College activism is a heady, righteous but lonely business, characterized by earnest campaigns crashing like a wave against the unforgiving shore of peers’ apathy. On campuses across America, young soldiers of conscious too often wander the halls dismayed by the masses’ resilient obliviousness, unaware that others like them – sometimes just feet away – are pouring their energies toward the same end.
But at Fort Lewis College, students’ activist silos became lighthouses Tuesday at the first-ever Sustainability Summit, which attracted about 60 students, professors and staff members eager to share their passion, projects and knowledge.
Organizer Carrie Meneghin, an FLC senior, said “There’s been a disconnect between groups with common goals.”
While FLC is a bastion of environmentalist zeal with a long track record of political involvement, Meneghin said the community was so disjointed “it had been difficult to find information about previous efforts – and even about triumphs.”
Bringing the community together for the summit took Meneghin and fellow students 10 hours a week – all semester.
It paid off.
As students milled about asking kindred spirits to expound on posters explaining their projects, the summit seemed half environmentalist convention and half science fair.
And, oh, the posters:
There was a handmade local food poster featuring a tree and beautiful penmanship; a poster touting the Environmental Center’s composting program; another handmade poster illustrating the “zero waste team outline” with a marker flow chart on dark blue paper; a similarly intricate poster outlining FLC’s Sustainability Office; another promoting the “Food Waste Audit Wrap Up.”
Some were more flamboyant than others.
One poster boldly asked: “What do condoms have to do with endangered species?” Then answered in catchy rhymes with unorthodox meter: “Don’t go bare, panthers are rare,” “In the sack? Save the leatherback.” (The campaign is designed to discourage human-population growth and thereby place less pressure on endangered species.)
“The poster session is a really good way for people to share their interests, project ideas, have awesome conversations and collaborate with people who actually care,” Meneghin said.
She learned of FLC Wild, a new group started this semester.
FLC Wild’s Lionel Di Giacomo said, for a new group, the summit was invaluable as an equalizer.
Dedicated to the conservation and stewardship of wildlands and wildlife, Di Giacomo said the group is throwing a pajama party April 17 to draw students’ attention to bears’ waking from hibernation.
He said the summit’s poster challenge had forced the group to distill its many ideas into a single, practical pitch.
FLC Wild’s poster displayed photographs of peckish bears launching themselves into campus Dumpsters with characteristic chutzpah.
FLC Wild’s Aleah Lewis, a senior and sociology major, said she already was working with Bear Smart’s tireless leader Bryan Peterson to get better bear-proofing technology on campus.
“Basically, FLC lacks bear-proof trash cans and Dumpsters. Our mission is to try and promote bear-proof trash cans and Dumpsters,” she said. “Currently, we have two bear-proof Dumpsters and no bear-proof trash cans – nothing. And the bear-proof Dumpsters are clearly broken.”
Sophomore Michaela Steiner, a women’s and gender studies major, stood in front of an immaculate poster calling for FLC to divest within five years from companies such as Exxon Mobile and Chevron that drive the global fossil-fuel economy.
Steiner, who founded and manages the fossil-fuel divestment campaign, said she deeply appreciated the opportunity to learn what her ideologically like-minded are up to, and perhaps collaborate in the future.
“It’s really positive to see ways people are moving forward. And it’s great to be able to find out what limitations there might be at the college and brainstorm ways to meet goals,” she said.
“The most exciting thing about this event is that it creates and opportunity to bridge gaps between faculty, staff and students of different majors,”Hari Baumbach said, a Climate Action Team member within FLC’s Environmental Center.
FLC professor Pete McCormick said he was “very impressed” by attendance.
“There’s a lot of good news despite the gloom and doom that tends to pervade courses that tell you the truth,” he said.
McCormick was the first of four speakers, including professor Lorraine Lobascio, Mark Gutt and Rachel Landis, to speak before students gathered in smaller groups to workshop.
“Environmental studies is the fastest growing major because incoming students know we are in crisis,” McCormick said. “We do not have the resources to address every single thing – and in that, we mirror the planet. We need to agree on priorities.”
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
