and so it begins anew

The school year began with a flurry as usual. Although extremely hectic, this is my favorite time of the year. The students are excited, revved up, and feel like they can conquer the world and this feeling is infectuous. As I was shlumping through campus the other day, my mind fixated on the merry-go-round of all the things I needed to do (and all of the e-mail responses I haven't recieved) when a student hailed me with a gracious "Hey Burton Callicott! Are you having a lovely day?" The question took me aback. The short answer was "no, not really..." but the warmth and spirit behind the question begged the follow up question "why am I not having a lovely day?" I am alive and healthy and doing something about which I feel strongly. It took a few minutes and the student had already gone on, but I realized that yes, indeed, I am having a lovely day!

The Sustainability Picnic during Welcome Week went very well indeed. All of the food, generously provided by Aramark, went very fast -- a good thing considering the heat! As far as I know, there was zero trash associated with the event. Aside from the napkins, everything was either eaten or re-used.

I attended the first APE (Alliance for Planet Earth) meeting last night and was so pleased to see so many eager, active, engaged students show up. The scene was so uplifting and right on time as I had been finding myself overwhelmed and dejected. I was asked to let everyone know about The Sustainability Committee and what we are up to and I had to pause for a second. It seems that with all of the meetings and discussions and e-mails!, we really have not done much of any REAL WORK or accomplished anything tangible at this point. I have high hopes for the Sustainability Corridor and feel that it could be the one project that really sets everything in motion. Despite a plan and a promise, to date, nothing has happened on this front. I have to keep reminding myself that change often happens slowly on a College Campus and everyone involved, including myself, are doing this "on the side" and have plenty to do in terms of our "real job." I am still hopeful that, with time, things will shift and Sustainability will be our job, or at least a significant part of our job. I have seen first hand the power of our students and, with this group of APEs, I left feeling a newfound sense of hope.

Not surprisingly, our goal of completing the Sustainability Plan by the end of the summer had to be... revised. I am hoping to have it completed by the end of the first quarter. This is another piece that, once completed, could get us well on the way to some serious progress. We had a good discussion at our last meeting about composting on campus and I am very hopeful that we can begin to work towards a "zero waste" campus. I have been getting e-mails from the President's Climate Commitment office reminding me that our Green House Gas emissions report is due soon. I am hoping that this will give us some leverage and provide an opportunity to get more people involved in the effort. Once we finish the GHG audit, then the real work begins -- how to bring out emissions down to zero! Though the Climate Commitment organization does not have any police or official sanctions, they do have the power of embarrassment and bad press. I am hoping that the carrot proves to be sufficient...

I continue to drive myself crazy by subscribing to various environmental e-mail listservs. Just since starting this post I have received two e-mails from the Recyc-l list and one from the GreenSchools list. Just about every post brings the now all too familiar mixed emotions of exultation and depression. I am so happy to hear about the good work that other schools are doing and so sad to realize that it will probably be quite awhile before I can contribute to the conversation with communiques about the great things that are happening at The College of Charleston.

--Burton.