When the Eco-Olympics came to an end this year, a critical question was raised: What environmental good has this event actually achieved?
Although Duke strives to achieve sustainability among students and faculty, indifference is the main feeling on campus. The dorm that won the Eco-Olympics has less than 50 percent participation in effortless online surveys and trivia, and eight dorms have yet to send one representative to attend an environmentally themed movie screening.
Duke has poured millions of dollars into restoring wetlands and ensuring that all new buildings are certified "green," but the apathy of the student body toward environmental issues completely nullifies efforts of the University, making a truly "green" campus unattainable. With a lack of student concern for the environmental initiatives Duke is making, future leaders of the world are graduating indifferent to the future of our planet.
In order to become green, Duke needs to take an active role in educating its students about the environment, starting with the requirement of one "environmental" credit toward graduation. Those who have not experienced a Duke student's indifference first-hand-namely national "green evaluators"-see the University's green programs as impressive. The 2007 KIWI Green College Report praises the Eco-Olympics but fails to mention that it is only between freshman dorms, and so involves roughly one-quarter of Duke's population. The Sustainable Endowment Institute's College Sustainability Report Card gives Duke a 'B-plus,' impressed with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified buildings and critical only of a lack of endowment transparency.
What makes Duke so different from truly green campuses is the attitude of its students. The majority of Duke students will only make the green choice if there is nothing more convenient available. Warren Wilson College in Asheville is an example of a school that has created a green campus by bringing together students who care about the environment with the resources of a college that can support such efforts. According to the KIWI report, the school uses 2,000 pounds of organic crops produced on campus and harvested by students in their cafeteria. Warren Wilson requires students to work on environmental projects beneficial to the outdoors and the school.
Though Duke possesses the resources necessary to become a green campus and has put many to use, the student-interest side of the equation is all too weak. Every weekend, huge fraternity parties are thrown with apparent consent of the Duke administration. Massive amounts of alcohol are consumed at these parties, producing only aluminum beer cans, cardboard beer cases, hard liquor bottles and plastic cups. All of these items could be recycled, but are instead thrown out while University action groups like Environmental Alliance appear to turn a blind eye.
What good will sustainable buildings do if the actions and feelings of students are not sustainable? Surely if Duke can have the campus police monitor every weekend party, it can replace trash cans with recycling bins and ensure beer cans thrown on the ground are properly recycled. The amount of waste generated from a single party is surprisingly large considering the fact that most students attending consume at least three beverages. By reducing this waste, a message is sent to students-no matter how intoxicated-that Duke wants us to consider the environment in all activities.
Events like the Eco-Olympics remind us of this by encouraging less energy consumption and more recycling, but they could be much more effective if the entire student body was involved. Duke has worked hard to benefit the environment through outstanding research, involvement with the Durham community and improved facilities. The missing link in this process of creating a green campus is in the care it passes down to its students. Courses concerning the environment can be found in disciplines ranging from engineering to public policy. With a wealth of information available, it is disappointing to see how few students take advantage of this knowledge.
My proposal, then, is to have the University require one environmental "mode of inquiry" toward graduation, just as it has required one writing "mode of inquiry." I realize most students already feel bounded by the general education requirements of Duke, but this is a sound way to spread environmental knowledge among the student population.
Most would agree that the future of sustainability rests not with the technology we engineer but with the future leaders who are able to implement these environmentally friendly initiatives. If Duke wants to take the "greening" of its campus seriously, it needs to maintain the green policies already in place while concentrating more on instilling environmental values within its students.
Pete Zseleczky is a Pratt freshman.
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