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UMass Embraces Sustainability
Amanda C. Mitchell for TEI
 The environmentally conscious community on the University of Massachusetts
Amherst Campus is rallying around the environmental movement known
as “sustainability.” Born from the failure of linear, non-renewable
systems of human and resource consumption, sustainability emphasizes
a circular or “holistic” way of thinking. According to
a proposal put fourth to the University by special topics class PLSOIL
297S in the spring of 2002, sustainability can be defined as follows:
“Sustainability
is the efficient use of human and natural resources within the global
marketplace, with minimum harm to the natural environment, local communities,
and people; it is a way of manipulating the world to achieve both permanence
and productivity; it is a way of life that supports all humans and viable communities
today and to the 7th generation; and is also an integrating paradigm for understanding
complex human and non-human systems. [Sustainability] includes and
integrates all the other views, providing meaning and spirit to the work.”
Much like the environmental movements in the early 1970s, sustainability
focuses on the reduction of human waste and the harm caused to the
environment through development and urban sprawl. Unlike the old philosophy
of the 60s however, sustainability doesn’t encourage people to
give up meat or driving or their everyday life. Instead, this new movement
encourages people to conserve what they can, and to examine the effects
of their resource consumption on an individual level, on the well-being
of their neighbors, on their surrounding environment, and on the planet
in general.
To better illustrate the contrast between the two schools of environmental
conscientiousness, consider driving habits. Where once people would
have been encouraged to give up driving altogether, the sustainability
movement takes a less drastic approach. People are instead encouraged
to take public transportation or car pool whenever possible, and walk
when walking is a realistic alternative to riding in the car. In addition,
the sustainability movement looks at the larger picture in an attempt
to create a successful system: perhaps by implementing a car pool schedule
in the office that will be upheld by current and incoming employees
alike, or providing a discount on public transportation for those who
choose to ride the train or take the bus everyday. The idea is to improve
(or at the very least, not harm) the quality of life for the individual,
and reduce their negative impact on the environment. Ideally, sustainability
looks to install a system that has the potential to become a social
norm and be maintained beyond just a single group of people in a single
moment of time.
Professor
John Gerber, one of the most prominent sustainability educators on
campus, has seen a large increase in his class sizes in the past four years.
He reports having nearly 300 students in his introductory lecture course this
spring, which is in stark contrast from the 35 student classes he previously
taught.
“There
is genuine student interest,” Professor Gerber said. “I haven’t
done anything to recruit or promote my classes; people come on their own. But
clearly with the growth I’ve been seeing, the word is getting out
somehow.”
Gerber is also a professor of Plant Sciences and teaches within that
department. His love for the earth and gardening has been a lifelong
pleasure. After studying botany at The University of Rhode Island,
Professor Gerber continued on to study farming in grad school at Cornell
University and later by assisting with small farm development in the
Caribbean. Eventually in the mid 1980’s, while enrolled at the
University of Illinois, Gerber encountered a group of farmers who had
developed a system of farming in which they depended on one another
for resources and professional support, as well as emotional and family
support. This was the Professor’s first encounter with sustainability. “It
was born out of hardship,” he recalled. “The farmers were
forced to depend on each other for their own economic success. It was
wonderful to see it work.”
Gerber brings
a warm, human aspect to his classrooms. He has the capability to foster a community
within his classes that leaves lasting impacts on his students. “I love
to teach,” he said. “I make sure that I treat all my students
as whole people. I learn just as much from my students as they do from
me.”
Professor
Gerber also extends his caring reach beyond the classroom. Recently, he became
involved with the Living Routes study abroad program. Located on Pleasant Street
in Amherst Center, the program offers students a chance to earn college credits
while living abroad in communities that are developing or have already developed
sustainable ways of life. By working with the people at Living Routes, students
who are studying sustainability within the BDIC (Bachelor’s Degree
with Individual Concentration) program are now offered a unique opportunity
to experience an alternative, environmentally conscientious lifestyle
outside of their familiar worlds.
While
Gerber focuses on sustainability from an agricultural point of view,
other faculty members are also contributing to research in sustainable
systems. In the UMass arena,Professor Rutherford Platt has
brought these ideas to an urban landscape. He is a professor of geography
and planning law in the Department of Geosciences and the Center for
Public Policy and Administration at UMass. Platt also founded the Ecological
Cities Project in 1999. The project is a national program of research
and outreach based out of UMass seeking to, “promote sharing
of knowledge and experience among disciplines, sectors, and urban regions
regarding new approaches to urban greenspace creation and management” according
to the project’s official website.
Plans are also underway to bring together the Ecological Cities initiative
and a group of interested faculty members from several disciplines
and areas of study to discuss new research and teaching initiatives
in urban sustainability. The Environmental Institute hopes to host
faculty members from all five colleges in the area, namely, UMass Amherst,
Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Hollyoke, and Smith College,
and include professors from the departments of Economics, Political
Science, Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, Natural Resources
Conservation, Environmental Engineering, and Geosciences.
The idea of using sustainable systems has also caught on with several
student groups on campus. At the People’s Market, a student-run
business at UMass, systems for recycling and managing student-staff
time have been implemented through the use of the holistic model for
sustainable practices. Earthfoods, another student-run business has
also joined the sustainable way of life, using all recyclable, compostable,
or washable dishes in their kitchen and dining room and encouraging
their customers to help with their efforts to recycle.
It may be years before holistic, renewable systems are operating on
a large scale, but until then, the little changes that those who join
the sustainable way of life make are important. According to Gerber,
the sustainability movement will inevitably be implemented on a large
scale in the future. “We can’t keep using resources at
the rate we’re going,” he said. “Eventually the linear
systems we have in place now will crack, and sustainable systems will
take their place.”
Living sustainably can start as small as carrying a single re-usable
water bottle instead of constantly recycling plastic ones, or turning
off lights when they are not in use, or turning off the bathroom faucet
while brushing teeth. The idea is to recognize the good you are doing
and the help you are lending to the effort to save and reuse resources
through your actions. As Professor Gerber said, “I don’t
do it because I feel like I have to; I do it for me, for the love of
the Earth.”
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