- Distinguished professorship named in honor of Chancellor Bardo
- Fall commencement set for Dec. 19 at Ramsey Center
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- WCU novelist Ron Rash wins second Sir Walter Raleigh Award
- Senior named top mathematics education student in region
- Bids opened for new MAHEC building; part of venture with WCU, UNCA
- Board of trustees approves proposed tuition, fees for 2010-11
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What do Heath Ledger and Ben Harper have to do with Western Carolina University? They both were artistic partners in the creative team that designed a new Web site for the Beachcare program, located at WCU.
Beachcare is the educational outreach arm of the Santa Aguila Charitable Trust, an international organization devoted to the protection and preservation of beaches around the world. The trust’s U.S. activities are housed in WCU’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines.
Located at www.beachcare.org, the Web site is designed to inform and educate people about threats to the world’s beaches and to help celebrate and protect the wide variety of shoreline environments spanning the globe. The site was designed by the California multimedia team The Masses, an artistic outlet whose membership included the late actor Heath Ledger. The Masses is better known for producing music videos for Ben Harper, Dido and others. The Web site also features original video documentaries produced by French-American actor Jean-March Barre and producer Pascal Arnlod, and featuring Rob Young, director of WCU’s PSDS.
“The Beachcare project has been an incredible boost for our educational outreach mission,” said Young. “We are extremely interested in targeting a global audience of young people. Working with this creative dream team of international celebrities will allow us to reach people we have never been able to before. This project also has been great public relations for Western.”
Established by Olaf Guerrand-Hermes, a member of the family that founded the Paris-based Hermes fashion house, and wife Eva, the Santa Aguila Charitable Trust strives to educate the general public regarding issues that threaten the world’s beaches and coasts.
The trust is especially interested in illustrating the negative impacts of sand mining (where sand is removed from beaches, often for construction purposes elsewhere) and shoreline armoring (where hard structures such as seawalls, jetties or groins are used to try to halt the naturally occurring movement of beaches), said Adam Griffith, director of the Beachcare program.
The trust relocated to WCU through the efforts of Young, a member of the advisory board of the trust. The advisory board oversees the trust’s strategy and works to ensure its mission of global mobilization to stop the decimation of beaches worldwide. Other members are architect David Adjaye; Prince Pierre d’Aremberg; Yasmina Filali of the Orient-Occident Foundation; musician Aretha Franklin; Philippe d’Ornano, president of the Sisley corporation; Orrin Pilkey, founder of PSDS; and Glenna Patton of MTV Networks International.
For more information on the trust, call (828) 227-2728. For more information about PSDS, call (828) 227-3822 or visit the Web site at http://psds.wcu.edu.
Maintained by the Office of Public Relations
Last modified: Friday, May 22, 2009