The Green Campus

For those who want to go the extra carbon-neutral mile and formally study the environment, the possibilities are expanding. Sustainability has become a multidisciplinary field that goes beyond ecology and biodiversity to embrace architecture, engineering, urban planning, economics and public health. Arizona State has just opened an entire School of Sustainability that will start taking undergraduates in the fall of 2008, drawing faculty from 25 departments. "Sustainability is the linchpin," says Oberlin's Orr. "If you get it right, it reduces dependence on Middle East oil, cuts carbon emissions, takes care of pollution, reduces health-care costs associated with pollution, and creates jobs." ASU is now working on the employment aspect, set-ting up a high-tech business park to draw innovative, eco-oriented businesses from around the world—and to provide internships and, ultimately, employment for students. Early occupants include a Chinese water-purification company and a firm making lenses that focus more sunshine onto solar panels, generating added power for less money.

As vigorously as colleges are encouraging students to research environmental problems, students are prodding colleges to purchase renewable energy and set ambitious carbon targets. In part because of student lobbying, Middlebury College in Vermont adopted a goal of carbon neutrality by 2016, says Nan Jenks-Jay, dean of environmental affairs. "Students were telling us, 'You're not doing enough'," she says. Undergrads at dozens of schools have gone so far as to vote for increases in their activities fees to help finance green initiatives. At St. Mary's College of Maryland, for example, 93 percent of students voted last spring for a $25 annual increase in fees, which will raise approximately $45,000 a year for the purchase of renewable energy.

There is, of course, room for improvement. "Not a single campus is even close to achieving sustainability at this point," says Richard Olson of Kentucky's Berea College, which aims to reduce its energy consumption 45 percent below 2000 levels by 2015. "Colleges need to get out ahead and model truly sustainable behavior to society."

Many students are helping to do just that. This June, a group of 11 Dartmouth students struck out across the country in a big green school bus fueled by waste oil from fast-food restaurants. The bus itself contains the filters that make the french-fry grease usable. Stopping at parks and music festivals, the vehicle became "a science fair on wheels," says senior Brent Butler. But for sheer creativity, few top Allison Rogers, Harvard class of 2004. After wrestling with her feminist principles, she ran for and won the 2006 Miss Rhode Island title on a green platform and spent the next year delivering a version of Al Gore's slide show to schools and civic groups. It may be an inconvenient truth—but her post gave Rogers a very convenient way to spread the word.

© 2007