Wednesday October 12th at 6:30p.m. in the Mary Flood Room

AMERICA’S BEST IDEA; THE US NATIONAL PARKS AND THEIR TRANSLATION AROUND THE WORLD

This presentation will be highlight Dr. Richard Benfield’s ten years teaching about National Parks and World Heritage Sites and his travels all over the USA to see the 59 parks of the US National Park system. He has also visited over 115 countries assess their National Parks system. This will illustrate the nature of National Parks in East Africa, the Himalayas, South-East Asia and South America as well.

Dr Richard W. Benfield was formerly Professor of Geography at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut where he taught courses in Human Geography, the history and management of  National Parks, Plants, Predators and Parks, Russia, The European Union and many of the courses in the department’s tourism track. Prior to coming to Central, he was Senior Program Coordinator in the Division of Continuing Education at the University of Oklahoma where he instructed citizens of the new Russian Federation on privatization and the transition to a market economy. He obtained his doctorate in geography from the University of Oklahoma in 1998.