Ben McCall/Sun Photo
DOUBLE WINNER: UMKC geography student Dustin Jensen, who has won the Morris Udall award twice for his work with affordable housing, thumbs through his atlas Thursday outside the Adminstration Building, 5115 Oak.
Join our Mailing List!
Please click the link below to sign up for your community paper mailing list. Stay up to date with all the events going on in your community as well as the latest news.Sign Up Today!
Students' energy goes to second scholarship
BY: Charles Redfield, Staff Writer
Dustin Jensen has received a Udall Scholarship not once, but twice.
The University of Missouri-Kansas City senior grabbed the $5,000 scholarship in 2005-06 and did it again in 2006-07. Congress created the scholarship in 1992 to honor Arizona Rep. Morris K. Udall. Scholarship requirements include environmental or related study, being a U.S. citizen and having at least a 3.0 grade-point average.
Jensen, 31, has a 3.9 GPA and will graduate in May with bachelor's degrees in geography, environmental studies and urban affairs. His focus is improving energy efficiency of existing housing.
Jensen is in charge of operations and special projects for the Metropolitan Energy Center, a nonprofit organization started in 1980.
“I have done a lot of workshops around Kansas City in partnership with H&R Block,” Jensen said. “I went to them and suggested that we work together to educate people about the home energy tax credits available through the Federal Energy Act of 2005.”
Jensen said he has been able to reach about 300 people to show them how energy is consumed, how to reduce energy consumption and how to use tax credits to offset costs.
Being in Germany as part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program from 1993 to 1994 sparked the Kansas City resident's interest in the environment. Jensen spent time in the former East Germany and around Frankfurt.
“I saw their rail system that reduced automobile traffic,” he said. “And I noticed their homes where their walls and windows were better sealed and insulated.”
In 1997, Jensen performed independent research with Roger Corless, an eastern religions expert at Duke University. Jensen also met Thomas Berry, an environmental philosopher from Virginia.
“He is a big figure in the environmental movement,” Jensen said. “I learned that we should have humility in the face of the history of the Earth.”
Jensen came back to Kansas City in 1998 and worked as a technician with a heating and air conditioning company for two years.
“I learned about the inefficiency of home use of energy,” he said. “It gave me an appreciation of mechanical technology.”
Jensen also attended the Business Technology College that is part of the Metropolitan Community Colleges.
“I wanted to learn more about heating and refrigeration,” he said. “I got an associate's degree in heating and refrigeration and another in stationary engineering.”
He received a scholarship from Henry Bloch, one of the H&R Block founders, for local student innovators and started attending classes at UMKC in 2004.
Gayle A. Levy, French professor and honors program director, called Jensen a “talented and amazing student.”
“He is smart, engaged and committed,” she said. “He wants to educate people as to the dangers of global warming, but he does it in an upbeat way. He inspires you to put into practice ways of living that will not impact adversely our environment.”
James Sheppard, philosophy professor and honors program associate director, said Jensen “combines a rare mix of obvious intellectual ability with an unmatched ability to care about and invest energy in the civic environment that he calls home. What Dustin highlights through his actions and words is a belief in the power of possibility.”
printable version
e-mail this story
The University of Missouri-Kansas City senior grabbed the $5,000 scholarship in 2005-06 and did it again in 2006-07. Congress created the scholarship in 1992 to honor Arizona Rep. Morris K. Udall. Scholarship requirements include environmental or related study, being a U.S. citizen and having at least a 3.0 grade-point average.
Jensen, 31, has a 3.9 GPA and will graduate in May with bachelor's degrees in geography, environmental studies and urban affairs. His focus is improving energy efficiency of existing housing.
Jensen is in charge of operations and special projects for the Metropolitan Energy Center, a nonprofit organization started in 1980.
“I have done a lot of workshops around Kansas City in partnership with H&R Block,” Jensen said. “I went to them and suggested that we work together to educate people about the home energy tax credits available through the Federal Energy Act of 2005.”
Jensen said he has been able to reach about 300 people to show them how energy is consumed, how to reduce energy consumption and how to use tax credits to offset costs.
Being in Germany as part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program from 1993 to 1994 sparked the Kansas City resident's interest in the environment. Jensen spent time in the former East Germany and around Frankfurt.
“I saw their rail system that reduced automobile traffic,” he said. “And I noticed their homes where their walls and windows were better sealed and insulated.”
In 1997, Jensen performed independent research with Roger Corless, an eastern religions expert at Duke University. Jensen also met Thomas Berry, an environmental philosopher from Virginia.
“He is a big figure in the environmental movement,” Jensen said. “I learned that we should have humility in the face of the history of the Earth.”
Jensen came back to Kansas City in 1998 and worked as a technician with a heating and air conditioning company for two years.
“I learned about the inefficiency of home use of energy,” he said. “It gave me an appreciation of mechanical technology.”
Jensen also attended the Business Technology College that is part of the Metropolitan Community Colleges.
“I wanted to learn more about heating and refrigeration,” he said. “I got an associate's degree in heating and refrigeration and another in stationary engineering.”
He received a scholarship from Henry Bloch, one of the H&R Block founders, for local student innovators and started attending classes at UMKC in 2004.
Gayle A. Levy, French professor and honors program director, called Jensen a “talented and amazing student.”
“He is smart, engaged and committed,” she said. “He wants to educate people as to the dangers of global warming, but he does it in an upbeat way. He inspires you to put into practice ways of living that will not impact adversely our environment.”
James Sheppard, philosophy professor and honors program associate director, said Jensen “combines a rare mix of obvious intellectual ability with an unmatched ability to care about and invest energy in the civic environment that he calls home. What Dustin highlights through his actions and words is a belief in the power of possibility.”