Letter to the Editor

This is a draft of a letter to the editor that addresses the issue of sustainability on our campus. Please give feedback, comments and suggestions because it will be signed by the whole club. So let us know if you have any input.

Lets Go Big or Go Home and move forward with the solar panel project. Lets Just Do It and build a farm on Mount Fiji. If we’re really In It to Win It lets retrofit our buildings to be as sustainable as possible.

As a small, liberal arts college Occidental has the unique opportunity to be a leader in many different arenas. Here at Oxy we have a concentration of brilliant, forward-thinking faculty, supportive administrators and talented students. We are already at the forefront of offering undergraduates the chance to do hands-on research in their respective fields and integrating diverse cultural experiences into our curriculum. We are proud of these achievements but as participants of this institution we believe that our sustainability efforts lag behind those of comparable schools. We believe the administration must provide students the tools and institutional framework to make their ideas a reality.

In the 2010 edition of The College Sustainability Report Card (greenreportcard.org). Oxy received a C. The survey looks at many areas of sustainability including: Administration (B), Climate Change and Energy (D), Food and Recycling (B) , Green Building (B), Student Involvement (D), Transportation (C), Endowment Transparency (F) , Investment Priorities (A), Shareholder Engagement (F). At a school that prides itself on progressivism and activism getting a C on sustainability issues is truly dismal. Many comparable colleges have much higher grades including Pomona with an A-, Stanford also got an A-, Whitman got a B-, Bowdoin has a B, Bates has a B and Amherst has an A-.

Essentially all of the categories in the report card are based on decisions made on the administrative end, with very little weight given to student participation. We don’t have much of a say in terms of Shareholder Engagement, Endowment Transparency or Climate Change and Energy (although many students strongly support the solar panel project!).

If we really want to be a dynamic, proactive liberal arts college we need to not only keep up with our peer schools but lead them in the area of sustainability.

-FEAST