Milestones in Giving

The New School received $8 million from the Waverley Street Foundation to advance the Tishman Environment and Design Center’s efforts to educate, train, and develop the capacity of frontline communities to impact and scale climate solutions and energy policies at the local, tribal, state, and national levels. The work will also focus on supporting the state and regional efforts in Arizona, California, and New Mexico around renewable energy and regenerative agriculture.

The Tishman Center serves as a resource hub for environmental and climate justice movement partners, and multi-sectoral stakeholders in higher education, the public sector, philanthropy, and beyond. This grant will significantly impact the Tishman Center’s role, providing infrastructure and resources for the environmental justice movement to explore disruptive design innovation, prototyping, and testing solutions at scale to advance a just transition of energy, land, and water systems. Additionally, this award also supports the Tishman Center’s ongoing efforts to build a just model of university-community partnerships with local organizations that can leverage multi-sectoral investments for just climate solutions.

This work builds on the Centering Justice Symposium hosted by the Tishman Center in January 2024, with future symposiums scheduled in 2025, 2026, and 2027. These convenings bring together climate and environmental justice leaders and organizations, allied academic institutions, and relevant philanthropists to explore how higher education can better align with movements and advance just partnerships.