According to Senior Sustainability Scientist Joan McGregor, Aldo Leopold – known as the father of wildlife management – is the person with whom any discussion about sustainability should start.

"He really was, at least in the West, one of the springboards for environmental ethics," she says.

To explore how modern concepts of sustainability relate to Leopold's work, ASU hosted its third Extending the Land Ethic Summer Institute in June of 2016. The four-week event combined classroom discussions with field trips to places like Arcosanti, Grand Canyon National Park and Homolovi State Park.

Extending the Land Ethic Summer Institute is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, in partnership with the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, Institute for Humanities Research and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU, as well as the College of Arts and Letters at Northern Arizona University.