Historian honored

Chico State history lecturer Timothy Sistrunk (pictured) is the first recipient of a sustainability award named in honor of Paul Persons, a popular political science professor and longtime environmental advocate who passed away last year.

The Paul Persons Sustainability Award endowment was established by Persons’ family. It recognizes faculty members who best integrate issues of sustainability into their curriculum.

Sistrunk was honored during the recent This Way to Sustainability conference. He teaches “American Environmental History,” a course in which he and his students explore a number of significant events with environmental consequences, including the rise of consumerism in the United States.

He credits Persons with influencing him on his research into an ancient Roman environmental principle and is now in the midst of writing a book—preliminarily titled The Natural World of Bartolus of Sassoferrato and the Foundations of Western Environmental Law.