A Shared Dream: Dr. René Dubos and the Millennium Campus Network

Ten minutes from my home, in the north yard cemetery of St. Philips Church in the Highlands, in the hamlet of Garrison, NY, resides the burial site of Dr. René Dubos. His name may not be familiar to you, but his philosophy surely is. You have heard it expressed as “Think Globally, Act Locally” – a phrase passed casually around for so many decades it even appears on the wrapper of toilet tissue made from recycled paper. It is in fact a misquote. Here is the correct version: “Think Globally, but Act Locally” (emphasis added). The conjunction “but” is all-important – to his intent, and to the work of the Millennium Campus Network.

Photo of Dr John Cronin

Dubos’ admonition originated as the title of Chapter III of his book Celebrations of Life. One of the most sought-after campus environmental lecturers of the late 1960s and 1970s, he recounts in the chapter that students and faculty were “surprised and somewhat annoyed” when he cautioned that thinking globally may be “a useful and exciting intellectual activity,” but “no substitute” for solving the environmental and social problems that beset their campuses and local communities. He feared their preoccupation with global affairs beyond their reach had become an excuse to ignore the “disorder” surrounding them.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and celebrated microbiologist at Rockefeller University, Dubos is a hero of mine. I like to think of him at his microscope studying the most local of living worlds, and the global impact of the critical antibiotics that resulted. He was very much on my mind as I worked with the 19 students from 16 nations that formed our Right-to-Know H2O team of Millennium Fellows from Pace University in New York and HAMK University in Finland. They gathered weekly via Zoom to share experiences and information regarding the threats to drinking water in their home countries. At times they were chagrined about the seeming impossibility of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 by 2030. But their individual testimonies soon transformed into a common strategy -- petitioning the United Nations to recognize right-to-know water quality as a fundamental human right. It was local action driving global change, Dubos’ dream.

Photo of Dr John with Pace University Millennium Fellows

Later in that chapter from Celebrations of Life, Dubos presciently wrote, "It is only when people from all parts of the world have the opportunity to listen to each other's problems that they realize . . . how crowded we are on our small planet, how limited are our resources." Though writing in 1981, he could have been referring to the Millennium Campus Network in 2026. If the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved, it will be because the world has followed MCN’s example of local action driving global communication, collaboration, and change. Were Dr. René Dubos alive today, I know he would be knocking on MCN’s door. 

(Dr. Rene Dubos is the author of more than twenty books. Sadly, most, like Celebrations of Life, are out-of-print, though readily available through second-hand dealers. To learn more about his life, I recommend René Dubos, Friend of the Good Earth: Microbiologist, Medical Scientist, Environmentalist by Carol L.   Moberg)

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Article written by: Dr John Cronin, Pace University