EFS Profiles Strategic planning subcommittee on sustainability Berea College Berea, Kentucky Purpose: Institutional Transformation, Curriculum Change Please note that the copyright for this profile is retained by the institution. The Subcommittee on Sustainability (SOS) is constituted through the academic year 1998-99 as a subcommittee of the Strategic Planning Committee. The subcommittee consists of eight members. The tasks with which the SOS is charged were shaped significantly by a meeting, dubbed the Agriculture Summit, held on Berea's campus late last August. Thirty Berea College faculty and staff (the President, Provost, Dean, members of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department along with a broad cross section of teaching faculty) joined seventeen invited guests in thinking very broadly about issues and opportunities associated with alternative futures for the College farms and forests and the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department. The question of departmental direction arose in part from the anticipated retirement of four of the five agriculture faculty in the space of just a few years. But it also arose in the context of the strategic planning process that produced "Being and Becoming" with its emphasis on: reaffirming and strengthening the College's Appalachian regional commitment; and coming to understand the workings of our natural environment and the consequences of human interventions. The latter is central to the learning goals identified in Berea's strategic planning process: "We seek to understand the workings of our natural environment and the consequences of human interventions." Such learning requires students to study the sciences as disciplines that take different approaches to understanding our natural world as well as to study other disciplines that consider the relationship between humans and their natural habitat. We all should seek to understand the character and urgency of local, regional, and global issues involving environmental degradation, non-sustainable growth economics, overpopulation, and inequities in the allocation of natural resources. This goal will require of us all an attention to the natural resources for which Berea College provides stewardship. We should prepare ourselves and our students to be leaders in providing solutions for local environmental issues and problems. As we seek to understand our natural world, we must attempt to comprehend the impact of humans and their technological and scientific inventions upon it. The urgency many attach to these matters raises fundamental questions about the role and responsibilities of educational institutions. The Agriculture Summit was structured to address two questions with implications going well beyond the confines of any single department: as we examine issues related to food production and natural resources and for the College farms and forests, roles that are well suited to our history, mission and resources as well as the needs of the students and region we serve, what principles linking agriculture to natural systems, economic systems and human communities should guide our thinking? what are the curricular and pedagogical implications of those principles? In an effort to capture a recurrent theme that emerged in the presentations and discussion of the Summit, one distinguished guest, C. Dean Freudenberger, articulated "the problem" and "the "vision" as follows: The Problem Knowledgeable leadership everywhere in the world face the realization, particularly after the Earth Summit gathering of the United Nations at Rio de Janeiro, that we have inherited an unsustainable social, economic, technological and industrial order. The health of the earth itself is in question. Agriculture and natural resource issues are central to this historically unprecedented reality. The problem challenges our imaginations, our self-understanding of how we fit into the design of creation, our value constructs, and sense of moral obligation with reference to future generations of life. The Vision The vision that has finally taken root (born through thirty years of both ecumenical as well as United Nations discussions and which was clearly articulated at Rio de Janeiro) is the idea of sustainability. Native Americans articulated the idea long ago in describing their "seventh generation" spirituality and moral code. We understand this today as involving both interspecies justice, and transgenerational justice. We can hardly fathom the challenge of this normative thought because almost everything that we in our modern world do results, over time, in deterioration. So, for the College, and for its several departments, the question can be raised: How will we proceed in addressing this vision? There appear to be many ties between Berea College and this vision of sustainability. Surely the "problem" and the "vision" are closely linked to Berea's "plain living" commitment (please see the seventh of The Great Commitments on the Berea College website) and to critical questions identified in the strategic planning process: "Environmental crises of global proportion are one result of new technologies and sciences and include polluted water, polluted air, and polluted soil as threats to the very survival of the human species. How can we teach our students to take the long view on creaturely comforts and technological development, the long view that comes from an understanding of the need for sustainable population and economic growth?... How can we teach our students to live in harmony with the natural world even as we create more artificial and technological means to modify, threaten, and distance that world?" Furthermore, contemporary Christian ethicists have embraced this sustainability theme as a logical outgrowth of Christian stewardship and, beyond "transgenerational" and "interspecies" justice, there are pressing equity questions in contemporary patterns of natural resource consumption. With a faith tradition and Appalachian mission, the Berea community may find these additional perspectives on sustainability especially relevant. In exploring how the College can begin addressing Dean Freudenberger's "problem" and "vision" or, alternatively, can begin engaging the challenge of the second learning goal in "Being and Becoming", the SOS is charged to: Educate itself about the nature of the "problem." Educate itself about deeper linkages between Freudenberger's "problem" and "vision" and the Berea College mission as expressed in the Great Commitments and in "Being and Becoming". Review the guiding principles and suggestions that emerged from the Agriculture Summit. Educate itself about current higher education programs, policies and practices designed to address the "problem" and "vision." Review current Berea College programs, activities, and resources that are or could be involved in addressing the "problem" and "vision." Explore the benefits and challenges associated with establishing an interdisciplinary major program focused on sustainability through environmental studies (i.e., understanding the linkages and interdependencies among natural and human systems) and, if the exploration warrants, recommend a program structure for APC consideration by the beginning of the fall term, l998. Explore the potential role and value of the College farms and forests in the General Education Program, in professional development, in relation to the College's role in the local and regional community (including their ecosystems), and in the "implicit curriculum" - that is, what we indirectly teach by our administrative structure, governance processes, business practices, residential policies and other "hidden" arenas of campus learning. Identify opportunities College-wide for lending greater focus to the challenge presented Freudenberger's "problem" and "vision" (e.g., the General Education Program; convocation programs and colloquia; new student orientation; professional development opportunities and incentives; service-learning, internship, and international education opportunities; recycling and food waste practices; policies governing renovation and construction projects; College purchasing policies; the labor program; investment policy). Serve as an advisory board to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department as it seeks to reorient its mission toward small scale sustainable agriculture for the Appalachian region and beyond. The Subcommittee on Sustainability is to engage Berea's community as much as possible in reflection on these issues and to compile a first written report summarizing its activities, deliberations, findings and recommendations to date by the beginning of the fall term, l998. Outcomes The SOS spent most of the past spring evaluating how best to bring sustainability issues into the explicit curriculum. A proposal is being developed for a multidisciplinary minor program in Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS). Student and faculty experience with a minor program may lead to a major program. SOS is also exploring the feasibility of recommending that a Director of a Sustainability Center be hired to provide leadership, guidance and support for the minor program, and to work across departmental and divisional lines in promoting and coordinating opportunities for students and interested faculty in the General Education program, international studies, internships, Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects, service and service learning. Attention will also be given to helping the college community think broadly about its policies and practices and the linkages to curriculum and the region. An environmental audit of the campus is underway. This was contracted through the Campus Environmental Policies Subcommittee, at the request of the Student Government Association and the student environmental group HEAL. The Institute for Self Reliance is conducting the audit, and a preliminary report is expected at the end of October. For additional information: The Great Commitments of Berea College
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