Center for Environment & Society
Student Initiatives
In 2001 Rob Savidge '01 wrote a student thesis titled, "Campus Ecology: Creating a Green Campus—A Local Effort to Solve a Global Crisis." His thesis preserves much of the earlier environmental history of Washington College. To document early student initiatives, an excerpt from this thesis follows:
The roots of WC's green campus initiative goes back to the spring of 2000, and an outdoor/environmental club named Terra Firma. It was at this time, when the current president of Terra Firma was graduating, and a new leadership was elected to serve. This new executive board started off with a few simple tasks since the scholastic year was almost at an end. They decided to organize an environmental service project, create campus ash trays from recycled tin cans from the dining hall, and spread Earth Day awareness via posters with eco-facts. The new Terra Firma officers started to notice areas of environmental concern at WC. Students were starting to question the current pesticide use on campus, the current state of recycling, and the need for central environmental organization to coordinate environmental efforts on campus. As the three musketeers said, "united we stand, divided we fall."
Terra Firma's president came up with the idea of transforming Terra Firma into such an organization.
Come Fall 2001, the beginning of a new school-year, Terra Firma's officers created the Student Environmental Alliance (SEA), thereby assuming Terra Firma's officers and evolving Terra Firma into SEA.
One of the first things SEA did, is create a list of campus environmental concerns that its members had. These were numerous, and SEA's president decided that the best way to address these issues, was to have the school accept some sort of environmental pledge or school-wide policy; because once this pledge was agreed upon, SEA could then start to work on the areas of concern, in order to fulfill and be true to the pledge. Now SEA had finally seen the bigger picture; the key to their success; the key to improving all these environmental areas of concern—turn WC into a green campus, where the values of such would imply that these environmental concerns will be addressed.
SEA started with getting the SGA to accept the addition of a Green Campus article to their platform. The motive behind SEA's actions, was to get the SGA—the representative/voice of the student body—thinking about the environment. SEA's Green Campus platform article reads:
Mindful of Washington College's location within one of the world's most complex and significant ecosystem, the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the WCSGA wishes to promote environmental awareness within the WAC community. To that end, the WCSGA urges the college to (1) adopt a "green campus" approach in all its activities, including promoting environmental awareness and expand its recycling program, (2) strengthen strategic partnerships with regional governments and community members on environmental issues such as economic development and historic preservation, and (3) take a leadership role in environmental issues affecting the Chesapeake Bay and the surrounding region.
After a year of working on greening Washington College, and after reviewing this paper, SEA realizes that this platform will need to be tweaked to better address campus ecology and the green campus initiative at WC, especially if SEA plans on using this as a template for the school-wide environmental policy.
With the addition of the Green Campus article to the platform, a corresponding Green Campus Committee (GCC) had to be set up with the goal of fulfilling this platform article. The GCC worked in tandem with SEA; in fact, two of SEA's officers sat on the GCC, and SEA's president was the chair. SEA and the GCC also worked with the Center for Environment and Society.
SEA and the GCC managed to accomplish quite a bit during their first year. Both organizations did a lot of research in regards to campus ecology, which has culminated into this report. I am just going to highlight a few of the most important accomplishments. EarthMonth was the largest success of SEA/GCC. EarthMonth (see Appendix I) occurred during the month of April, because that is the month of Earth Day. Since it was SEA's first year of existence, they thought it would be best to have an entire month of events, with the purpose of raising the campus community's environmental awareness, getting SEA's and other organization's names out there, and letting people know about SEA/GCC's green campus initiative. SEA compiled a calendar of all environmental events on campus for that month no matter if they were sponsored or organized by SEA, the GCC, the WC green party, the McLain program, or the Center for the Environment and Society.
There were a multitude of events: three different environmental lecture series, a waste audit, a No Car Day, a Green Party/SEA film series, a SAV workshop, and Earthday dinner, and Earth Day celebrations and information tables.
SEA worked with one of its advisors, to send a letter to president Toll—the president of Washington College—urging him to review the Talloires Declaration. At the same time, the GCC put a resolution before the student senate, asking for the SGA to symbolically co-sign the Talloires Declaration as a sign of the student body's support. This resolution passed unanimously. SEA later received a letter from President Toll, saying that he would not sign the Talloires Declaration, because it is too precedent setting for the school; however, he does not personally object to the actions included in the declaration, and "...would be pleased to encourage a process that would bring students, faculty, and staff together to plan ways in which we can improve our role as stewards on our 100+ acre part of the world."
He went further to say that if SEA would like to work toward this goal, he would be pleased to meet with them to discuss how they "...might go about setting a process in motion." SEA and the GCC decided to abandon the Talloires Declaration for the moment, because they to agree with Toll in that it is precedent setting; however, similar schools—such as Dickinson, Bryn Mawr, and Middlebury—all have their own environmental pledge, school wide environmental policy, or a green plan that has been accepted by the school. Accepting a campus-wide policy would therefore not be so precedent setting, or unusual.
Following up on the letter, SEA/GCC met with President Toll personally, to go over things that were mentioned in the letter, and to give him some of their research. President Toll supports the SEA and GCC's campus ecology initiative, but wants to hear from some of the environmentally-related professors on campus: such as the Director of the Center for the Environment and Society. SEA got the impression that President Toll wants more information on the initiative, and hopefully this report will fulfill that request. Even though President Toll decided not to sign the Talloires Declaration, the GCC still takes the resolution the SGA co-signed—as a representation of the student support behind the Talloires Declaration's principles and ideals.
Student and faculty support increased when the Elm, Washington College's student newspaper, wrote an article on our Green Campus Initiative. Whaland Clark—the Grounds Supervisor who is in charge of the recycling program, and who works under the Buildings and Grounds Department—became interested and talked with SEA at a meeting of theirs. Whaland Clark supports our initiative as well, and would like SEA to help him improve the recycling program. He is a great contact/ally for SEA to have in Buildings & Grounds Department. That department would logically be involved with many of the environmental improvements that would be proposed under a green campus.
Whaland Clark also helped out SEA and GCC when a few of its members decided to perform a waste audit—Andrew Miller was the initiator for the waste audit (see Appendix III for data). Waste baskets were collected from all over campus, to determine how much waste the campus generates, or throws out, in certain areas. In total, 248 pounds of trash was collected and used in the audit. Not surprising for a school, paper was the number one item wasted at Washington College. Currently, there is no paper recycling in the dorms and most other areas of the campus. The most shocking result from the audit, is that 89.2% of the waste that Washington College throws out, by weight, could be recycled or entered back into the natural cycle of life—Bryn Mawr comes to mind, because their Green Plan Committee was working on getting a composting system set up for all the organic material that is thrown out.
89.2%, basically 90%, is a large percentage of waste, and is an enormous amount of unnecessary waste. This audit will help SEA and Whaland Clark to plan efficient waste and recycling collection. As Whaland Clark himself said, waste is an expensive aspect of the Washington College campus, and if we could make it more environmentally friendly, the school will save money. Some schools have even designed a recycling program that makes them some money. These schools set up their own in-house recycling processing facility, and then sell the material to companies who want the material.
SEA has also been working with Rails to Trails. An old railroad line runs through the middle of the campus, and a group of community members from the college and town, are interested in turning it into a trail, or building a trail adjacent to it. This would be beneficial to the school and the surrounding community. Students would be able to exercise and relax on the trail, athletes would have a direct and safe route to the boathouse, the town would have a place to exercise and spend time outdoors. SEA has been researching this possibility by getting involved with the local community effort, and by inviting a guest speaker from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) who has been involved with rail-trails in other parts of the state.
Several semesters later, an offshoot of the Student Environmental Alliance (SEA) met and attempted to address some of the exact issues that the previous students had done in the past. The Green Campus Task Force was revived by a special topic course entitled "Green Chemistry" which discussed global sustainability issues. Questions concerning campus sustainability were revisited, and hope instilled again.
SEA decided that a permanent position, under the auspices of the Center for Environment and Society, should be established to address sustainability issues on campus. The students distributed information to interested members of the campus community and presented the situation to President Baird Tipson to advocate for institutional change. Dr. Julie Zimmerman from the EPA, under the McLain Lecture Series Program, spoke on "Campus Sustainability: Our Campus, Our Environment."
Having spoken on campuses across the nation, Dr. Zimmerman was well acquainted with collegiate reservations about adopting green practices and was also well prepped on the current situation at Washington College. She explained what programs, projects, and practices other colleges were doing to go "green," with particular attention paid to the money that could be saved with such ventures. Her subsequent dialogue with students and President Tipson resulted in a general concurrence that Dining Services must be revisited with ecological impacts in mind. Moreover, the exchange of ideas provided increased incentive for the creation of a Sustainability Intern to provide a back door solution to the problem of student transience.
Watch a Sustainability Feature produced and narrated by CES intern Maureen Sentman.
Watch video featuring CES intern Melody Warner at the Chino Farms Bird Banding Station.
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