Last weekend I had the great experience of attending a
Midwest Conference dealing with sustainability Samara, Kaitlyn, and I began
our adventure to Iowa bright and early Friday morning!
We made it to the lovely
college campus that was hosting the event, Luther College, right around
lunchtime. Kaitlyn and I were able to register, grab some food, and poke around
the campus a bit before the opening presentation. Even from walking around the
campus, we could really see their environmental commitment. They had quite a
few solar panels on one side of campus, a wind turbine on another side, a large
garden, local food in their commons areas, a large greenhouse, and all these
integrated into an overall beautiful campus.
Then the
conference actually began! The opening speaker was John Farrell, the son of the
author of The Nature of College James
Farrell. One quote that stood out to me that he mentioned was, “If God wanted
us to live sustainably, she’d have given us brains!”. I loved that! The rest of
the day was filled with speakers from various colleges that held sustainability
programs. One was on how to get a program started and how to keep one running.
Another one, that I found to be exceedingly interesting, was about Eco Houses
on a few different campuses. As they were speaking about the houses, I could
just imagine one at Ripon. Maybe one day!
Following
this there was a poster session where each school could present what they were
working on. It was awesome to walk around and talk to students who are working
on astonishing projects! Some of the students were working on programs similar
to the EcoRep program we have started here. I found it helpful to sit down with
some of these students and see what they did when they began there programs,
what seemed to be successful and what failed and, most importantly, why.
As a side
note, for dinner the first night, after the poster session, and lunch the
second day we were served absolutely delicious mostly vegan food! It was almost
entirely from local sources too. Needlessly to say, I went back for seconds!
After
dinner Friday we heard another speaker, Chad Pregracke. He started his talk
with some facts, but it was mostly a narrative conversation about his life
experiences. He was a college-aged kid who noticed something wrong and set out
to fix it. Chad grew up right along the Mississippi and one day noticed the
overwhelming amount of trash built up in certain areas. It blew his mind that
this could be happening to a river so important to our country. He faced
obstacle after obstacle, but managed to get a clean up initiative started and
continues today on rivers all over the country. His story was
remarkable and
inspirational. The fact that he was able to grow from just him doing this
project he believed in so strongly to the operation he has today is
extraordinary. Not only this, but he managed to come through it all with a
great sense of humor. He made a great point of saying that you have to be able
to laugh, not get burned out, not take anything too seriously, and even try to
have fun with your mission. He is actually offering a free service opportunity
as an alternative spring break cleaning up the Mississippi! Granted, anyone
wanting to go will be expected to pay for travel price and lodging. It is being
hosted in Memphis, TN. For more information on Chad, his organization, or the
spring break opportunity, check out
www.livinglandsandwaters.org/ .
The second
day was filled with more impressive speakers, information on sustainability on
campuses, and delectable food. Our main speaker we listened to after lunch said
something that stood out to me. With all the information we receive on issues
of the environment, it can seem overwhelming to try and fix it all. The
speaker, Jacqueline Johnson (president of University of Minnesota - Morris), told us to “decide which hill you’re willing to
die on”. We must each pick what we feel is the most important fight and see
that through. It does not good to try and do everything and get nothing done. I
thought that was a really insightful comment.
This past
EcoRep meeting I decided to ask a question that had been posed to me at the
conference. The question of: What is it we are trying to sustain? I thought it
was a great question. At the conference we were put in groups to mull this
over. We eventually got to the point, as did the EcoReps, that it ultimately
comes down to not just sustaining anything as it is now, but actually improving
it. The EcoReps listed things that they would like to see changed on campus
(less energy consumption, less waste, etc.), but this is not sustaining the
culture of the campus as it is now. Instead this is implying we want to change
the campus. We want it to improve and not just sustain, but grow to be better
than it is now!
That’s All
Folk!
Kristen
