This morning I realized that I had forgotten to bring a towel with me to New Haven and was forced to dry myself with paper towels in a shower of the Yale dorms. So much for sustainability. As usual, I had gotten off on the wrong foot (my other left one), but, hey, it got me thinking about the issues, which is always a good thing. Blessings, blessings, blessings in disguise.
I arrived in New Haven the night before with our interim president James and we crashed on some of his friends’ futons at Yale. I was still raw from an eerie though somewhat cathartic Halloween and was not quite sure what to expect from the three day conference, “Strategies for Institutionalizing Sustainability in Higher Education.”
After breakfasting on a do-it-yourself egg sandwich (they sell you a container with eggs, tomatoes, bread, and lettuce, all packed separately, must be a New Haven thing… lettuce on an egg sandwich?? Toto I don’t think we are in NY anymore) we made our way over to the Omni Hotel to register and kick things off in style. Professor Nevin Cohen greeted us, seated casually in a comfortable looking armchair in the lobby, and I knew everything was going to be alright.
As usual I ran into somebody I knew (I can’t stop!) in the person of my former camp counselor and friend Josh Viertel. Josh is the director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project which is a happy bit of serendipity as SC is focusing on getting local, organic foods in the New School cafeterias this semester. We all piled onto a biodiesel tour bus and were off!
Our first stop was the Berkeley College cafeteria where Josh’s experiment in sustainable college dining has been in effect for the past few years. The first two years they made this dining hall a pilot project, using 100% local, organic foods. It met with overwhelming success and popularity and they have since lowered the percentage to 40% in an effort to spread the fruits of their labor (ok, ok) throughout the university. Josh took us to the kitchen where it became apparent how difficult it is to serve sustainable meals on such a large scale. Fresh, local produce requires a lot more careful preparation then pre-cut, freeze dried packaged goods. One of the trade-offs is a smaller menu, but it seems worth it when you see how good the food looks.
We then went to Yale’s small off-campus farm where Josh and his friends have been hard at work, growing fresh vegetables for the local farmer’s market. Josh is an eloquent guy, and explained well the delicate relationship between farmers, distributors, and consumers. One interesting point he brought up, which we have been thinking about a lot lately, is the seductive nature of food as an educational tool for sustainability. You can really taste the difference in this food and it drives home the importance of environmental awareness; people should always be conscious of what they are putting in their bodies and where it comes from. He also drove home the point that, while it is well and good to support New England farmers, and cool to have good food at Yale, the true purpose of the project is to raise awareness in an educational atmosphere, especially one that will be producing future CEOs and presidents.
We returned to the Omni where we attended several seminars. I went to two different seminars: “Engaging Students in Sustainable Behavior” and “College-Community Environmental Sustainability Initiatives.” What became more and more apparent to me as the afternoon progressed was the need for community in order to engage students in sustainable practices. We need to do more then just recycle or remember to compost. Sustainability should be more then reprimanding victims of a flawed system for bad environmental habits. It should have its own music, dancing, art, poetry, and food. It should be something exciting that people want to be a part of; a new way of living, one where we feel connection to the planet and each other rather then alienation, dissociation, discord, and melancholy. A good environmental movement should ultimately reaffirm the simple joys of life.
The second speaker, Richard Bowden from Allegheny College, was particularly enjoyable. His organization, Center for Economic and Environmental Development (CEED) has created a community based on ideals of economic revitalization, environmental stewardship, and education. Some of their current projects are: Arts and Environment Initiative, Creek Connection (an outdoor classroom based around the ecosystem of a nearby creek), Ecotourism, Pollution Prevention Roundtables, Environmental Writing via an online publication called French Creek, and much more. He also explained how his group had formed a state board, the Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy, dedicated to connecting college environmental action on a state level.
The more I saw and heard today, the more I thought about New School. While we don’t have the science and engineering programs of these other colleges, we still have a lot to offer. We have to go with what we are good at: get people at Lang writing about the environment, get Parsons students designing educational materials about wetlands, just get people thinking about these issues and bringing their own unique skills to the table; that’s how you start a movement…
Had a good talk with Nevin at the reception. Apparently there is talk of a boat building course next semester. Bangin! It’s all part of a new New School Outdoors program where there could hopefully be courses in hiking and biking around the city. I hope it goes through. We also decided that if we ever get a community garden at Lang we should name it Eugene’s Green (note the apostrophe). We dined on a fall festive assortment of orange, green, brown, and red foods from the recent harvest. The moon is bright over New Haven tonight and I’m feeling inspired. Looking forward to the rest of the conference!
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I arrived at the conference just a minute too late to go on the tour. So I had to entertain myself in New Haven for an hour and a half. I find that there is nothing so pleasurable as when I am alone in a new place. To some extent I wish that I had caught the tour, but more than that I feel guilty that I had such a fine time missing it.
First thing, I got coffee and a donut and a copy of the local Spanish language daily. Everyone at the Dunkin Donuts was pleasant and joked around with me. I ate my donut in the commons, and as I licked my fingers a woman walked by. She said, "MMM. That sure was good, hunh?" It felt good to be in a place where people aren't New Yorkers. The newspaper told an inspiring story about an exchange program between New Haven and Nicaragua.
I made some little drawings and read part of Robinson Caruso. I'm really liking that book.
Next, I walked around the campus a bit. Gothic architecture everywhere. Pleasant little streets and oaks with their yellow leaves on the cobblestone. Such a straight-laced place without any bohemians in sight. I liked that. I found a surgical mask in an alley and brought it home as a present for a friend.
At the conference, there were the standard introductory speeches and the applause, and that seemed good and fine. Next, I went to some conferences.
I took away a few interesting ideas. One is, we could have a competition to see who can use the least energy. Two, Clean Air Cool Planet helps calculate carbon dioxide emissions. Three, we should make sustainability fit in with the cool things students are already doing—what is the New School equivalent to March Madness? Four, in order to organize sustainability on campus, "getting paid doesn't hurt," that is, Yale and other schools actually pay students to do the work that we do. Five, other divisions besides STS and Urban Studies need to get involved.
I learned a good amount about how to get involved with the design process to make sure that the school makes sustainable buildings, and I took plenty of notes, so hopefully that's something we can get to work on soon.
The Yale Gallery had a small collection of classical art that I found enjoyable, and I was very creeped out by the room of 18th century American portraits—all those protestants staring me down.
I really enjoyed the locally grown food, and I had a fun time talking with people about how strange the buffet line was organized.
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