The Legacy of Cecil D. Andrus

Johanna is thrilled to be joined by Dr. Emily Wakild from Boise State University to learn more about one of Idaho’s most beloved governors, and the last Democrat to serve as governor of Idaho, Cecil D. Andrus.

Dr. Wakild is a professor of environmental studies and the Cecil D. Andrus Endowed Chair for the Environment and Public Lands at Boise State University. Raised in eastern Oregon, she earned her B.A. from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon in 1999 and her PhD from the University of Arizona in 2007. Dr. Wakild’s main academic research excavates documents, images, interviews, and fragments of the past to explain why and how large spaces for nature conservation were built throughout the Americas. She is the author of Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice and Mexico’s National Parks (Arizona 2011), which received awards from the Conference of Latin American History, the Forest History Society, and the Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies. She has also written extensively about environmental pedagogy, including with Michelle K. Berry, A Primer for Teaching Environmental History, (Duke 2018) and the article "Pedagogy for the Depressed: Empowerment and Hope in the Face of the Apocalypse" in The Routledge Handbook of Environmental History. In 2024, her study of national parks in South America will be published. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Wakild is currently working on several Idaho-based research projects including essays on "Mispronouncing Idaho" and work celebrating the ways conservation brings Idahoans together. Dr. Wakild is also a scholar for our Inquiring Idaho program and is available as a speaker at no charge. For more information, visit idahohumanities.org.