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Making Change Through the Environment By Rachel Moulton ’97 EFP photos by Twyla Clark ’04 and Anna Johanson ’00
Students at Antioch want to make change. It is what brings them to campus, and it is what keeps them engaged while they’re at Antioch. Nowhere is this desire more apparent than in concern for the environment. New steps to inte- grate knowledge gained in the classroom with campus practices are beginning to make Antioch College a more sustainable campus. On a campus subject to an ever-changing student body due to Cooperative Education (co-ops) and terms spent studying abroad, stability and continuity become necessities. Consequently, despite a deep-rooted concern for environmental issues, Antioch hasn’t always been able to practice what we preach. All that is about to change. Now discussions housed within classroom walls have found their way into conference rooms and organized groups focused on making sure the curriculum coincides with the college’s environmental practices. With the creation of a brand new administrative position focused on environmental practices, Budget and Environmental Projects Manager; the Green Council (GreenCil); student and faculty plans for ecological campus renovations; eight new curricular foci in Environmental Studies; and a long legacy of experiential and interdisci- plinary educa- tion, there is no better place to be studying the environment. At Antioch, Change Begins in the Classroom
“Students are torn between their need to study and their need to change the world. That in itself is an educational experience,” says Richard Peterson, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Environmental Studies. The knowledge base that provides stu- dents with the motivation and ability to affect change begins in the class- room. The Environmental Studies Committee, a faculty committee dedicated to environmental education at Antioch, has a number of charges. The most immediate has been redesigning the environmental curriculum so that it reflects the true interdisciplinary nature of the education Antioch offers its students. Jill Yager, Professor of Biology and Environmental Science, would like to see the environment put into every course on campus. While this is not yet realistic, it is clear that an environmental education at Antioch means taking courses in almost every discipline. “The result,” says Yager, “is a real sense of the Environmental Movement on campus.” Antioch began offering a formal degree program in environmental studies and science in 1967, but due to financial problems in the eighties, the environmental program declined. It is only recently, in the early nineties, that faculty and students have begun to revive the program. Yager has been teaching at Antioch since 1989: “Since I’ve been here, the whole environmental interest has just blossomed. A student who comes here has a chance to really look at the environment in whatever way he or she wants to.” Peter Townsend, Professor of Environmental Science and Geology, has been teaching at Antioch for 30 years. He echoes Yager’s enthusiasm and offers insight on the evolution of the current environmental program: “When I came, I came to a three-person earth/science department. On the side, some of us were doing environmental stuff – for example, there was an economist who did some environmental programming – but the environmental program was really pasted together from a variety of people in a variety of fields. Students weren’t getting as much guidance from the institution about how to structure a major, how to structure an academic career.” When Ann Filemyr, Associate Dean of Faculty and Associate Professor of Journalism/Communications and Environ- mental Studies, began teaching at Antioch in the fall of 1990 similar problems still existed: “I was extremely surprised that there was a really well-developed environmental science program that covered botany, biology, geology, chemistry, and the Environmental Field Program, but there was nothing in Environmental Studies.” Filemyr was looking for courses that specifically addressed cultural, political, and social perspectives surrounding the environment. The lack of these types of courses motivated Filemyr to pull together a job description for a full-time Environmental Studies faculty member – the job now occupied by Richard Peterson.
As with all positive changes at Antioch, the redesign of the curriculum began with the students. The committee pulled together a group of students and asked them what areas of interest were needed. They then designed eight curricular foci: Environmental Justice and Organizing; Environmental Education; Environmental Communications; Ecology and Peace; Feminism, Gender, and the Environment; Sustainability and Social Ecology; Environmental Studies/Sciences; and General Environmental Studies. For each focus, there is a separate advising sheet and a clear method by which each student can identify and personalize their environmental major. Students write a statement of purpose indicating how the courses they plan to take, their major related co-op, and their senior project will work together to provide them with a solid base. This essay is approved by the committee and ensures that students will not get lost in the wide selection, but consciously choose and analyze the work that will eventually provide them with their bachelor’s degree.
Outside of classroom walls, the Science Interest Group (SIG) is one way for students to learn how the combination of theory and practice can educate the larger community. The SIG meets on a weekly basis to hear outside speakers, hold co-op swaps, or simply get together to talk. Jill Yager has been in charge of the group for several years: “It’s a way for the science nerds to hang out together. The main thing is for us to provide a forum for science students to get together with faculty and hang out together informally.” In the spring of 2001, the new Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Loyd Bastin, began organizing the group. Next year, he will continue to encourage the investigation of environmental themes. Suzanne Kolb, Assistant Director of Antioch Education Abroad and Program Director for the Brazilian Ecosystems program, sees the group as an opportunity to have the Brazilian Ecosystems participants get some experience planning and leading a science-based lecture. Faculty use this as an opportunity to impart wisdom to their students, but they also use it as an opportunity to turn the floor over to their students. Kolb encourages her students to use this occasion as preparation for their senior project presentation: “It’s an important learning experience for them just in the process of planning and public speaking, and it gives the other students an opportunity to learn about the Brazil Program.” Once students step off campus, Cooperative Education plays a significant role in the diversity of opportunities Antioch has to offer. Peter Townsend has been at Antioch long enough to watch his students succeed after they graduate and credits co-op as a primary reason for their success: “We offer a really sound, fundamental education. Through co-op we offer an introduction to working with people across generations.” Antioch provides an education balanced between academic study and work experience. Any gaps are bridged with a major related co-op requirement – co-ops that help students understand firsthand how their academic study will eventually translate into “real” world practices. Yager lists co-op as the second biggest reason to choose Antioch over other programs for environmental study: “There are some environmental co-ops that I would love to go on. Neil Gilbert ’01 was up on a little island in Alaska studying birds, and there are other incredible examples of environmental co-ops. You could be out in the field. You could be doing lab work. You could be doing a combination of both.” Adam Howard, Assistant Professor of Cooperative Education, easily pulled together a list of current environmental co-ops. This list, containing over 35 active co-op jobs, is only a small sampling of what Antioch students have done in recent years. Past opportunities have included work with the United States Geological Survey in Puerto Rico, St. Johns River Water System in Florida, the Wegerzyn Horticultural Center in Ohio, and the Farm Worker’s Justice Project in North Carolina. Duties might include program implementation for youth groups and families, maintaining community gardens, developing educational materials, educating policy-makers, doing research to mobilize support for farm workers and much more. Current Antioch student Ben Gillock spent the summer in the San Juan Islands in Washington State working as a kayak guide for a company called SeaQuest Expeditions and Zoetic Research. Gillock led and participated in ecological trips to the outlying islands. Gillock’s reactions to his co-op experience mirror that of many co-oping students: “I can’t begin to break down what an experience like this equates to in educational terms. The learning flows constantly and subtly. Much of it will not come to light clearly until all this is in the past.” No matter what area of the country or what area of interest, Antioch can find a way to connect the working world with the students’ academic world. “Many students have found what their central passion is in the huge field of environmental studies by doing a co-op job,” adds Filemyr. Like co-op, Antioch Education Abroad is yet another reason to choose to study the environment at Antioch. Kolb leads the Brazilian Ecosystem Program, which has been in existence since 1989. The program combines Kolb’s expertise with Brazilian universities, scientists, researchers, and professors. Kolb began leading the program in 1999 and says she had a very narrow vision of what type of student the program should be developed to serve. She imagined it would be the environmental scientist, the ecologist that would be interested in the program, but her view changed quickly: “It’s widely accepted among conservation biologists that it’s a crisis discipline, and it needs multi-disciplinary involvement.” A major component of the program is to show how the different disciplines need each other: “Scientists need the anthropologists, the psychologists, the journalists who can decipher and explain things to lay people; we need the environmental educator. I had a psychology student on the program minoring in environmental science who said she was studying psychology because she wanted to understand the mentality of environmental destruction. That is so vitally needed.” Kolb points out that students who go on the program will already understand how they fit together when working toward solving environmental problems. Students begin to understand that real solutions require contributions from a wide variety of people; they learn how to work together and how to reach compromise. It’s clear that at Antioch curricular choices extend beyond the classroom. Students can study conservation biology in Brazil, work on co-op jobs in California for the EPA or in archeological parks, organic farms, and bird sanctuaries, but one of Antioch’s most innovative, long-standing programs is the Environmental Field Program (EFP). EFP began as an experimental program in the late 60s. Tom Ayrsman ’79, Assistant Professor of Botany and Environmental Science and Program Administrator, points out that it was a natural development for an institution at the forefront of experiential education and student governance: “The beauty of EFP is peer learning. Without a faculty presence, students learn differently. It breaks down a lot of those barriers in the classroom. The lack of a hierarchy opens up a lot of opportunities for more in-depth learning, more engaged learning.” EFP has taken students to nearly every bioregion in North America, including Mexico, Alaska, the Caribbean, and this year, down the Mississippi River. Ten students and two leaders, recent Antioch graduates, live, eat, sleep, and breathe in their chosen bioregion for three months. EFP has a limited number of available slots, but students from any discipline can apply. Ayrsman explains, “We’re not just looking for science majors. We’re looking for the best group of individuals that will form a learning community and work well together.” The list on the wall of Eric Miller’s ’81 office in the co-op department on the Antioch College campus tells you something about his job: Kenya, Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Japan, India, England, France, Spain… As Assistant Professor of Cooperative Education, Eric Miller oversees co-ops in these countries and many others. Approximately 80 students per year co-op abroad in about 30 different countries, said Miller. The requirement that students have a cross-cultural experience in order to graduate is partly responsible for the number of students doing international co-ops, said Miller. Also responsible is a new policy that allows students a stipend for international as well as domestic co-ops. Closer to home is Glen Helen, the 1,000-acre nature preserve adjacent to campus. Bob Whyte, a faculty member and the Executive Director of the Glen, encourages students and Antioch faculty to use the Glen as a teaching and research tool: “I am working very hard to ensure that the Glen Helen Ecology Institute (GHEI) is an integral part of Antioch College.” The GHEI is the managing body charged with the care of Glen Helen, and as Whyte points out, very few liberal arts colleges have access to a nature preserve with an academic managing entity. GHEI is currently planning sustainable renovations to over twenty-three facilities. Many faculty use the Glen as their classroom. Ayrsman states, “I am rarely inside walls. That stems from my experiences going to Glen Helen. Every time I go there, I see something new, and I’ve been going there for 50 something years.” Peterson cites it as yet another valuable resource: “We [Antioch faculty] all try really hard to see what we can do locally to bring the real world into our classroom.” Peterson not only fully utilizes the Glen, but he takes his class, Environmental Movements and Social Change, to Detroit to work with an organization called Detroit Summer. There he encourages the students to involve themselves in various urban rehabilitation and environmental projects: “Many of the faculty here at Antioch try to bring these same kinds of opportunities into the classroom whereas at other schools the faculty don’t have that encouragement from the administration. Service learning is growing all over the country, and yet Antioch has been doing it for a long time.” Like Peterson, Ayrsman uses his upper level course, Terrestrial Environments, as an opportunity to study the colonization of land by plants on the edge of Lake Michigan: “There is nothing like getting down on your hands and knees on the beach and looking at small microscopic plants and looking at how they change the environment in order to colonize the land.” Ayrsman also arranges for the students to meet with local experts and alumni. Ayrsman took his students to Leo Drey’s Pioneer Forest in the Ozarks. Drey graduated from Antioch in ’39 and Arysman points out that he is now a leader in his field: “His 160 thousand acres of Ozark forest is the best example I’ve seen of a sustainable forest business. You walk through the forest and you really can’t tell that there is logging going on.” Faculty have an abundance of environmental resources, and they don’t hesitate to share them with their students. Campus Renovations Make for a Greener Antioch
“Antioch students aren’t waiting until they graduate to make change,” Filemyr points out. For evidence of this, take a walk along the bike path that separates Antioch campus from Glen Helen. The Golf Course – a rolling prairie that Antioch and Yellow Springs community members use for softball games, rugby matches, and kite flying – is growing knee high, wildflowers are blooming, and Antioch is finally stepping back to let nature teach a course. Filemyr points out that these changes have not come about on their own: “The greening of this campus has resulted from student action and student leadership. The students are always going to push us to actually live our values.” Ayrsman sees campus renovations as a chance to rethink the way in which environmental issues are taught: “When we teach about environmental science, it often ends up being rather negative.” Ayrsman says he was frustrated that the study of the environment often left students feeling hopeless. He wanted his curriculum to make a difference, and what better way to do that than to educate through hands-on learning. Yager agrees with Ayrsman: “You have to be able to get out in the field and see things. You can look at things on the computer but that’s two-dimensional. Once you get out in nature you’ve got your senses.” Ayrsman sees future ecological restorations as just that, as a chance to get students to use their senses. In response to students asking why we mow the Golf Course, Ayrsman began contemplating ways to integrate courses that he was already teaching with future ecological renovations: “For example, could we look at, say, the germination of Echinacea, a cone flower which is a native prairie plant, collect seeds, germinate those seeds and then begin restoration on a piece of land?” Ayrsman had already been doing projects similar to this with his students in Glen Helen, which was part of what made it so easy for him to see the value of learning from scratch: “We decided to try to jump start an ecosystem. We’ve got the Golf Course, an ecosystem that has been so manipulated by humans that it no longer resembles what it once was. We get to go back and look and discover what the prior ecosystem looked like in this area and then begin to reintroduce those species.” Renovations to the Science Building are being planned. Faculty and students hope to make the building a more welcoming place. Renovations will allow science faculty an opportunity to integrate the theory they teach with practice. By considering the environmental impact of the building and opening up the discussion to students – an openness that has inspired numerous class projects – science faculty hope that the college will fully consider the environmental impact of the building. The planning and implementation will serve as a learning model for the Antioch community. A Green Administration Alex Stadtner, a 1999 graduate, is the new Budget and Environmental Manager. His primary responsibilities include budget oversight and work on environmental projects. Stadtner was and still is a motivating force behind the creation of Green Council (GreenCil). GreenCil began as a class action project for Ann Filemyr. In response to the class requirement that each student do something that would affect their community, Ruby Thompson and Maya Nye ’99 began to develop the idea for an administrative decision-making body that would deal with environmental issues at Antioch. Several years later, Alex Stadtner attended a conference called Greening of the Campus – the same conference Antioch will be presenting two papers at this fall – and heard a talk about the need for green councils. Stadtner knew he’d stumbled onto his senior project: “That conference was kind of an epiphany. I came back and had a lot of time to spend on my senior project so I decided to try to make it happen.” With the encouragement of his advisor and a copy of Thompson and Nye’s project in hand, he finalized plans for the committee – who would sit on it, how often it would meet, and what projects they’d tackle – and spent the next year getting ledge code changes made so that GreenCil can now serve as a subcommittee of the Administrative Council (ADCIL) and the Community Council (COMCIL).
Antioch recently joined the ranks of over 400 schools who have signed the Talloires Declaration, an international declaration of college presidents who say that their institution will be environmentally sensitive. Stadtner deserves much of the credit for the signing of the declaration, but he credits administrators and GreenCil for the renewed commitment to the environment: “There is institutional support for finding ways for Antioch to be green. Before when somebody had an idea they’d say, ‘Hey, we should do this.’ They’d talk to friends or faculty but no one got anything done. Now, any environmental project can go right to a committee that gets everybody at the same table with an environmental agenda.” Since its first meeting on September 28, 2000, now Green Day, GreenCil has completed a sustainability assessment questionnaire, created a full-time recycling/composting coordinator position, established a Green Orientation for entering students, and submitted articles to numerous publications emphasizing Antioch’s active participation in the environmental movement. “There is actual change happening at this school. I don’t think it could happen without GreenCil,” states Stadtner and his opinion is echoed throughout the community. In Conclusion, Expect Evolution Not Revolution When asked what Yager likes best about teaching at Antioch, she doesn’t hesitate: “The students. I mean they are involved 100%. Antioch students have lots of questions. They’re curious, and they’re here because they want to be.” Yager goes on to say that “Antioch students are not afraid to go anywhere on the planet. I could walk into my class tomorrow and say okay in three hours we’re leaving for Madagascar, and they’d all go okay, we’re ready.” Filemyr says she is confident that an Antioch graduate has been taught to think broadly and ask questions about their environment; is situated to move very comfortably into non-profit organizations, government organizations, or graduate school; is able to see how science and ethics can come together to form practice; and thinks holistically. Since its inception in 1852, Antioch College has been at the forefront of many social movements in the United States. With the establishment of the Environmental/Green Council in 1999, the signing of the Talloires Declaration in 2001, and the recent commitment to reduce emissions, Antioch is actively proving its commitment to sus- tainability. Horace Mann’s famous quote is more appropriate than ever as Antioch continues to win victories – large and small – for the environment and for humanity.
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