channeling student power for campus sustainability matt harmin university of kentucky
TRANSCRIPT
At
-Sustainability Advisory Committee
-Student Green Fee
-Wildcat Wheels
-Recycling
-Sustainable Agriculture CSA
-Kentucky Proud food
-Bluegrass Partnership for a Green City
-Eco-Rep Program
-Centralized HVAC Management
-STARS Pilot
-Earthdays in the Bluegrass
We shall overcome…
Lack of long term strategic sustainability planning
No communication focal point for people who would be partners
Lack of performance indicators and measures Environment, social justice not prominent on
an institutional level, in the social atmosphere No written statement of values, goals
Is Sustainability…
Buzzword? Purely environmental? Fiscally irresponsible? Idealistic?
Is sustainability an outcome?
Sustainability is…
A process• Participatory, inclusive, transparent, socially engaging
• Continual reassessment of assumptions about what sustainability is
An organizing principle• Meta-knowledge
• Guiding motivation for inter-disciplinary initiatives
• Institutional change has great efficacy, giving campus sustainability its irradiative effect
The Paradoxes of Climate Work
Can I legitimately do climate change work when I (insert anything)?
Coal fired campus at UK and the PCC
• Generating opportunities for local offsets
• How does coal fit into the sustainability picture?
Timeline of student involvement
graph from Aaron Kreider, ACTivist Magazine
-Mid-terms, finals, and homework slow down campaigning
-More action in seasons of good weather
-Momentum
-There are optimal times for student involvement
“This is no longer a fringe topic. It’s no longer a niche topic. This is now a mainstream topic that is being driven across the broad economy. Second, the technology and the service solutions are real. Some may take time to put into place, like coal gasification, sequestration, or hybrid technologies, but they are technologies that can be commercialized over the next 5 or 10 years. Finally, this interest has accelerated — sometimes driven by public policy — things like renewable performance standards. But a lot is driven by businesses that finally said, ‘Let’s get ahead of this theme. Let’s get ahead of the trend. Let’s invest before we have to because we see it coming.”
Jeffrey Immelt – chief executive of General Electric
eJournal USA
Activists and Citizens
I want the skills, tactics, goals, and issue expertise usually attributed to activists to become connotations of the word citizen
Sustainability as the logical outcome (or organizing principle) of a well functioning democracy
Robinson Forest case study in Ecosystem Management and Institutional (in)Consistency
Ecosystem Management Stakeholder driven system of accommodation and synergistic outcome generation
Taught in NRC 301, not practiced by Robinson Forest steering committee
Knowledge Capabilities
What do I know? Issues are global, or
large scale in context Sustainability as
something you talk about
What can I do?
Issues are dealt with locally, regionally
Sustainability as something you do, a process you are involved in
Think Globally Act Locally
For Students
Think about the words activist, citizen, and how to be efficacious
Bring student government resources to bear on campus culture, administration
Find connections with existing student groups Allow goals for academic pursuits, professional
development, and social change to converge as much as possible
Student Government
Plan a coup Kentuckians for the Commonwealth -
Voter Guides bring transparency to elections for student government
Coalitions of under represented student groups
CU Boulder student government signed onto the PCC
For Administration, Staff, Faculty
Encourage the rowdiest, most progressive and forward thinking students on your campus to get visionary
Empower students to communicate ideas to staff, administrators
Know the timeline of student involvement Encourage the confluence of scholarly and
professional pursuits, with the campus as the lab for applied learning
Learning Outcomes
Participation in process of institutional change
Project management Collaboration and team building Emboldening commitment Creating opportunities, creating the
potential for change toward sustainability
Becoming a Sustainability Professional in some capacity
How do I do it?• Socially transformative enterprises often have
to be created
• The process of finding opportunities to improve performance, planning and carrying out sustainability programs trains the student’s creativity and capacity for action