Making Colorado College Sustainable:
Confronting the Loss of
Global Biological and Cultural Diversity in a Local Context
Micah Lang
Worner
Box # 682
(719) 447-8758
“I agree to abide by
the rules of the Slade/Strand Fund Essay Contest.”
Making
Colorado College
Sustainable:
Confronting the Loss of Global Biological and
Cultural Diversity in a Local Context
In the past 20
years the term "sustainable development" has become a permanent
fixture in western culture, representing society’s recognition of the
environmental and social ills that currently threaten the Earth. Sustainable development has been defined with
respect to businesses, cities, states, and even countries. What though, is a sustainable University?
More specifically, what does sustainability mean for Colorado
College? A sustainable or green initiative at Colorado
College needs to address global
issues, specifically the western cultural paradigm that is leading to the
disappearance of cultures and destruction of the environment, while also
putting Colorado College
in a local perspective, by creating stewardship and pride in the unique
environment and cultural heritage of Colorado.
Gazing down at Colorado
Springs from Gold Camp Road
on the eastern flank of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
College is barely discernable in the midst of a malignant human explosion on
the fragile, high plains-montane ecotone,
a scene typical up and down Colorado’s
Front Range and throughout the United
States.
Despite its cookie-cutter homes, stripmall
boulevards, and 26 Domino Pizza joints, Colorado Springs
is not the same as Los Angeles, Atlanta,
or even its Southwestern neighbor Albuquerque. If Colorado
College is going to be a green
campus, a truly sustainable institution, then a local perspective must be
incorporated into all aspects of college business, academics, and life.
Just as it is
essential for the Colorado College community to have a sense of stewardship for
the local environment, it is also imperative to understand how the goals, function,
and purpose of the college fit into the larger scheme of life on planet
Earth. Currently, on a global scale, in
all regions of the “developed” world and incipient in even its most remote
reaches, environmental and cultural crises threaten the viability of the Earth.
The current environmental and cultural crises are not discrete, but intimately
related and inextricably linked calamities, perpetuated by reinforcing
feedback. Vandana Shiva, one of the most well
respected defenders of subsistence based, non-western cultures, warns that,
“[t]he prefix ‘scientific’ for the modern systems and ‘unscientific’ for the
traditional knowledge systems has… less to do with knowledge and more to do
with power.” Looking at the treatment of traditional
cultures throughout the world and the homogenizing effect of western culture,
it becomes obvious that the dominant scientific and capitalist based culture
breeds a “monoculture of the mind” by
eliminating local alternatives to the western worldview and by destroying the
conditions for those alternatives to exist.
Acquiescence
towards the environmental and the cultural crises abounds throughout the
world’s institutions of higher learning.
This attitude of complacency is driven by the inability of universities
and colleges to operate outside of the western paradigmatic culture. This very same provincial worldview is
perpetuating the current environmental and cultural crises, systematically
enervating the biological and cultural diversity of the world. Colorado
College is one institution among
many that is perpetuating this biological and cultural extinction vortex. There is an urgent need for change.
Certainly, few
students leave Colorado College believing that each subject is a discrete,
separate entity, but overall, both in the classroom and in the day-to-day life
of students, staff, and faculty, there is an absence of connectivity among
aspects of life within the college bubble, and between Colorado College and two
of the world's most pressing problems: environmental and cultural
degradation. This is not to state that
these issues are not discussed, but rather when they are discussed, they are
treated as abstract, philosophical issues rather than transcendent and imminent
realities. What should be the mission of
Colorado College,
a traditional liberal arts and sciences institution? Instead of solely reinforcing the destructive
traditions of western culture it seems that Colorado
College should strive to prepare
students to combat, head-on, the worlds most pressing problems.
In order to
propose an effective solution, it is necessary to first understand the
shortcomings of what currently exists and those aspects of Colorado College
that are contributing to the problem of complacency and inaction. Next, using a common framework for
instituting environmental change in universities and colleges (as summarized
and documented by Sarah Creighton in Greening the Ivory Tower), and
drawing on the philosophy of environmental and cultural academic reform within
institutions of higher learning, by scholars such as C. A. Bowers (author of The
Culture of Denial and Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological
Crisis), the goals of attaining environmental and cultural sustainability
at all levels of college life at Colorado College can become a reality.
At the level of
administration, there is currently no commitment to environmental or cultural
sustainability. Only after intensive
lobbying by the student group Environmental Action (EnAct)
and a concession that a tuition increase would pay for the extra cost, did the
administration agree to exclusively purchase recycled copy and computer paper
for the college. New on-campus
apartments were built as cheaply as possible, without using green building
materials or practices. The new science
building currently under construction will include minimal environmentally
friendly features, which would have been absent if not for persistent lobbying
by faculty and students. All janitorial
and food services are currently contracted-out to Sodexho,
a multinational corporation known for its poor treatment of employees and the
for-profit prisons that it operates in Europe.
After intensive lobbying by the student group Colorado College Fair
Labor (CCFL), the administration has agreed to review the college’s
subcontracting process, and has formed a committee to examine the college’s
policies regarding worker rights and treatment.
With input and
participation from campus student groups, faculty, and facilities services
staff and using any of a number of small liberal arts colleges that
successfully made meaningful environmental and cultural reforms as a model
(e.g. Bates College, Oberlin College, Connecticut College, among others), the
Colorado College administration needs to create an environmental sustainability
committee, in conjunction with the committee currently examining the college’s
labor policies, to brainstorm ways that the college can become more
environmentally and culturally sustainable.
This will ultimately result in the creation of an environmental policy
statement that will guide all aspects of life at Colorado
College. Currently, nearly 300 colleges and
universities in over 40 nations have signed the Talloires
Declaration, a statement of 10 environmental principles that support environmental
education and stewardship specific to institutions of higher learning. In a show of environmental leadership in the Colorado
Springs community, Colorado
College should make a commitment to
becoming the second institution in the state of Colorado
to sign the Talloires Declaration, as an initial step
towards achieving sustainability.
Falling under the
broad category of administration, but existing separately because of its high
degree of autonomy, Facility Services (heating plant) and Grounds have perhaps
the largest direct environmental impact at Colorado
College. Because the facility services staff is
intimately familiar with important issues such as energy use, water use, and
maintenance of all campus buildings, they should be actively consulted when
preparing to make changes in college policies in those areas. Outside consultants and or, a full-time
environmental specialist should be hired to oversee that facility services and
grounds are managed in an energy efficient and environmentally sound
manner. In colleges throughout the United
States, committed facility services staff
members, with the support of students and administration, have made
immeasurable contributions to environmental and social change on campus. Many of the complaints about energy
inefficiency and wastefulness come from concerned students living in
dormitories. Bates College has created
an aggressive and successful, student run program of daily monitoring for all
college residencies in order to identify and promptly fix inefficient heating,
leaky plumbing, and other environmentally harmful problems. Colorado
College would greatly benefit from
a similar student run system to report and fix energy-wasting problems in both
on-campus residencies and in academic buildings.
The academic
component of change must begin with a unified commitment across all departments
to integrate ethics into their courses and to discuss the connections that all
subject areas have with the current cultural and environmental crises. Currently, Colorado
College is composed of
approximately 30 discrete departments.
There are no all-college environmental studies requirements. There is, however, an all college requirement
that students take "two units of credit in courses that examine cultures
outside the mainstream of Western culture." The college should make it a priority to hire
more cross-disciplinary professors.
Coupled with a broad expansion of the environmental studies program
(there is currently only one full-time environmental science professor) all
students should be required to take at least one environmental studies course,
which focuses on systems thinking and cross-disciplinary interconnectedness
among traditional western culture and current environmental issues. In order to expand the coverage of
environmental and cultural issues in all departments, the college could hold
summer workshops, resulting in curriculum change across a wide range of
courses. In conjunction with the creation of its environmental policy statement
in 1992, Tufts University
successfully held summer workshops to increase faculty environmental literacy,
greatly expanding the coverage of environmental issues in a variety of academic
departments.
Much effort in the
past two years at the administrative and academic levels has been focused on
First-year Experience (FYE) classes for incoming freshmen. In order to foster a sense of pride and
stewardship in the unique culture and spectacular natural environment that
surrounds Colorado College,
FYE classes should include a comprehensive introduction to the local natural
and cultural environments. Additionally,
through the expansion of programs such as the environmental science practicum
class (which currently gives senior environmental science majors the
opportunity to volunteer for environmental organizations in the community), the
college can become more involved in the local environment and the local
community.
While
administration, faculty, and staff are responsible for the day-to-day
functioning of the college, it is students who are its lifeblood, without whom
Colorado College would not exist.
Overall, the Colorado College
student body understands major environmental issues and counts the resplendent
natural beauty of Colorado as a
major reason why they chose the college.
Despite the apparently widespread appreciation of nature and semblance
of environmental concern, however, the student body often takes on an air of
apathy, spending its free time on the ski slopes or mountain biking instead of
promoting environmental and social change on the campus. Currently, there are numerous student-run
campus groups that are actively trying to affect environmental and social
change, but as is typical of diverse student bodies on other campuses, their
efforts are largely separate and divided.
In order to more effectively promote environmental and social change on
the Colorado College campus, student groups such as EnAct,
CCFL, RISE, and Amnesty International, in addition to the diverse ethnic
minority student organizations, should work together to create a common list of
objectives, utilizing each other’s ideas and numbers to form a powerful
coalition. The student government of Colorado
College, the Colorado College
Campus Association (CCCA), controls and allocates millions of dollars each year
for a variety of activities and events.
As a commitment to cultural and environmental sustainability, the CCCA
should create two new elected positions: a student environmental coordinator
and a student cultural coordinator.
These elected students would be responsible for ensuring that CCCA
conducts its business in an environmentally and culturally sustainable manner,
promoting environmental and cultural activism on the campus, and acting as
liaisons, encouraging student groups to become involved with local
environmental and social issues in Colorado Springs.
As with many other colleges, the Colorado
College student body is often
frustrated by the administration’s top-down hierarchical operation of the
college. If Colorado
College is to become a truly
environmentally and culturally sustainable institution, students, staff, and
administration must collectively foster a spirit of cooperation and
commitment. The open dialog that
recently commenced between EnAct and administration
concerning recycled paper and composting, and between CCFL and administration
concerning Sodexo’s treatment of employees is an
encouraging sign that meaningful change is possible.
Currently,
sustainability in the Colorado College
context exists only superficially, as it does in much of western culture, but
it does not have to be this way. Colorado
College needs to make a long-term
commitment to limiting its direct and indirect impact on the disappearance of
traditional cultures and curtail activities leading to environment degradation.
The college must think outside of its bubble, putting its purpose and function
in perspective with global trends and issues.
Colorado College
must play an active role in reversing global crises. A sustainable Colorado
College will reach-out to Colorado
Springs, a city in need of environmental leadership,
with a natural environment under siege from exploding suburban growth. Because Colorado
College is a small, tight-knit
community of progressive and innovative individuals from diverse backgrounds,
the seeds of meaningful change have already been planted. Throughout the nation and the world
universities and colleges of all sizes have begun taking the initial steps
towards achieving sustainability. It
should be the long-term goal of Colorado
College to first catch up with the
rest the world and then become a local and perhaps a global leader in
sustainable development.