News

Strachan Donnelley Passes

On July 12, Chicago Wilderness lost a philosopher, philanthropist, and devoted conservationist. With a Ph.D. in philosophy, Dr. Strachan Donnelley served for many years as president of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute, and also as director of its Humans and Nature Program. Through this program, he launched Nature, Polis and Ethics, which brought together some of the Chicago region's top philosophers, ethicists, writers, and leaders to craft an ethical framework for addressing the region's environmental concerns. This work continues today in the Center for Humans and Nature, an independent, nonprofit, interdisciplinary research group founded by Donnelley in 2003. With offices in Chicago, the Hudson River Valley, and the Lowcountry of South Carolina--places where Donnelley spent a great deal of time--the center seeks to build "responsible relationships between human and natural communities conducive to the long-term mutual well-being of these communities."

Center director Curt Meine hails Donnelley for creating a refuge, "a place to enrich your mental compost" on critical issues. "Everyone's so busy. It's hard for agency and nonprofit leaders to take time out and reflect upon these issues and their consequences--without the pressure to produce, publish, etcetera."

As philanthropist, Donnelley continued in the footsteps of his parents, who, in 1952, established the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. From 1992 through 2003, he chaired the board of the foundation, which supports a range of land conservation efforts. In December of last year, Donnelley and his wife, Vivian, made a significant private contribution to the Liberty Prairie Conservancy to help acquire the Casey Farm property, which added another critical parcel to the 5,800-acre Liberty Prairie Reserve in central Lake County.

Years earlier, Donnelley's parents protected an anchor parcel in the reserve by placing a conservation easement on their family estate, Windblown Hill. Inheriting the property upon the death of his parents, Strachan undertook the restoration of a prairie remnant and a wooded bluff, which buffers the adjacent Almond Marsh Nature Preserve. A few months before his own passing, Donnelley gathered family and colleagues, expressing his "deep hope that Windblown Hill will become well known locally, regionally, and globally as a significant home and meeting venue of the cause of conserving ourselves, nature, and the planet. Our special niche should remain our attention to important ideas, as they affect conservation thinking and practice."

—Arthur Melville Pearson