The events and activities sponsored by CC&E partner the arts with place and civic life. This work is based on the principle that culture is not a permanent edifice but rather a process tied to the natural world and sustained through continuing acts of creativity and imagination. The program encourages citizens and students to involve the arts in the tasks of building the human and bioregional community.

The Program in Community, Culture and Environment offers opportunities for cooperation and learning that go beyond the university. Encouraging diverse stakeholders to work together in cooperative ways, the program supports interactive learning that involves the leaders of community and cultural organizations with citizens and students. Workshops, symposia, exhibitions, issue forums and other sponsored activities provide opportunities for citizens to engage each other in collaborative teaching-learning.

As part of the emphasis on environment, CC&E supports courses of instruction, workshops, issue forums, conferences, and exhibits that help students, residents, and professionals conceptualize interdisciplinary solutions for the challenges of sustainable living. This work is based on the guiding principle that conceptual strategies promoting inclusive policy forums are preferable to single issue approaches.

  In July, 2008, the program welcomed Dr. Rom Coles as the new Frances B. McAllister Chair and Director of Community, Culture and Environment, following the completion of Dr. Max Oelschlaeger's work as CC&E's first McAllister Chair and Director. Dr. Coles holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts. He received an M.A. in Political Science from Western Washington University and earned a B.S. in Social Impact Assessment/Human Ecology from the Huxley College of Environmental Studies at Western Washington University. His publications over the past five years include his books Beyond Gated Politics:  Reflections for the Possibility of Democracy (University of Minnesota Press, 2005) and Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations Between a Radical Democrat and a Christian, with Stanley Hauerwas (Wipf and Stock, November, 2007) as well a number of articles and book chapters. His most recent works are the forthcoming “Long Live the Weeds and the Wilderness Yet: Reflections on A Secular Age”, with Stanley Hauerwas (in Modern Theology) and “To Make This Emergence Articulate: The Beautiful, the Tragic-Sublime, the Good, and the Shapes of Common Practice”, Naming Goodness, Judging Goodness (University of Chicago Press, 2009).

The McAllister Chair is housed in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Northern Arizona University. The Program in Community, Culture and Environment is coordinated by Tamara Ramirez. Leah Mundell, Jason Lowry, and James Worden are Community Based Research Associates.