Yesterday I gave veggies from our garden to Dean Hartman and Kay Brown and
talked to Dean Hartman for a while. We spent much of the spring telling
Dean Hartman what we want
and what he could do for us, so I asked what we could do for him.
Here's what he said:
1) Think about and talk with him about what students like us
want from college.
2) Share our ideas for programs and projects with him.
3) Think about how to make Sewanee a healthier place.
4) Work towards making the drinking scene less dominant
and overpowering.
5) Think about our house as a model for future
student residences, especiallythe student research house.
If we had a budget, how would we want it to be spent:
programming? technology? infrastructure?
is this representative of what other similar houses would need?
6) Keep the house and grounds looking nice.
7)Work with the Living Learning communities,
esp Our Planet, to make theLLCs a viable living learning situation.
Some people think that the LLC's "aren't Sewanee".
Let's help to make them "Sewanee".
8) Make our lives a "transparent living experience".
If a regent who owns a coal mine wants to know what sustainability is,
our lives should be examples of that.
Everything we do should be perfectly visible and easy
for people to understand. Hartman described it as a pop up book.
What we do differently that makes our life and house sustainable
should be so obvious no one can miss it.
No one should have to ask: "What makes the greenhouse green?"
Think about what the tour guides would say about our house to
explain what we're about and how we live to people who have no
experience or understanding of the idea of sustainable living.
I think the last two are especially important.
We need to bring the LLC folks over to our house
and get them to keep coming for our programs. I want to take a
trip to Keener's farm early on with a big group of students.
The "transparent living experience" can be helped some
simply by putting up signs and notes about what we do.
Send and post your thoughts.
The Poetry of Lullabies
5 months ago
11 comments:
I really like the challenge that we have to make ourselves known to campus. I think that without these goals to achieve we might not get as far. So, as far as I'm concerned these are all good things.
I'm still not sure how we are going to go about making the drinking scene less dominant and overpowering. Sewanee has been known for its drinking for a long long time. It's nothing we can't do, but I think we definitely need to brainstorm on this one.. I mean, are garden parties and house events going to do it? I'm just wondering...
i think that these are great goals, and that we definitely need to get together and talk about these things and how to accomplish the challenges. like being transparent? i feel like a lot of sustainable living isn't really incredibly noticeable. besides someone noticing "hm, they're working in the garden." i guess i want to know what we need to do to make our lives visible and understandable. and i would definitely like to hear other people's ideas on how to make drinking less overpowering because that is a HUGE undertaking.
I like the idea from Paul's e-mail of writing a mission statement soon. Maybe we can display it (or a version of it) somewhere prominent in the house so that it's visible to everyone--not just us.
Which dorm is going to house the our planet LLC?
hunter
I think Hartman's concerns are incredibly understandable. However the drinking one concerns me. As we all know, that is a hot issue at Sewanee. I honestly do not think we should be substance free. The eco-house has never been substance free and I really don't think that is the label we want to be given. I do think that the administrations' concern with drinking on campus is understandable and we should certainly try not to contribute to it. But, I do not think that it should be our task to try and make the drinking scene less dominant or overpowering. I personally don't think that was ever the Green House's point. If we want to try and impact the entire campus and student body, I think we should stay away from the label of substance free for the time being.
Maybe after a few years in which we have become a prominent member of Sewanee's campus and our garden is well-established and we have a lot of the student body on our side, we can weigh in on that issue, but for the time being we should be more concerned with impacting ALL of Sewanee as much as possible.
I don't think the goal is to be sub-free. But one difficulty I have with the drinking scene at Sewanee is not that there's lots of booze and drunk frat lords, but that the way in which parties are hosted and alcohol is consumed is so incredibly wasteful and done in a manner oblivious to the world around us. I don't advocate that our message be "don't party", but rather that we show that 1) you can have fun and party in a less wasteful, more mindful way and 2) that there are other things that are fun that don't involve alcohol. I think we need a bit of both.
i agree completely
i agree with elspeth
I also agree with those two ideas. I also think that Bentley brought up a very important point when he said, "I do not think that it should be our task to try and make the drinking scene less dominant or overpowering." I think that it's important that we remain a house that believes in sustainable living because we think it is healthy for the community and ourselves. I don't think that we should set out to have any sort of crusading message. We live this way because we like it. If other people see this and like it, too, then great, but I do not think it our place to tell anyone else what is best for them. I think it is important to make the distinction between being supportive of our lifestyle and critical of someone else's. Let's remain visibly supportive of ideas we like, yet take caution that we don't preach a message that other ways are wrong. Sending a critical message would only serve to alienate us from a lot of people.
amen, laura
Post a Comment