Brittany Ballantyne
Equinox Staff
It’s not everyday that science, music, art, and journalism professors team up with eco-representatives, business leaders, activists, organizations, and community members to discuss one thing as a whole.
This is exactly what happened during the Keene State College seventh biannual Sustainable Symposium which took place Nov. 2-4. Over the course of these three days, multiple events took place including speeches, discussions, art interpretations, a concert, and the sustainability fair.
According to the symposium’s webpage, this week’s aim and purpose was to investigate and assess lifestyles and alterations within our world that can sustain the world and its people for the future.
Featured speakers included Kenny Asubel, David W. Orr, and Juliet Schor. Asubel is the co-CEO and founder of Bioneers, an organization that works to restore Earth’s ecosystems.
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Asubel is also an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author, and filmmaker. Orr works as a scholar, educator, writer, and speaker. Orr serves as the Paul Sears distinguished professor of environmental studies and politics.
He works as an assistant for the president of Oberlin College and at University of Vermont as a James Marsh professor.
Also filling the role of a professor was Schor, who periodically teaches at Schumacher College. Schor is a board member and co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream. Over the course of 10 years, Schor researched statistics in the workforce and leisure areas, relationships between work and family, and women’s issues.
Each of these events brought a different outlook to the symposium where ideas were born, discussed, and questioned. A vast array of studies were displayed and events reached across nearly all areas of the KSC educational fields. Music conductors, their orchestra, and their choir represented the ability music has to sustain a mass of people. Audience members flocked into the Redfern Arts Center to watch and listen to a concert where Stephen Danyew, Assistant Music Professor Heather Gilligan, and Music Professor Joseph Darby formed a panel which discussed sustaining music through the compositional process.
The TDS building panel spoke of its process while brainstorming for the new learning facility and explained the focus and importance of keeping that construction a net-zero energy building. Economy in the United States was a focus point for the featured speakers. In graphs, photographs, and charts, alarming numbers of products the U.S. wastes were shown. Also discussed was how much money and resources the U.S. has a potential of saving if this country’s society implements changes through new ideas.
Environmental sustainability was spoken about throughout the week’s events as far as saving our resources and ways to cut back on non-renewable resources.
During his speech, Asubel said, “Taking care of nature means taking care of people and taking care of people means taking care of nature.”
Sophomore Matt Schwartz felt that of all these different aspects, economic sustainability is most important. Schwartz said, “I think that economic issues are more important than others, they get picked president over everything.”
“Without the economy, none of the other aspects can be improved or changed,” he also said.
Integrated Quantitive Literacy Professor Elena Caldwell said, “I think however we come as sustainability is great. It’s a core concept that just makes a lot of sense to me.” Caldwell said sustainability is a concept that focuses on what people can do to keep the Earth thriving.
“We need everybody; I can’t say one angle is more important than the other,” Caldwell said.
“Sustainability to me is living in a way that allows future generations and our planet to survive,” Caldwell said.
She also pointed out that “it’s not just about future generations but us too, it allows us and future generations to survive.”
When asked what she defines as sustainability and what it means to her, Caldwell said, “I think there are a lot of things on that list. For me personally it’s being a part of a vibrant, engaged community, doing work in the world, learning constantly, eating good local foods, [and] friends and family.”
When Caldwell is not teaching at KSC, she spends her time making a difference at a local business called Global Roundtable Leadership.
In this year’s symposium, the business held a workshop where those who attended “practiced developing leadership skills together, envisioning how we [they] can be effective change agents for sustainability,” Caldwell said.
Campus Sustainability Officer and Eco-Representative Mary Jensen described sustainability as “a way of life, mindful of our place in the world and the resources that we use.”
Jensen says she thinks “that change can be good and that despair is not the only option when we look at what is going on in the world.” Like many, Jensen has a positive outlook on KSC sustaining the future.
“Keene State is trying very hard to move in the right direction, I’m not sure I see Americans accepting that we need to do things differently but I think there are many people in the world doing cool things and moving us in the right direction,” Jensen said.
Considering herself behind the scenes for the symposium week is Kim Schmidl-Gagne, program coordinator for diversity and multiculturalism. When asked what she thought anyone could learn from the symposium, Schmidl-Gagne said, “I think because there’s such a wide diversity of things being offered, hopefully there’s something everyone can take away.” She continued, “I think we’re starting to talk about the right things, I think were starting to have some really meaningful conversations about the interactions of everything out there.”
She also said, “It’s not just about climate change and fossil fuels, we have to look at the big picture.”
Schwartz said, “Because we’re in an economic downturn people think drastic measures need to be taken and if we weren’t they [people] would pay no attention to it.”
While Schwartz said Schor’s speech “proposed a lot of interesting solutions and brought light to a lot of problems with our economic system and her ideas made sense on paper,” he said that “because the economic structure that we have has been set in stone for decades, it takes a really long time to change that and I [Schwartz] don’t think it will ever change from what it is.”
Schwartz does, however, believe he can make a difference by keeping to the necessities and being alert and aware of how much energy he consumes. Schwartz feels that students “can learn to consume less and be aware of the environmental issues that we have.”
Caldwell said, “I think there’s a lot that anyone can do in their own life, lifestyle changes that can help us feel empowered and connected to the movement. It’s all the stuff we hear about like driving less, eating local foods, cutting back on energy. And at the same time, I look at sustainability as more than that. I certainly do my best in my life to do those things but I also see sustainability as who we are and what we do on the planet.”
She further said it’s “key for students to stay open” and explained that students should get excited.
“We need people to be doing work that they’re passionate about because that’s how change happens,” Caldwell said.
She said, “We often look for leaders to take up the charge out there, we ask, ‘Who are the people who are going to make this happen?’ and at the end of the day, it’s us. We are the leaders. We have this opportunity everyday.”
Jensen says students can make a difference as well.
“There’s lots of small things they can do,” Jensen said. According to her, these things include being aware of energy and water usage, buying locally, taking money out of big banks and putting it into local banks, and getting to know one’s neighborhood.
Jensen describes this as a “personal up-close, not through the windshield way.” She feels that students “have the power to effect change.”
“I’m really happy Keene State has done this and tried to include all levels of the campus,” Jensen said, adding “I think maybe it’s sort of the perfect storm.”
Caldwell said, “I think it’s a great thing that we were able to bring in folks that were able to bring in a perspective that we’re all thinking about.”
Schmidl-Gagne said she hoped those who attended the symposium’s events could “find something that’s a passion for you [attendees]” and said “something like this over the course of two days gives you a pallet to sample.”
She said she wants students “to understand that it takes work to sustain things and they have a role in whatever they’re passionate about. They can make a difference.”
Schmidl-Gagne said, “I think even after the symposium, this campus has a lot to offer and students should take advantage of that. We’re small, but we have a bit of everything.”
Brittany Ballantyne can be contacted at bballantyne@ksc.mailcruiser.com