Feeding appetite for sustainability

TASTER'S CHOICE: For a class, Bryant 
students traveled to Costa Rica. Here they rate coffee. / COURTESY BRYANT UNIVERSITY
TASTER'S CHOICE: For a class, Bryant students traveled to Costa Rica. Here they rate coffee. / COURTESY BRYANT UNIVERSITY

While it’s not surprising that Colin Heneghan, a junior at Bryant University in Smithfield, recently found himself at a Myrtle Beach, S.C., Walmart searching for a set of speakers to amplify his spring-break sunbathing plans, his decision-making process might be.
“One was made out of 50 percent recycled material and the other [wasn’t]. The recycled one was a little bit more, but it’s the small changes that can really make a huge impact,” Heneghan explained. “My family never grew up using any of that stuff. But small things have opened my eyes about how we use materials.”
Heneghan’s eyes were opened when he and 17 other Bryant upperclassmen traveled last winter to Costa Rica to earn credits in a sustainable-marketing class that focused on examining the country’s coffee trade, from bean to cup.
Overwhelming curiosity in the class, organized and taught by professors Sharmin Attaran and Stefanie Boyer, subsequent social media outreach efforts and on-campus events all suggest a growing student interest in leading a sustainable lifestyle. And universities across the region are stepping up efforts to feed that desire.
“People are starting to question where everything is coming from,” Attaran said. “All my students are much more aware of the content in their food that they buy, the clothes that they wear.”
Calling the sustainable movement a trend, however, could be contradictory to the permanent place local higher education institutions are aiming to find for it to meet student demands.
The ECCO (Environmental Conscious Communitarian) House at Wheaton College, in Norton, Mass., has long been one of the most involved of the college’s theme houses devoted to living-learning environments. Students who live there have a commitment to lessening use of electricity and water, and loyalty to locally sourced foods which can be purchased at the weekly Friday farmer’s market students helped launch in fall 2010.
In Providence, Brown University students make up a large part of the school’s Energy and Environmental Advisory Committee that focuses on issues that include how to reduce its carbon footprint and water-flow rate.
At Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Mass., April’s Earth Week will feature lectures on sustainable cooking. The university also engages eager students by running contests based on achieving sustainable goals, including increasing recycling and reducing the use of plastic water bottles on campus.
“The reason we’re seeing a shift [in sustainability programs] is there of course is that component of when one school focuses on it, others want to be competitive,” said Deniz Luenberger, associate professor of political science and coordinator of Bridgewater State’s Center for Sustainability.
Student demand, Luenberger said, can be attributed to a great number of economic and societal factors, including increased subject education in high school, the country’s recent economic downturn that has forced citizens to become more aware of resource shortages, and, of course, growing up in the world of the 24-hour news cycle and Wikipedia.
Though Heneghan, who took the Bryant University class to fulfill a degree requirement and to study abroad, is a sustainability newbie, the majority of students today seem to be entering college much more informed about resource consumption than the previous generation, and more determined to minimize their environmental impact. Brown has several student-living initiatives, including an interactive dorm-planning website that shows campus residents where they can purchase and how they can use environmentally friendly products, including plant-based laundry detergent and reusable dishware.
“I think that Brown has come to attract a lot of [students] who don’t just join, they get involved,” said Chris Powell, the school’s director of sustainable energy and environmental initiatives.
Attaran chose Costa Rica for what she anticipates will be the first of many such classes for its citizens’ “deep appreciation” of their land and minimal use of resources and to meet students’ desire for hands-on experience.
A live Twitter feed during a recent open-project presentation on campus by students who made the trip generated more than 100 questions.
“There’s really a push … to provide education regarding sustainability,” Attaran said. “It’s necessary.”
Wheaton students, said Michael Graca, assistant vice president of communications, are demanding more campus-wide programs.
In addition to the farmers’ market, students have launched and planted an apple orchard. Wheaton recently held an open house for its greenhouse, which the school makes available for classroom use. The school’s dining halls spend about one-quarter of their budget on organic and locally grown foods.
“Issues of sustainability and environmental conservation are very much a part of the daily conversation in the mass media and communities,” Graca said. “Students bring [that] awareness. Students arrive interested.” •

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