{"id":3761,"date":"2011-04-14T11:34:34","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T17:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=3761"},"modified":"2011-04-14T11:34:34","modified_gmt":"2011-04-14T17:34:34","slug":"peak-profile-annie-petsonk-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2011\/04\/peak-profile-annie-petsonk-79\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Profile: Annie Petsonk \u201979"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A \u201crefugee from the semester system,\u201d Annie Petsonk \u201979<\/strong> transferred from Harvard to Colorado College seeking the ideal liberal arts education.<\/p>\n

Today, she credits the \u201cideal liberal arts education\u201d she says she received at CC with giving her the confidence to embark on a career\u00a0in environmental law \u2014 a field in which she has excelled for 30 years.\u00a0Petsonk works as an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund and\u00a0is a visiting scholar at George Washington University Law School.<\/p>\n

Petsonk lives with her husband, John, and three-year-old son, Nicholas, in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Earlier in her career, she worked on the biggest hazardous waste case in the U.S. and also spent four years in Africa practicing international environmental law. That opportunity came after she fell in love with Africa while on safari there with some CC friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cCC gave me the confidence to pursue law,\u201d Petsonk said. \u201cPrior to that, I was confident working with mitochondria, but not working with words. At CC, I really had to learn how to write, because writing was emphasized so intensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petsonk\u2019s recent work has focused on international climate treaty negotiations, both as a lawyer and as a professor. And in her teaching, she draws on her CC experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a teacher, I take an interdisciplinary approach similar to what I experienced at CC. I\u2019m interested in how we can design laws to protect the environment using what we know about human behavior as well as economic incentives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petsonk has stayed involved with CC since graduating. She keeps in touch with former classmates and some favorite professors, and has served on her reunion committee and on the President\u2019s Advisory Committee on Sustainability. She has done that both because of her personal connection and a strong belief in the college\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intensity of the Block Plan, coupled with the sense of place \u2026 It\u2019s called a unique intellectual adventure and that\u2019s really true. I feel fortunate to be able to maintain my ties with CC and help perpetuate that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A \u201crefugee from the semester system,\u201d Annie Petsonk \u201979 transferred from Harvard to Colorado College seeking the ideal liberal arts education. Today, she credits the \u201cideal liberal arts education\u201d she says she received at CC with giving her the confidence to embark on a career\u00a0in environmental law \u2014 a field in which she has excelled…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-3761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2011","tag-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}