COLIN PERRY
Special to The Leader
Students may have noticed that the lights on the President’s house have turned green, as part of the ongoing celebration of Earth Month on campus. But how green really is the university as a whole?
This is a question that may have surprising answers. In addition to the obvious environmental concerns, an issue like sustainability can have a big effect on admissions. According to the Princeton Review, 60 percent of this year’s college applicants said they would value knowing how prospective schools treat environmental issues when it comes to deciding which school to attend.
Beginning with the formation of a Sustainability Committee in 2007, Fredonia has taken several steps towards being a more environmentally-friendly campus. The recycling bins in nearly every room make recycling more accessible for both students and faculty. Older students may remember a time when Cranston Marche provided trays to students, but removing them meant a drastic reduction in both food waste and water usage. And on the curricular side, the school began offering both an Environmental Science major and minor.
“It was easy stuff,” said Dr. Sherri Mason, chemistry professor and former member of the Sustainability Committee. “There was a lot of low-hanging fruit, and in those first few years, that’s basically what we focused on.”
For its efforts, Fredonia has routinely been featured in the Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Schools. Along with 352 other colleges across the country, this year Fredonia has been highlighted for “featuring green initiatives that enhance students’ academic experience and quality of life in ways that truly merit recognition.”
At the same time, many believe there still exists many opportunities to advance this initiative on campus. Sarah Laurie, Fredonia’s environmental safety and sustainability specialist, commented through email that “there is always room for improvement.”
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education provides colleges with a measuring tool to gauge their performance with called the Sustainability, Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS). Schools provide all the necessary data, and from there, points are awarded based on whether or not a school offers academic courses in sustainability, or how much of its food is produced and bought locally.
As of last May, Fredonia has been awarded a “Bronze” STARS rating, the lowest possible. The total number of points awarded amounts to 38.80, also the lowest out of any SUNY school currently rated (SUNY Oneonta, the second-lowest, has a 40.33).
Laurie believes these results do not reflect accurately on Fredonia.
“During the process of filling out the STARS report, we have identified several ‘data gaps’ that make it difficult to obtain certain credits,” Laurie said. “We’ve worked with various departments to try to close those data gaps for our next report, but some of them are outside the control of the university.”
These gaps Laurie refers to include areas like landscape management, where Fredonia lacks a formal written policy and, thus, receives no credit.
According to her, other SUNY schools also have more staff members whose jobs are dedicated towards sustainability and collecting the appropriate data. Mason said following in their footsteps would help to enact change on a campus-wide level.
“We now have a chief diversity officer, which is fantastic, but we need a comparable position in sustainability,” said Mason. “Most campuses have something like that, [someone in charge of sustainability] who reports directly to the president, and that becomes their focus.”
The lack of such a position is one of the reasons Mason, well-known for her plastic pollution research, counts herself among those frustrated with how much action the university has taken. There’s also Zach Beaudoin, junior English and international studies double major.
“We don’t have a sustainable culture on campus, but we need one,” Beaudoin said.
Mason voiced a similar opinion.
“Learning happens not just in the classroom, but it becomes part of the campus culture. Part of that can be saying we don’t want plastic — go walk by the experimental forest [the woodlot] and the whole thing is covered by plastic bags from [University Commons],” said Mason. “They love to advertise my work and all the publicity I get, but my own campus doesn’t support, in a physical way, my message that we need to stop using single-use disposable plastic.”
However, she was also quick to acknowledge that there are many different issues the administration has been forced to deal with in the past few years.
“It’s difficult. The focus has been on diversity, and internationalization, and the changing of the guard in administration and the difficulty of the financial situation, so I get it,” Mason continued. “There’s a lot of things pulling in different directions.”
“That said, sustainability is my passion, so that has been a frustration for me to see that be downgraded as a result of those,” Mason added.
Beaudoin also claimed to have been met with resistance in pursuing sustainability. One of Beaudoin’s biggest goals, a campus-community garden, has been rejected by the administration several times.
“It’s something so simple that so many campuses have. Even elementary schools, middle schools, high schools have gardens. [It’s] so simple that it should be a no-brainer,” said Beaudoin.
But along with a garden come many concerns. Laurie points out that, among others, there are issues of liability and maintenance. There’s always a chance that someone may injure themselves, and the problem exists of who will tend it when students are gone for the summer.
Deciding on a satisfactory location for the garden has also been an ongoing problem. However, Beaudoin pointed out that on the Fredonia website, plans for the Science Center allocated a space labeled “Garden.” This space is currently being occupied by unused grass.
Beaudoin is planning on re-proposing the garden and is also working to bring solar energy to Fredonia. However, with that brings more challenges: the money Fredonia might save on energy could be distributed elsewhere in the SUNY system.
“If you don’t use it, you lose it,” said Beaudoin. “It’s an unfortunate circumstance.”
Laurie feels differently about the challenges she’s faced in implementing new ideas.
“There is always pushback when you try to change people’s behavior,” said Laurie. “Aside from [that], I’ve received very little pushback. Of course there are times that ideas or projects just don’t pan out. Something stands in the way, whether that’s budgetary issues, process issues, or not having enough people with the hours to help get a program off the ground. Certainly there have been times I’ve been told that something just won’t work, or can’t be done. But it’s never out of resistance to the goal of sustainability.”
Every environmental activist on campus agrees that it also falls on students to work toward a more sustainable campus. Mason mentioned one initiative, in which every incoming freshman was given a reusable bag, claiming she’s “never seen one of them.” The Sustainability Committee is also working to encourage students to donate unwanted items from their dorm rooms when they move out, instead of throwing them away.
Ultimately, becoming a more sustainable campus will always be an ongoing process.
“I believe there is a true intention on behalf of the University to strive toward being ‘green,’” said Laurie, “but it is always a goal in process, never an achievement, for any organization. There is always more that can be done.”