"[President James] Madison is not just the father of the Constitution, he's also the forgotten father of American environmentalism. He tried to rally Americans to stop destroying the forest and the soil. He said for America to survive, Americans had to protect their environment. He did not romanticize nature as later generations did. He looked at this in a practical way, saying nature was a fragile ecological system, and if man wanted to live off nature, in the long term something had to change."
- Andrea Wulf, Author, quoted in Smithsonian Magazine, August 2011
JMU Strategic Priority #1 - Being the Change at Work and in the World
"We will be an innovative engine powering student lifelong learning and providing the skill sets and solutions that education, business, government and other constituents have come to expect from JMU as we are truly being the change."
