UC biology prof traces his roots to the first Earth Day

Professor George Uetz is known at the University of Cincinnati for his expertise in spiders, animal behavior and ecology; he's less known for being on the forefront of the very first Earth Day: April 22, 1970

George Uetz is passionate about spiders and the environment. Click here for more information.

George Uetz is passionate about spiders and the environment.

George Uetz, professor of biological sciences in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, was a Master's student in the Department of Entomology and Applied Ecology at the University of Delaware in Newark. That wasn’t his only passion.

“I was a student activist in the anti-war movement as well as the environmental movement of the time,” Uetz admits.

In the late 1960s, public protests were commonplace especially over the Vietnam War. Public protests were also being launched as the result of a coalition of environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Defense Fund, on both coasts, Uetz explains.

“I got involved with one of the leading East Coast groups — Environmental Action, based in Washington, D.C., — and was recruited to organize students because I was an officer of the grad student association at the University of Delaware,” he says. “We started planning "teach-ins" and large rallies in cities all over the East in the fall and winter of 1969–1970.”