a great choice for the garden?” Ideally, the space would be developed into both a gathering place and an outdoor lab for urban ecology research. One of the garden’s goals is to reflect the past, present and future of the landscape, allowing visitors to reflect on their place throughout space and time. If it comes to fruition, he believes it will be an ever-blooming testament to his tenure at UW.
Another pin on his backpack, another club on his resume, another plan to save the world. Guthrie is never without a next step, and his bold inclination to action won’t end in Madison. He plans to graduate in the spring before going to grad school and ultimately continuing to make a difference as an urban ecologist. His own summarization of his mindset is just as clear as his goals. “I’m not sitting around waiting for opportunities to show up. If I have a goal, I’ll go make it happen.”