In November, President Roth signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging the University to make a Climate Action Plan within two years’ time, a plan that will outline the University’s measures to decrease and eventually eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions. There has been movement towards this end—the creation of a Sustainability Committee, the drafting of a sustainability report card (in progress), and some great future campus policies and energy efficiency projects. It’s clear, however, that Wesleyan has not put in place the kind of financial backing or institutional structures necessary to meet President Roth’s pledge. No one on campus—including the active members of the Sustainability Committee—has the expertise or the time to establish how we will become carbon neutral.
Sweeping changes need to happen on this campus in order for substantive progress to be made, including the hiring of at least one full-time employee devoted exclusively to sustainability. It is a matter of misguided prioritization, rather than financial constraints, that is obstructing progress on this front. An on-campus Director of Sustainability is as important as any staffer that the University employs currently, and in the realm of global citizenship, it is one of the most important positions that could—and should—exist.
Which brings us to this month’s trustee election. One-third of the trustees on the board are elected by alumni—a group that now includes the class of 2008. And trustees have ultimate power over Wesleyan’s affairs. So I e-mailed each trustee candidate and asked them how they would address sustainability at Wesleyan, and whether or not they would support a Director of Sustainability. The most impressive responses I got were from David Sewell ’96 and Sidney Espinosa ’94. Both understand the great challenges before us, and perhaps most importantly, the fiscal resources that need to be allocated in order to do so.
Sewell, a lawyer, wrote, “Like financial aid and faculty recruitment and retention, environmental stewardship is vitally important to the school’s future (and the planet’s). We have to find money for it.” He offered several suggestions for how to find such money, including alumni donations focused on sustainability, external funding and grants, and apportioning a percentage of student activities fees toward such efforts. “That, of course, would create a shortfall for other programs that would need to be addressed,” he wrote, “but it would have the benefit of giving current students the option to support these efforts and ’buy in’ to the broader goal of making Wes greener.”
Espinosa, who is the Director of Philanthropy at Hewlett-Packard, oversees “millions of dollars of investment in environmentally focused non-profits doing climate change research and environmental education around the world,” he wrote. He enthusiastically supports fundamental changes at Wesleyan in the areas of operations and institutional practices, departmental and curricular integration, and student programming and engagement. While he did not directly address the need to increase funding for sustainability, he supports the Director of Sustainability position and has helped implement environmental policies as a city councilman in Palo Alto, Calif.
Every trustee candidate responded to my email, and everyone showed a concern about environmental issues. Dr. Joe Haddad ’78, for example, who works in Central America, has “seen negative changes to the environment in my 20 years of travel to the region,” and supports actions taken by the University to act as an environmental steward, including looking at our endowment and supporting “companies and technologies with a demonstrated track record in sustainability.” Susan Sutherland ’82, Bill Macomber ’96 and Paul Mason ’77 all expressed interest in environmentalism at Wesleyan as well. Sutherland describes herself as “someone who often ’packs out’ my trash…and travels with a water bottle to fill up at water fountains so I don’t buy or use bottled water.” And while Mr. Mason did not give any details or ideas about these issues, he did offer, “If it means anything, I drive a hybrid.”
Please stay an active member of the Wesleyan community after you graduate, and support environmental sustainability at Wes and wherever else your life takes you. Keep the environment in mind when you vote for your three trustees of choice at http://www.wesleyan.edu/alumnitrustees, and make sure to vote before the May 25 deadline!
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