Infusing Sustainability Into Campus Life

By Karen I. Halbersleben

Reprinted with permission from "The Presidency," winter 2008. © 2008, American Council on Education

Defining sustainability is relatively easy; leading a college in consistently sustainable ways is not. As the president of a college that has striven to be the nation’s leading environmental liberal arts college for more than 35 years, I learned early on that I was shouldering the responsibility not only for stewarding my college’s current resources, but also for leading us forward in a way that would anticipate and honor the needs of those who will follow us, out to “the seventh generation.” Defining a sustainable community means nothing more complex than meeting our needs today in ways that will not compromise future generations’ ability to meet theirs. Leading a sustainable community means nothing less complex than adopting a discipline of leadership that adds the seventh generation to the decision-making process. Serving as president of a learning community totally devoted to sustainability has proved an engaging, often frustrating challenge, and always an honor.

Northland College’s adoption of an environmentally centered mission in 1971 was a natural progression from the founding of the institution in 1892 amidst the environmental devastation of the great north woods cutover. Over a 30-year period, timber companies stripped bare 12 million acres of centuries-old virgin trees from northern Wisconsin, leaving behind stumps, slashings, and a lot of mud. The immigrants who were lured to settle cutover land with promises of rich farming found instead acres of clay, glacial rocks, and streams and lakes dying from the unrestrained run-off from newly denuded slopes. The cutover stripped the land of its health and its wealth, exacting an extraordinary toll on the land and leaving behind untold human hardship. Out of that devastation arose a noble little college dedicated to bringing hope and opportunity to the children of the cutover. Since its founding, our college and our community have been acutely aware that a healthy economy can only exist in a healthy environment, demonstrating the wisdom of Wisconsin statesman Gaylord Nelson, who observed, “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.”

A Commitment at All Levels

The pursuit of sustainability is apparent at all levels of campus life at Northland College. In governance, though few of our trustees would comfortably claim the label environmentalist, the board has consistently affirmed our unique environmental liberal arts mission and has identified the central importance of our location near the shores of Lake Superior, the world’s largest freshwater lake in terms of surface area. A focus on sustainability has infused campus planning efforts. The most recent strategic plan, titled Educating for a Whole World, is centered on delivering a unique, high-quality academic experience in a financially, environmentally, and socially sustainable community.

Northland’s mission-centered curriculum uses the environment as the integrating concept through which we deliver a liberal arts education; students grapple with issues related to sustainability across the academic program. Beyond expected majors in environmental studies, environmental science, and natural resource management, students can take courses in sustainable business practices, learn about environmentally friendly artistic methods of printmaking, and engage with the fundamentals of chemistry by monitoring the water quality of our campus waterway, Bay City Creek. Our “Natural Connections” liberal education core explicitly links courses to one another and to environmentally related themes. This spring, we will offer a course in renewable energy, during which students will install solar panels on the college president’s house. We use student work-study positions to monitor our renewable energy systems and to help educate the campus community about energy conservation.

In commenting on this powerful educational experience, renowned environmental historian William Cronon said: “Our interactions with the biophysical world touch every facet of our lives. Indeed, the environment is perhaps our single richest metaphor for the interconnections that bind us to each other and to the world. . . . If you were looking for something to give liberal education a compelling intellectual and moral center, I doubt you could find a better [focus] than Northland has.”

Because our campus is located near the shores of Lake Superior and surrounded by close to 1 million acres of national forests (yes, the trees have grown back), we treat our region as a living laboratory. One of our residence halls, designed and built as an Environmental Living and Learning Community, served as a prototype for the development of LEED standards. Energy-conserving features on our 100-acre campus include two wind towers, four hot-water and two photovoltaic arrays, and a large geothermal heat-exchange system that heats and cools the largest building on campus. As the campus expanded into previously residential areas, we moved two existing homes to new locations rather than tear them down and add to area landfills. The student government sponsors free bus service around the neighboring towns for students and runs a bike program that provides free access to climate-friendly transportation. Students lead our campus composting system, work in our campus garden, and oversee our native landscaping efforts.

Few of these initiatives came without cost or without controversy. I take heat for our commitment to low-impact, native landscaping every spring when the dandelions bloom. Surveying the acres of perky yellow heads each May, I celebrate the “teachable moment” we present as we ask folks to measure the environmental costs of a highly manicured lawn. Members of my president’s cabinet and several board leaders moan about the loss of curb appeal. The search for sustainable solutions continues!

Some Words of Advice

Many college and university campuses are adding environmentally related majors and are undertaking their own commitment to sustainable practices. For those of you looking to begin or enhance these efforts, I offer several recommendations based on Northland’s experience.

• First, engage your students as much as possible in the decision-making process and in the implementation of sustainable practices. Exploring the possibilities, understanding the trade-offs, and linking specific decisions to a larger understanding of an entire system all provide learning experiences that will be directly applicable to their futures.
• Find the people on your campuses who are your early adopters. They are the people who can tell the story, create a compelling invitation for other people to get involved, and work across divisional and operational lines.
• Develop a baseline understanding of what your operation produces in terms of carbon emissions. As you plan to reduce your environmental footprint, remember to celebrate what you have already accomplished.
• Remember that not all meaningful initiatives related to sustainability are particularly flashy. For instance, our wind towers provide relatively little energy in the scheme of how much we continue to consume. Investments like low-flow toilets, better insulation, and new windows may have more real impact, but not be as visible. To be genuine in your sustainability initiatives, balance flashy initiatives with boring but meaningful ones: Heating with geothermal energy makes little sense if you’re pouring all the heat out lousy windows, for example.
• Team up with other colleges and universities and with local organizations to support—and challenge—one another through the process.
• Finally, identify the low-hanging fruit and tackle the easy problems first. Taking small, successful steps creates a climate of hope rather than one of being overwhelmed.

Leading the sustainability effort on your campus from a position of hope is the most important lesson I have learned from my years at Northland College. For me as president, leading a campus dedicated to sustainability has meant providing purpose and a sense of agency: a willingness both to ask questions and to demonstrate that we are in uncharted territory in which we must learn from one another. More than anything, I have enjoyed the opportunities I have had to lead by taking risks and to model my own ongoing learning with regard to sustainability. With equal measures of joy and trepidation, I participated in a five-day Outdoor Orientation canoe trip into the wilderness with 10 freshmen, and spent a one-month sabbatical as a volunteer lighthouse keeper in the nearby Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Choosing to dive in, learn, and grow both as a person and as a president allows others on my campus to take risks and helps counteract the climate of hopelessness that can overwhelm people concerned with the fate of our planet.

Accounting for the needs of future generations when making decisions today is a leadership challenge we all face. Educating the leaders of the 21st century means nothing less than preparing them to understand their connections to one another, to the planet we share, and to the generations who will follow them onto our campuses. As a donor to our college once told me, “I’ve learned that the most important responsibility we face is not to live up to the expectations of our parents, but to those of our children.” How different would your decision-making process be if you consciously considered the potential effects of your actions today on the president who will be sitting in your chair 30 years from now? What about the seventh generation, scheduled to arrive on our campuses in 2150—what will we have left for them?

Karen I. Halbersleben is president of Northland College.