John Wear, Ph.D.

• Ph.D., Wake Forest University

Interests: Aquatic ecology, water quality, sustainable living

Associate Professor Dr. John Wear was the founding director of the Center for the Environment at Catawba College, one of the premier environmental centers in the nation. Leading the Center for the Environment for a generation, he helped grown the Center it into a national resource addressing the central issues of our day. In 2022 after almost 26 years of leadership, Wear stepped down as Director, assuming the role of Director Emeritus. 

Under Wear’s leadership, the Center for the Environment gave Catawba College a unique voice at the national level. Over the years, Catawba students have benefitted in many ways from their association with the Center under Wear’s guidance. A strong advocate of giving students opportunities to learn outside  the classroom, Wear has engaged students in all aspects of the Center’s work.  He is known for giving them opportunities to develop valuable skills in collaboration, communication and leadership.  

When Wear came to Catawba in 1993, he immediately became deeply involved in all manner of local, regional, and statewide initiatives and looked at ways to engage his students in hands-on learning.

Other sizable initiatives of the Center were responses to the needs and shifts in thinking at the time and encompassed many areas including sustainable development, watershed and river protection, land conservation efforts, green building, air quality improvement, faith and environmental stewardship outreach, community solar education, youth education, school outreach and more.

Throughout his tenure as director, Wear engaged in a very broad range of initiatives, including serving on the executive committee of one of the first regional planning efforts to focus on development and environment in this region; working with county leaders to create and ultimately co-chair the state’s first county-endorsed Sustainable Community Development Commission; providing oversight of one of the first green academic buildings in the Southeast; creating a grassroots greenway committee in  partnership with the City of Salisbury that initiated its greenway.

Also, taking a leadership role in the creation of an annual statewide watershed conference and coalition during a time when few riverkeeper organizations had yet been established; providing oversight for the Center’s Campaign for Clean Air; providing thought leadership and serving on the National Advisory Board for the creation of the America's first national TV series advocating sustainable living, “Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska”; providing leadership in the creation and oversight for the Center’s National Summit for High School Students as well as oversight for its NC Green Schools program.

“Of most importance to me personally has been the privilege of working closely with hundreds of young people who care deeply about the environment, who are willing to do what it takes to protect the earth and its resources and who will be active participants in re-designing our future.”