Masters of multi-tasking, students juggle jobs, commutes, spouses, children, significant others, pets and housework along with their commitment to education. Managing any one of these tasks, certainly juggling spouses, can seem utterly overwhelming at times. While vacuuming once or twice a year worked for us when we were in school, children must be fed pretty regularly and one must get to work on time, at least most days. Sustaining the dynamic balance required to maintain such a complex system without dropping balls poses a challenge. Does the concept of a sustainable student offer students more satisfaction and less stress or is it just another ball to juggle?
Let’s first define our term. What is a sustainable student? This could be anyone who satisfactorily completes the requirements of university courses and thus acquires the knowledge or certification they seek. Or is this only a description of a student who has sustained the effort needed to complete their chosen coursework? A definition of a sustainable student must consider the well-being of both the enrolled individual and the system that supports the student. Most of our friends can easily overlook that we went a few extra months without vacuuming because a statistics professor wouldn’t accept “vacuuming” as a legitimate excuse for failing to turn in homework. Our body will probably survive a week or two of seriously unhealthy eating practices while we finish up that degree in nutrition, but, if getting to class on time starts to run into auto accidents, if getting an “A” in a course titled Physiology of Circadian Rhythms in Mammals means months of sleepless nights or a divorce, then we might agree that a student’s sustained effort might not be sustainable. We offer the following definition: a sustainable student is one who satisfactorily completes an academic program without compromising their own welfare or that of the greater community.
We have previously stated that, on any given day, our multi-tasking student might find juggling any one task overwhelmingly difficult. Can we then reasonably propose that students do even more? That they take on the presumably additional chore of becoming sustainable? Are we asking students to complete their academic programs and visit their grandparents and consider the health of the farm workers that grow our food? In order to be sustainable, before buying a cell phone, must a student consider whether the Indonesian factory worker who assembled the phone was paid a living wage? Should students, should we all, consider the water quality down river of the plant that manufactures our paper.
No, and Yes.
The concept of a sustainable student does not ask that students do more. Even a sustainable world in this particular orbit has only 24 hours in its day. But the sustainable student takes more time to develop lasting relationships with friends and spends less time working for more stuff. In a sustainable world, less of that stuff is responsible for the superfund sites of tomorrow. The sustainable student offers us all a more promising tomorrow by perhaps doing not more, but fewer tasks, and by doing them a bit differently. We can read, but instead of each filling our own library, we can all use the public ones more. We can enjoy eating but we can eat a little less meat and do this while we share more and waste less. We can play even more with the time we no longer have to work to take care of all of that stuff that we never really had the time to enjoy anyway. And today? Today can be better because we are aware that we are participating in a process that makes it so.
This year, USM Convocation events will offer students wonderful opportunities to meet other students exploring the benefits that might be enjoyed by living more sustainable lives. Convocation begins September 13th with a free cruise on nearby Muscongus Bay. We expect that student efforts to investigate how present needs can be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs will go far beyond the demands of a cruise off the Maine coast. Students who wish to investigate the principles of environmental sustainability can start their inquiry by choosing from nearly two dozen activities planned through October. Field trips, films, food, a radio program, panel discussions and workshops are just the beginning of a full year of activities.
FootPrint applauds these efforts and will be an active participant. We hope this week’s column starts a year long conversation with readers willing to consider the environmental impacts of our daily decisions. The Convocation information line is 228-8367. The Convocation web site can be viewed at: www.usm.maine.edu/prov/convocation