Peter Bardaglio

founder and coordinator of the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative, executive director of the Ithaca 2030 District

Peter Bardaglio is the founder and coordinator of the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative (TCCPI), which was launched in 2008, and executive director of the Ithaca 2030 District, one of 26 such districts in the U.S. and Canada. The Ithaca 2030 District, established in 2016, is TCCPI’s flagship program. The 2030 District focuses on improving the water and energy performance of commercial buildings in Ithaca. TCCPI’s other activities include advocacy regarding state climate and energy policies and monthly meetings that feature local and state experts on climate change and the energy transition. 

Prior to his work on climate change, clean energy, and sustainability, Bardaglio served as a history professor, academic dean, and provost for 24 years altogether at Goucher College and Ithaca College. His book Reconstructing the Household: Families, Sex, and the Law in the Nineteenth-Century South received the James Rawley Prize in 1996 from the Organization of American Historians for the best book on the history of U.S. race relations. Besides his scholarly writings on race and gender in U.S. history, he is co-author of Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change (2009), and he has published numerous articles on climate change and sustainability. 

Bardaglio has been a resident of Trumansburg, NY since 2002, when he and his wife Wrexie first moved here upon his appointment as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Ithaca College. He currently serves on the boards of New Roots Charter School, the Groundswell Center for Local Food and Farming, and EcoVillage at Ithaca, Inc., and is trustee emeritus at the Paleontological Research Institution/Museum of the Earth. He received his bachelor’s degree in history and English from Brown University, and his master’s degree and doctorate in history from Stanford University.