Channeling Student Power for Campus Sustainability

Matt Harmin

University of Kentucky

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