It’s the end of the class. Nancy Artz and Dudley Greeley anxiously click through a PowerPoint presentation, interrupting each other as they lecture or, more accurately, yell at the class. More than once, the husband and wife combo speak simultaneously, each trying to drown the other out. The students appear accustomed to this behavior.
The class, “Sustainable Lives: 10 Billion People, One Wet Rock,” is among USM’s new programs, policies and classes introduced after the University signed the Talloires Declaration, a document committing the University to a variety of environmentally-conscious policies. Artz, associate professor of business administration, and Greeley, environmental and economic sustainability coordinator, are leaders in USM’s campaign for a more sustainable university.
Students in “Sustainable Lives” submitted posters for display in the Woodbury Campus Center on Earth Day (April 22). The display is part of several events being held to celebrate the holiday and highlight the University’s efforts in the past year to be more environmentally responsible. Events include an audit of the University’s trash for material that could have been recycled, a jazz band, open-mic session, and student-run information booths. WMPG’s Big Talk will also speak with Richard Barringer, research professor at the Muskie School of Public Service, about sustainability at 7:30 p.m. on April 24.
Greeley, who will conduct the trash audits, says half of the garbage collected last year at USM could have been recycled. “If we send dry papers, dry wrappers, all that clean paper material to Regional Waste Systems’ sorting line, we save about $90 per ton,” he said. That figure, he said, was an estimate because USM doesn’t currently sort its paper waste rigorously enough to join the program.
Both Artz and Greeley command an unabating and rabid zeal for their cause. They are relentlessly sincere. The couple, along with their class, fuse a cultish evangelism with everyday strategies for working toward sustainability.
“Environmental sustainability only happens in the long term. You have to have economic, social, and environmental sustainability, and you have to have all three,” said Artz.
The class starts with a definition of the word “sustainability,” a concept that springs from new thinking in biology that considers whole ecosystems rather than individual organisms. The course teaches students to examine their daily habits for their long-term environmental impact. The class then applies that concept to social and business institutions like households, businesses, and especially USM itself.
Usually, environmentally-friendly improvements bring economic benefits as well. A ready example is the installation of more efficient florescent light bulbs which Greeley is known to install throughout the University. (The Free Press featured his light bulb project in the Dec. 9, 2002 issue.) Artz and Greeley say one of their students is already saving his company thousands of dollars with techniques learned in the classroom.
“It’s been wonderful to see students’ thought processes mature,” Artz said. She and Greeley say they are proud of their students, who report switching to more efficient refrigerators and other appliances, eating less meat, and using water-saving showerheads. One student is even building a composting toilet.
Greeley and Artz say that after studying the course catalogue, they found over 70 courses that have some component that deals with the environment. Their hope is that the courses will be coordinated in the future so that every student receives the same background in sustainability.
For more information about Earth Day celebrations at USM, contact Reny Juita at 780-4962