If the United States faces tough environmental issues, think about China, with its immense resources and huge population, its rigid socialism and recently unleashed capitalist energies, its persistent backwardness and burgeoning prosperity, its centralized power and populist pressures. "China is rushing at hyperspeed toward a new future," says Associate Professor of Political Science Stephen Van Holde. "As a developing country, China faces enormous challenges in reconciling economic growth and environmental protection."

Research he conducted recently in Nanjing gave him a chance to study these challenges up close, and to begin a new research project focusing on community-based forestry and transboundary water security issues in China.

Van Holde, who also pursues research on the global politics of AIDS, has taught at the College since 1990. "The students seem smarter and smarter every year," he says. Kenyon students display "an uncommon and invigorating combination of intellectual rigor and personal congeniality. I love all aspects of teaching them."

That affection may stem in part from an attachment to youthful hobbies such as scuba diving and cross-country skiing and a long affinity for young people. Before deciding to become a college professor, Van Holde taught elementary and middle school.

"If you can hold the attention of 25 eleven-year-olds," he jokes, "you can usually hold the attention of a room full of twenty-year-old college kids."