October 30, 2015 Post 9

Sustainability has always been a prominent staple of the colleges in my eyes since day one for me at St. John’s/St. Ben’s. Before coming to college I had hardly even heard the word, let alone had much education about it. I just thought of the basics like recycling and turning off the lights when hearing it; you know, the little things. Despite this lack of knowledge I was still determined enough to take environmental studies, and the combination of the intro class and simply being on this campus opened my eyes to a whole new set of ideas about how to live. College is certainly the best place to bring sustainability concepts to light because now, we as students are probably the most open-minded we will be in our lives. In my experience, though more work could always be done, the campuses have done a pretty good job at getting the word about sustainability out there.

            Within the first couple of weeks in my first year, I noticed a variety of sustainability pushes that occurred in everyday life here at school. The first being made known to me in the form of a sticker that labeled The Link, to be fueled by propane. Although I couldn’t help but think how much the buses emit that aren’t propane-fueled when they are running back and forth between campuses, it made an impression on me knowing that the school was trying to diminish this impact. Other times I noticed sustainability as a prominent theme were in the lunchroom and sustainability week. Clearly advertised around Gorecki were the impacts that waste of food has on the environment and I was promptly made conscious of my waste when it was collected during sustainability week. I also remember an ongoing challenge between the first-year’s dorm halls to see who used the least amount of electricity (unfortunately, the festive Christmas lights lining my hall may have dampened our stance in the rankings).

            While I did notice many of these attempts at promoting sustainability and making it more salient in our lives on campus, I couldn’t help but think that this was impacted by my strong interest about the outdoors and my intro environmental studies course. Perhaps these could have gone unnoticed to those uninterested or even slightly educated. I mean after all, I still was oblivious to a number of initiatives such as the eco-reps, and goals for reduction in turf and for being carbon neutral by 2035. I believe that if environmental studies were added to the common curriculum, this could have a huge effect on general awareness of the topic of sustainability. Yes, there will always be those darn climate contrarians that will be stubborn until the end, but maybe, just maybe we could reach out to a few uneducated but open-minded souls and improve our overall “green” status as a campus.