UC San Diego is hosting a symposium Monday dedicated to John Muir. The school named its second college after Muir in 1967.
Muir, who died in 1914, was an early advocate for protecting national parks in the United States.
A presentation at UCSD will focus on Muir's relevance in the modern world.
"His picture and his name are on the commemorative quarter the U.S. Mint coined for the state of California standing there before Yosemite," said Donald Worster, a historian who has closely studied Muir's legacy. "Why do we revere him so much? Why is his name so widely attached to the landscape?"
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Worster will attempt to answer some of those questions during a discussion dubbed "On John Muir's Trail."
"Are we in better shape in terms of nature conservation than we were then?" Worster asked. "In some ways he would probably say we are. We’re still preserving land, we’re still preserving oceans for that matter. And this movement of nature conservation has spread all over the planet.”
Worster's talk is scheduled for 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Monday at UC San Diego.
