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BY ROSARIO PAZ

In print | November 15, 2007

You go to your RA when you lose your room key. You go to your SAM when you need to settle a class schedule conflict. But who do you go to when you want to suggest that your hall turn off bathroom lights to conserve energy, or when looking for environment-friendly laundry detergent, dish soap, or other items for your dorm? The new Sustainability Green Advisors Group is working towards ultimately having friendly, knowledgeable and helpful Green Advisors in every dorm hall to provide students with a resource for learning more about sustainability and how they can play a role in starting environmentally friendly initiatives within their dorms.

“From what I know about [the Sustainability Green Advisors group], I think it [is] a great idea,” Vice-President Maurice Eldridge ‘61 said. ’I’m imagining it is a pilot group … The idea that there will be people in the halls that are knowledgeable and eager to convey knowledge and issues about sustainability, I think, is a good one. I think besides setting an example … the most important thing is to educate students about their behavior here and about the behavior for the rest of their lives."

“It started last spring when a few people in Earthlust were talking about ideas for next year,” Lauren Richie ’09, member of the Sustainability Green Advisors group, said. “something like an RA, something like a SAM, basically people scattered throughout the dorm that could be sort of a resource if [students] ever wanted to discuss environmental issues or some aspect of the dorm.”

According to Elizabeth Crampton ‘09, member of the Sustainability Green Advisors group, one’s carbon footprint in household settings is regularly calculated. The group hopes to expand this idea by raising campus awareness of carbon footprints in dorm settings and providing students resources that will be able to pass on advice and information to other students about small ways in which they can have more sustainable lifestyles. “We are trying to figure out ways to bring about sustainable lifestyles,” Crampton said. “We wanted to be able to be resources … We do feel as individuals that we have the need to be aware [about] the things we use as individuals in our daily lives in terms of waste, energy usage, water and all this stuff.”

Some of the options Green Advisors are putting forth for students to adopt in their own dorms include the use of drying racks as opposed to clothes dryers, unplugging electronics when not in use and using either cold or warm water instead of hot water when doing one’s laundry. They have been raising awareness about various ways in which students can introduce more sustainable ways of living into their day-to-day habits by putting up posters in halls. They also threw a study break in early October in two of the dorms, Wharton and Willets.

The study break provided students with small sheets of information about sustainability and the opportunity to take a ‘green quiz.’ “We were trying to do it in a fun way that would get people informed,” Richie said.

At the same time, the Green Advisors group is aware of the socioeconomic issues behind the purchasing of more sustainable products and hopes to make these issues a topic of discussion in dorms.

“There’s a lot of interesting issues behind those things, just really expensive in terms of the market,” Crampton said. “We don’t want to [force you] to buy these things unless you are in a position in your life that you can make that kind of an investment … If you can’t, then sort of just be aware of the consequences of your actions, like signing a bill that sponsors lowering the prices of organic food. That [is a] type of issue that we want the GAs to discuss with the people in their halls,” Crampton said.

Besides providing an additional resource to students on campus interested in learning more about environmental issues, Green Advisors would ideally like to help students who want to start up or get involved in sustainable initiatives in their dorm or on the general campus.

“could be a resource not only for talking about how to fix something, but also about getting it done,” Crampton said. “We also want to be an interactive presence on the hall. We’re hoping to incorporate sort of enjoying green spaces, more craft-oriented workshops. We’re hoping to sponsor a study break with Facilities later in the semester where people can come and talk about issues in their dorms, what they think could be fixed, just problems that they have,” Crampton said.

Currently, the group has Green Advisors established in Wharton, Willets and Hallowell, though it has yet to reach all dorms on campus and to establish positions similar to those of SAMs and RAs located on halls.

According to Richie, “Our goal was to make it eventually like a paid position and that would carry more weight and to make it an integral part of freshmen orientation.”

Funding for the group’s initiatives has been limited but has come from various sources, including Housing Coordinator Liz Derickson ‘01 and the President’s Office, according to Richie.

Additionally, the group received a Swarthmore Foundation Grant last spring that they will use towards expanding the Green Advisors’ roles in dorm life and providing more chances for study breaks and other events that will attempt to make the group more widely known throughout the campus.

“I think that with the Swat Foundation Grant, we’ll be able to do a lot more activities that will sort of make us become known to the campus and people will become excited about the project and more people will become Green Advisors themselves,” Richie said. “We really want everybody from the campus to be involved. Even if it’s not a paid position, hopefully it will become official as the paid positions of SAMs and RAs.”

Although the group is not yet fully established, there seems to be interest from both the administration and the student body about the valuable effects such an initiative would have not only immediately on the lifestyles of students on campus but on their lifestyles after college. According to Eldridge, the initiative will be a difficult and complex one, but it is certainly a first step towards broadening a greater sense of fair and intelligent living.

“I can’t help thinking about the more that people in a place like this learn, the more likely that we’re going to get some really bright people discovering some good approaches to the issues,” Eldridge said. “I think people get turned on by the intellectual challenge as well as the social element of the challenge, and resolve to use their intellects for the greater good … I think this kind of approach is one thing that will help them.”

Eldridge also recognizes the need for funds and suggests working towards an evaluation of the group’s capabilities that can be aimed towards future improvements

“Like most new good ideas, it has to compete for limited resources, which is not to say that it can’t be done … It might have to be done gradually rather than wholesale or overnight,” Eldridge said.

Along with the initiation of the Sustainability Green Advisors group, there is also a subcommittee group on sustainability, led by Carr Everbach of the engineering and environmental studies departments and Ralph Thayer from Facilities, that will work towards addressing similar issues of sustainability and environmental awareness from the administrative perspective.

Currently, the subcommittee is in the process of gaining members, both through the faculty appointments process and the Student Council appointments committee. Additionally, the Student Council appointments committee is looking for students that are both involved and not involved with groups like Earthlust and the Good Food Project.

Though the new committee and the Sustainability Green Advisors group are not currently working together, Richie looks forward to the possibility of collaborating on developing greater awareness of sustainability issues on campus.

Since Sustainability Green Advisors is a pilot group that is still looking for active members to become Green Advisors in their individual dorms, Crampton encourages those who are interested in spreading sustainability awareness to get involved.

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