Board of Trustees highlights: Dawn Chávez and Donna Vorhees

In 2024-2025, the foundation welcomed two new members to the Switzer Foundation Board of Trustees. Switzer Fellows Dawn Chávez and Donna Vorhees shared some reflections on what motivated them to join the board, and we’re delighted to share their responses with you.

Dawn Chávez

What motivated you to become a Switzer Foundation trustee?

When I became a Switzer Fellow in 2003, I felt so proud to be part of this amazing community of scholars. At the time, I was pursuing a doctoral degree in Environmental Studies at Antioch University in New Hampshire while working full-time as a director at an environmental education center for youth from New York City, where I grew up. To have a prestigious fellowship recognize the importance of the research I planned to conduct – understanding the sense of place of immigrant adolescents – represented a big boost to my confidence and felt like it legitimized community-based narrative research.

Over the past twenty years since then, my career has evolved and gone in a different direction from scholarship, academia and research. While I chose to not complete my doctoral dissertation, I have come back to the Switzer Network time and again to make connections, learn from others and broaden my understanding of the environmental field.

Being part of, and giving back to, the vast, diverse community of people in the Switzer Network is what motivates me to be a Switzer Foundation trustee. I want to play a part in ensuring that the Switzer Foundation is able to carry out its mission and support new generations of scholars.

What inspires you about the Switzer Network?

What inspires me about the Switzer Network is the passion that Switzer Fellows and staff have for the work they do and the compassion they show towards others, within their research, their respective communities and the individuals who are part of this network. Whether I’m reviewing fellowship applications, learning about Leadership Grant recipients, participating in a Switzer event or reading through posts on our listserv, I’m intrigued and inspired by those in the Switzer Network.

I am also inspired by the staff team of the Switzer Foundation, past and present. It is no easy feat to connect people from across generations, geographies, backgrounds and experiences, yet the staff of the Switzer Foundation do an amazing job of helping us to connect with each other and new opportunities. I appreciate the affinity groups and the varied program offerings. I’m inspired by how a small staff can carry so much and do it with integrity and intentionality.

What unique perspectives or experiences will you contribute to the Switzer Foundation board?

I bring a unique perspective to the Switzer Foundation board as a woman of color, daughter of an immigrant and person who grew up in the Bronx in New York City. My experiences as a so-called “minority” navigating White-dominated spaces in environmental conservation and education fields in academia and professional life have shaped my worldview and the career paths I have pursued. I’m an advocate for individuals and communities whose voices and perspectives have been left out of, or rolled over by, mainstream environmental movements. From running an environmental education center in the forests of Massachusetts to directing urban ecology education programs in major cities to leading nonprofit organizations for the past 25 years, I draw upon a solid foundation in understanding what it takes to lead in many different contexts to my service on the Switzer Foundation board. I hope to support the foundation during my service on the board as it navigates the unprecedented challenges facing it and so many individuals in our networks.

Donna Vorhees

What motivated you to become a Switzer Foundation trustee?

No doubt what every other Trustee says — I want to give back to an organization that was so instrumental in helping me to achieve my educational goals. Current Fellows and applicants alike inspire me to do better with my own environmental health work. 

What inspires you about the Switzer Network? 

So much inspires me, so let me share just two examples.

The Switzer Foundation is in it for the long haul. The Foundation could spend down its endowment on one or two critical environmental problems of the day. While doing so could be tremendously beneficial, new environmental problems will invariably arise over time. The Foundation’s support of a multitude of Fellows ensures that we will continue to develop strong leaders who are ready to tackle not only current challenges, but those that are emerging or not yet recognized. 

Robert Switzer inspires me. He and his brother created glow in the dark paints and turned their discovery into the Day-Glo® Color Corporation. Mr. Switzer could have sat back and enjoyed the fruits of his labor without caring about the business’s effect on the environment. But he did care. And he was frustrated by the lack of professionals who could advise him about how he could successfully run his business and simultaneously protect the environment. Instead of ignoring the environmental issues or complaining that “someone should do something,” he did something. The result is the Switzer Foundation and the now hundreds of Switzer Fellows (with many more to come!) who are the professionals he looked for so long ago. 

What unique perspectives or experiences will you contribute to the Switzer Foundation board?

I grew up in a steel mill town in West Virginia, and I hated the 1960s-era belching smoke stacks that contaminated our air. I understood that the mill brought the economic prosperity that put a roof over our head and allowed me to go to college. The steel mill is nearly gone now, and with l. These experiences make me someone who wants to work toward protecting our environment without harming anyone’s opportunity for the economic security they need to pursue their dreams. I believe that healthy environments are essential precursors to stable and healthy economies and that we should strive every day to create both.