Paul Morgan:
One of my favorite definitions comes from Julian Agyeman, who was a professor at Tufts, and he focuses on what he calls just sustainability, just as injustice, right? And his term is know he likes this language, you know, the need to ensure a better quality of life for all now and into the future in a just and equitable manner while living within the earth supporting ecosystems. So this makes sure that we’re not talking about this as something like, you know, you have to be concerned for your grandchildren because there are people right now who are suffering the effects of climate change of environmental injustice. And so that’s going on right now. And if we’re including everybody in the conversation, then our definition is going to be much more holistic. And it’s going to really focus on the marginalized and not just folks in the first world.

Keith Edwards:
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs Now. I’m your host, Keith Edwards today we’re discussing sustainability in higher education. We’ll be discussing what it means and how we can integrate it both into student learning and how we operate Student Affairs Now is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you’ll find these conversations make a contribution to the field and a restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find us at studentaffairsnow.com or on Twitter. Today’s episode is sponsored by Stylus Publishing, browse, student affairs, diversity and professional development titles at styluspub.com. Use promo code SANow for 30% off all books plus free shipping. You can also find Stylus on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter at @styluspub today’s episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape.

Keith Edwards:
LeaderShape is a not-for-profit organization that has been partnering with colleges, universities, and organizations in creating transformational leadership experiences since 1986, with a focus on creating a more just caring and thriving world LeaderShape provides both virtual and in-person leadership development opportunities for students and professionals. When you partner with LeaderShape, you will receive quality development experiences that engage learners and topics of courageous, dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. To find out more about their virtual programs, visit leadershape.org/virtualprograms. You can also learn more about their org on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he/him/his. I’m a speaker consultant and coach. And you can find out more about me at keithedwards.com. I’m hosting this conversation today from Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is the ancestral home of the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Today were talking about sustainability in higher education and student affairs. I’m very excited to have three great guests with us today. Let’s go ahead and meet them. Thanks to the three of you for joining us. I know you bring various perspectives and angles in student affairs. We’d love to get to know you a little bit Vigor. Let’s go with you first.

Vigor Lam:
Sure. hi everybody. My name is Vigor Lamb. I use he/him pronouns. I’m a former student affairs professional, but now a consultant with Kitchell CEM at the City college of San Francisco and facilities, construction and planning based on the ansesteral homelands of the territory, of the Ramaytush and Ohlone tribal nations. I think for me, my experiences with sustainability, I don’t have any formal sustainability instructors’ roles, but I think what really I think about is a class, took an undergraduate as a landscape architecture major is a making a meaning of landscapes reading class that really stuck with me. And I think ever since then, I’ve really just it’s. My mind has been surrounded by sustainably in green and what that means to live sustainably.

Keith Edwards:
That’s really great. Well, thank you for being here. Grace, let’s hear from you.

Grace Kazmierski:
Absolutely. Hi, my name is Grace Kazmierski. I am the Assistant Director for Student Engagement at the University of South Carolina and their office of sustainability, which is actually housed in student affairs. So it’s a little bit different than many offices of sustainability on campus. I kind of came to sustainability by accident. I was a public health undergrad, went to pursue my masters in higher education and student affairs and ended up really wanting to work with a supervisor in our office. And kind of came in as a graduate assistant. I’ve bounced around as an academic advisor, and now I’m here in this assistant director role.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Wonderful to have you here. Grace. Paul let’s hear about you.

Paul Morgan:
All right. Hi everybody. My name is Paul Morgan. I use he, him, his pronouns. I’m a professor of education at Westchester University of Pennsylvania, which is outside Philadelphia and on land. We’re occupied by the we are occupying land formerly occupied by the Lenape people. I said, I’m a professor of education. My area of emphasis is education for sustainability. I found that these certificate programs in education for sustainability. I also served for three years as the university sustainability coordinator, sort of part-time job. Perhaps most of interest to this group, I teach a required course in our master’s program in higher education policy and student affairs called the sustainable campus. And I’ve long been interested in how in particular student affairs can really lead the charge in doing sustainability because there’s lots of things we can do outside of the classroom. I’m a big fan of outer classroom experiences and realized because of my professor, the limitations of what we can do in class

Keith Edwards:
Wonderful well that’s music to the ears of our listeners who are spending a lot of time fostering that learning outside the classroom. What’s what’s as, as good academics and knowledgeable people, let’s define our terms. Paul would stick with you. How could you tell us a little bit about what sustainability means and how it’s come to mean this in this context?

Paul Morgan:
Yeah. When we talk about sustainability naturally we can go back as far as like the 1970s and earth day. This was certainly kind of the, the budding in the United States have some kind of consciousness and awareness of, you know, the fact that we live on a planet and you think of earth rise and things like that. But it was kind of the people think of it a landmark moment when we start talking about sustainability, as opposed to eco or environmental things which was in 1987 and kind of the, the count of future report, otherwise known as the Brundtland commission came out with a definition of, and there are terms here we can, we can kick around, but there’s sustainable development and sustainable development is the idea of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their right.

Paul Morgan:
That’s been used over and over. And it served us well for a long time. And let’s, let’s be clear. The idea of sustainable development is contested. Some people think of it as an oxymoron because we continue to grow and that’s part of the problem. So how do you develop without continuing to kind of chew up the planet? That’s one of the challenges more recently people have been turning to definitions of sustainability that really put people first, because if we’re honest about this, you know, it’s not about saving the planet. Planet has experienced all sorts of catastrophes in the past mass extinctions from asteroids, all kinds of things. So the plant is not going anywhere, but it could be that we are going somewhere. And so we really need to put people first in terms of the human endeavor, but also recognize the most marginalized.

Paul Morgan:
One of my favorite definitions comes from Julian Agyeman, who was a professor at Tufts, and he focuses on what he calls just sustainability, just as injustice, right? And his term is know he likes this language, you know, the need to ensure a better quality of life for all now and into the future in a just and equitable manner while living within the earth supporting ecosystems. So this makes sure that we’re not talking about this as something like, you know, you have to be concerned for your grandchildren because there are people right now who are suffering the effects of climate change of environmental injustice. And so that’s going on right now. And if we’re including everybody in the conversation, then our definition is going to be much more holistic. And it’s going to really focus on the marginalized and not just folks in the first world.

Paul Morgan:
You know, we need to be, this is really a challenge to take a global or planetary perspective. So that’s what we’re talking about when talking about sustainability. And I will just say a few other terms or phrases people think about when we talk about sustainability, we can talk about triple bottom line, which is been around for a while. It’s a little less in favor of these days, but still use the idea that we ought to be focusing on people, planet and profit. Again, these are contested ideas because some would say, well, that works, but are we assuming we can just live our usual lives and just kind of tidy things up in terms of social justice and the environment, everything will be fine, or do we need to do much more massive transformations? I’m more in the camp of thinking we need to really reinvent everything, which means we may need to question what we mean by like, what’s, what’s the role of economics and profit? How do we, how do we provide for people without doing it in a way that’s undermining the ability of future generations to live? So I’ll leave it there and I’ll let my colleagues jump in and add their, add their bit.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. And I’m thinking, I also think about the triple bottom line use the three PS. I also like equity economy and environment, the three E’s. So I think these are just some nice things and particularly to move us away from just thinking about sustainability as recycling and green building and just the environmental, because as you’re pointing to the equity and justice issues are so central central to this Vigor, Grace, what would you like to, to some of the context for our viewers and listeners

Vigor Lam:
Hard to follow this? I think Paul, I mean, I, you teach a class on this and I remember getting the syllabus from you and I wish I took a class or it was in the program where you talk. Cause it’s just, I think you did a really good job. And I think just to kind of give him more humanizing another it wasn’t human. Isn’t what you said. But I think for me, like as a person and a human outside of my work, it’s just, you know, not living within your, just living within your means, but really preserving was being respected, the land and the earth that you are on as you, as you mentioned, Paul. And I think it means giving back and giving more than you can take. I think that’s just something I’ll add to.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Which is really a native or indigenous perspective. Right. Let’s not think about what we can take. Let’s think about what we have to give first and then do that. So are really a wonderful connection in reciprocity. Go ahead, Grace.

Grace Kazmierski:
Yeah. And I agree, Paul, fantastic. I would love to take your course. If you ever offer it online, let me know. And same with you Vigor. I think a lot of other cultures have different words for interacting with the environment that I think us in the United States sometimes are missing. And thinking about our way to give back to the environment like Vigor was saying, and really be able to show how we are part of our broader environment is really important when we think about sustainability. And there’s a degree of sustainability called strong sustainability, that kind of situates the triple bottom line within each other, like nested. So the environment is the large nest and then the economy, or then the people then the economy. So the economy does not exist without our people. The people does not do not exist without our environment. So really thinking about it that way as a good way to visualize it as well.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, Grace, we’re going to stay with you. Obviously sustainability and the way that we’ve talked about it is really important. And, and it’s hard to think about things that don’t fall in with these broad definitions that we’re talking about, but why, help us understand why this is so important to higher education in general and student affairs, specifically, as you mentioned, you’re in a sustainability office housed within student affairs. So you’re, you’re you’re really on point for how we can think about this.

Grace Kazmierski:
Yes, absolutely. I think one of the things to think about is at universities, we’re preparing our future leaders for tomorrow. So these students, especially generation Z, we know that they’re already dealing with climate anxiety. They, the burden of climate change is already upon them. And so really preparing them to take that on and to take on that challenge from all the different areas from a local level to a national and global level is really important in helping them understand how they can play a role in promoting sustainability and really integrating it into our daily lives. I think as well universities are like basically small cities. So whether you’re are at a university or a college that’s on a really small campus, a college town, or, you know, like here in Columbia, where we’re in the capital city, you have an opportunity to impact your local area as well as a state level.

Grace Kazmierski:
So being able to start making changes towards sustainable practices is amazing. And then within student affairs oftentimes we’re the biggest touch points for students. So especially at a large institution, if they’re not close with one of their professors, then we’re the ones who are able to put on programming for them and really interact with them. So being able to have an understanding of sustainability and how to integrate it into our daily lives, as best as we can. I know student affairs professionals sometimes struggle with the ability to impact change if they’re on a lower level, you know, I’m an assistant director, so it’s not like I’m in middle management really yet. So thinking about little things like, can we purchase swag, that’s a little more sustainable. Where’s our swag coming from? Can we purchase silverware sets instead of a t-shirt that students are going to throw out when they’re done with college? What kinds of things can we do to really influence change in our students on our campus and at a broader level,

Keith Edwards:
Right. You’re reminding me about all the challenges we’re facing, climate change being real. I I’ve been having conversations with people who are saying, I am sick of living through once in a hundred years events, or once in a generation events in the past, and this is the fifth one in the past year that I’m living through. So I think that’s another sign. It’s hard to say what’s a directly linked to climate change, but we certainly are seeing so many things coming up that are, are connected. Vigor, do you want to say anything more about higher ed and student affairs in the role of sustainability?

Vigor Lam:
Yeah, I think Grace hit it on the head. And I think Paula was talking about co-curricular at the beginning with just, you know, this student affairs, as well as a former service professional. I worked at Cornell and, you know, the combination we have of students really ties into all that, you know, we’re mentioning now, right. And it could be learning these concepts in classes, but how we really interact with them is, you know, on the ground, right. When I was in assistant director of Asian American center, that’s we had this conversation about how are you commuting to work? What are you eating? You know what, there’s so many questions that we talk through and get to know these students. And I feel like sustainably plays a huge role there. Right. And I think, talk about ecosystem of the college, right? And food systems and insecurity. I think that these all tie to sustainability consciousness of the brands that they’re wearing. I think these students in this generation, so conscious of all these things, and they’re challenging the system, they’re challenging us, they’re challenging higher education, right on how do we change this paradigm? How do we continually address this? And I feel like as someone that doesn’t work like Grace in sustainability, I had these conversations, but, you know, it’s, it’s so important to have, right. And we’re having them again and again, the students day in and day out.

Keith Edwards:
Right. Well then we just had a previous podcast around gen Z and really hearing that, that generation really they described a core similar and making grace describe them as digital Changemakers, which are two different things. They’re comfortable in the digital environment. And they want to make change because their feeling is grace. You mentioned this pressure, this is happening. This is real. This is now that anxiety. And also really wanting to make a difference. And you know, we want to prepare them for life after college. But one of my real irritations, when we talk about colleges, not real life this is real life. This is a real experience. The way institutions functions, the cities, the communities we create is wonderful ways for us to practice me in community and more sustainable ways. Paul, would you like to add.

Paul Morgan:
Oh, well, let me add this. I really appreciate what my colleagues have said. And particularly pointed out, you know, this is where, you know, leaders come from in a way, if you think about, you know, what’s our theory of change, you know, we’ve been told by the UN we, we need to turn the ship around by like 2030, that’s that’s a short period of time. Relatively speaking, when you look at the major institutions in society, you know, higher ed and research is one of them. And so what’s our role in kind of a global turnaround? Well, one is we have an opportunity to work with young people for four, six, or many, many more years in the classroom, outside of the classroom. And then to be able to prepare them to be change agents who are going to go out to all fields to have a college degree is a, is, is to be among the privileged.

Paul Morgan:
And those are people who are going to be in leadership positions, making decisions about what we’re going to do during this, you know, major crisis of the 21st century. So that’s an important role to play. And I’d like to just kind of emphasize again this idea that I’m a fan of putting new things in the curriculum, but if we want to do rapid transformational change, we need to have powerful experiences. And that’s why I advocate for a much stronger collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs, where, you know, as a professor, I can provide, you know, kind of the content and the interesting readings, but few students are changed by, you know, the PowerPoint presentation at three o’clock on Tuesday or something. They, they do have life changing experiences when they’re, you know, living it. And so, you know, living, learning communities, community-based educational kind of stuff, alternative spring breaks all throughout the campus, there are opportunities to have mind blowing experiences that are, can really help shape people’s lives and allow them to make a difference, you know, when they get out and lead a professional life too. So that’s the role of higher ed, that’s our, that’s our piece of the puzzle. And and I think student affairs is really well situated to play a big role in that.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Well, and you mentioned both the campus, but also beyond the, not just the community engaged learning, but are the internships, the study away experiences where we go and the impact of that travel and all of those things and what we see playing out. Well, thank you. I feel where we’re grounded in our definition and the importance of what higher ed and student affairs has to do. We’re going to shift now and talk a little bit about we operate and how we can bring that in, and also how we foster the student learning. So let’s start with the operations. Vigor, let’s start with you, how can we integrate sustainable stasis, sustainability into how we operate and how we function? I’m thinking about the resources, the investments, the day-to-day functioning, the policies, the travel, and all of these things. How do we bring some of this in?

Vigor Lam:
Yeah, it’s such a large question. I going to rely on Grace and Paul after to speak a little bit about this too, but I think that what I think of immediately is as a, as a consultant and a designer and construction is thinking about the building system, actual buildings, right. Of the campus and campus, our largest group, the other little cities they operate and they have very large energy source and what, they’re, what they’re producing output input. So I think about building systems and I think about you know, green building, right? Because I think a lot of campuses are now tackling what does the energy consumption of our campus, right? How much food are we counting cars going in and how much is going out of the dining halls? Right. I think about life cycle costs of buildings. And I’m trying to like, not regurgitate, all these terms about building, but it’s just to me, that’s what I’m living in now in my, in my work at a city culture and San Francisco, we’re trying to help the client and facilities and partnering with student affairs for the student affairs, putting we’re designing.

Vigor Lam:
Right. What does that look like? Right. How do how can engineers and people design these systems and buildings, how does that translate to the actual building itself and for the users that are living and working in this building, the students are using this rate. Does it mean materials that are used in source? Does it mean the air quality right with COVID happening? Does it mean, and what does that mean for us to really think about those things and the land that we’re on the land we’re occupying just the sunlight, right. You know, how do we, there’s just so many things to think about when you’re, how to integrate that physically into a structure. And so I think that there’s a few things I think about and I think I’m gonna stop there because I just, I’m curious what, that’s just the mode I’m thinking right now. And I can probably think of other things as well in a bit

Keith Edwards:
Also thinking about who do we hire. Who do we hire and build the buildings where are they come in, as we get at the equity and the economics and the intersections here. Paul, do you want to add more to this?

Paul Morgan:
If you give me a chance, I will always, I’m soaking in this stuff all the time, and I love conversations like this. And particularly around when we talk about operations, I know some people have kind of, poo-pooed the operation side of things, because they say, well, we can have lots of green buildings, but you know, it’s just that that’s not really affecting anything beyond that, you know? And cause we can see like the, the institution as a little Island of perfect green buildings that in a sea of otherwise unsustainability. Right. And so thinking about how you integrate student affairs with operations and buildings and the academic affairs side that’s the stuff to me, that’s exciting where we do these full truce collaborations. And for instance in my institution, Westchester university, we’ve, we do our kind of professional

Paul Morgan:
Development work for staff, faculty, students, and community members if they want to join so that everybody sees themselves as having a role to play. If you work on grounds at the institution, our head of grounds is one of our biggest champions for sustainability, and then we’re able to do programs so that students understand what’s going on on grounds, the same thing with buildings instead of having sort of things built and then nobody on campus really understand what it’s about. Then we’ve, we’ve missed an opportunity as a, as a learning institution. And so being able to make visible the things that are so invisible or everything from the energy to the, you know, the, the material flows and waste and all that kind of stuff students who are on campus ought to be getting a thorough, lived holistic experience of all of those things. Right. and not simply just what’s going on in the classroom. So that’s, no, I don’t know if any institution that has perfected that, but that’s definitely the trajectory really kind of that full-on holistic experience. So maybe they’ve got this going on in South Carolina. I don’t know.

Grace Kazmierski:
Well, I would echo what you said, Paul, and you as well, Vigor. I think one of our main goals in the office of sustainability here is that community engagement and engagement with faculty, staff, and students. So while my role is mainly focused on student engagement we kind of use that those students who are interested in sustainability and are advocates for sustainability to be the voices of our office on campus and in the community. And so we have like Paul said, we have a couple of different seminars or trainings that students and faculty and staff can take on how to live more sustainably, how to make the office more sustainable. So we have a green certification program for offices and events that any office, any student organization or staff member can participate in so they can see, okay, what things in my office can I do in my every day to live a little bit more sustainably and then promote community level. It really is a partnership. And I think that’s something with integrating sustainability into these organizations. We need to think about how do our universities interact with our community, how do they interact with the spaces around them? And then what can we do to improve those, strengthen those ties in order to make our mission just a little bit more critical

Vigor Lam:
If I could add more to that, what you’re saying, Grae too. I think we thought it was a little bit about region. It really depends on your region, right? Where are you, where are you where you living in the city that you’re in because in San Francisco, there’s an abundance and California is always a leader, quote, quote in green and sustainable. And I think as someone in San Francisco with the college, I worked for, it’s a standard to do XYZ things, right. To these standards for the state and the city. But it really depends like in South Carolina may be a little different in terms of how you judge

Grace Kazmierski:
A lot different.

Vigor Lam:
That infrastructure already built in per se, having that agenda that you really want to have robust, progressive ideals and ideas. Yeah.

Keith Edwards:
Which which means it’s even more important to lead there. Right. Cause right. Whatever the University of South Carolina can do can really make a big difference in leading lots of others.

Grace Kazmierski:
And I’ve found that there’s a couple of different ways we can go about creating that change. So at University of South Carolina, we don’t really have a huge top-down approach, right? Like our sustainability is not a super important topic for the state of South Carolina, at least in state legislature. And so our students are very, very interested in sustainability. So we really utilize and cherish their energy to start creating some change on campus. And they’re running a divestment program right now to that divestment campaign to encourage the university to divest from fossil fuels and think about other investments that are a little bit more green. So, you know, the students are just the best for us anyway.

Keith Edwards:
I really appreciate bringing in the, the investment policies and practices and divestment. I think the other thing that I was thinking about was procurement and where do we purchase all the legal pads and supplies and where does all of this come from? Who’s making it under what circumstances both environmentally, but also equitably. And then what are the economies we want to support? Cause each one of these becomes a political decision, which we often don’t think about, which doesn’t mean it’s not political. It’s just, we’re, we’re just being sort of oblivious to it. So that’s a lot about how we operate, how we can do that from the institutional level, in terms of the endowment to, as you were pointing out Grace, the micro level of offices and how they function and what they go about doing and giving some certification, which was great. But a lot of what we do is you all have pointed to is student learning and how do we help students learn while they’re on campus so that they can make a difference for the rest of their life. And so Grace, let’s start with you. How were you helping students learn about sustainability while they’re at South Carolina and how, what are the strategies and approaches that have really been working?

Grace Kazmierski:
Absolutely. we have a couple of different engagement programs that students can get involved in. And I think one of the things that has made that successful is the ability to integrate not only sustainability aspects in hands-on projects that our students can get involved in, but also an opportunity for them to build their leadership and employability skills. So even the students who might not be super interested in sustainability want to build their leadership and employability skills. And so we try to really make sure we have a space for everyone in that. And we’ve also done a better job this semester with being able to connect with professors and our university 101 programs that has over 200 sections of our freshman. So being able to present just to classes in those spaces and really bring that in another thing that we really cherish is thinking about our campus as a living lab.

Grace Kazmierski:
So we have several community gardens on campus. They keep popping up. I swear we have a different one every year, which is amazing. But giving students the opportunity to see how food is grown, where their food comes from, how organic produce tastes different than produce, they might buy in the grocery store and what different local produce they can buy or they can grow themselves to be able to see that full cycle when it comes down to sustainability, a lot of things are about you know, a circular economy or thinking about things holistically. So any way we can show students, this is where this comes from. This is where it ends up. Tours of our local recycling center. Anything we can do to get students out there in the community to see what issues are affecting our city, our state, our community and be able to see that firsthand, I think is really impactful. And as Paul was saying anything in the curriculum we have a great partnership with our school of earth, ocean, and environment. They are great champions for sustainability on campus. And so we’re hoping to see some more sustainability involved in the curriculum in the future. But that’s really how we think about sustainability and student learning is trying to interact in any point in time.

Keith Edwards:
I’m really hearing the interconnectedness, right? The interconnectedness of the planet with our choices, with our food. And where does it come from and who do we buy it from? And then what is the food waste? And what happens to that? We’re just a part of so many of these cycles that are happening. Vigor, what would you add here about sustainability and student learning?

Vigor Lam:
So I think getting our students involved whether it be engineering, architecture, students, right? Those that aren’t sustainability or environmental related majors, all majors involved, because I think that students, again, we establish that they’re, they care about this, they have some climate anxiety or this, they all care, even if they’re not in a specific major for sustainability. So if it’s getting them involved in meetings and thinking about when you’re designing a building, here’s some things that we’re designing. We want your feedback on the design side, but also how does it relate to XYZ things that we’re picking that relate to sustainability? Right. We’re throwing that in and every type of conversation we’re having with students and then train them on the ground, right. As it’s built itself, right. Can we get you to intern or think about it as it’s being built and as things are going into it? So I, I’m going back to the building piece and I think that’s just a really tactile way to get them to like see it. And that’s how I’m learning too. How do I build something? Because I’m curious about that myself.

Keith Edwards:
Well, I’m hearing for both of you, this integrated in everywhere, you can, right? So it’s not this thing, but how do we integrate it into the building, to the food, to the dining hall, to the classes, to the outside of the classes, to the residence hall experience, to the internships, to the study, we integrate it into all these different places, really powerful. Paul, what would you add here around student learning?

Paul Morgan:
Yeah. Around student learning. And so this is really my kind of area of expertise in some ways. And certainly echo everything that Vigor and Grace have said. Besides that you were mentioned to Keith and we need an education in systems thinking, all right, most of us understand our educational process as you know, kind of narrow disconnected. You know, I’ve got a PhD in philosophy of education, which means I know a whole lot about very little. And so my professional life as an adult has been trying to move from that vertical rigor to add horizontal rigor, people who are really good at connecting the dots. And that’s, that’s the fundamental for really kind of sustainability learning is how does what we’re talking about here, seemingly disconnected from this, get in the habit of saying, Oh yeah, you can connect those things.

Paul Morgan:
And it’s that kind of way of thinking that really is at the, at the base of a good sustainability learning. And, and that also means, you know, that when students come in and many people really, they’ve got a preconceived notion about what sustainability might be and it’s usually, you know, recycling and that’s it. And the idea is that, well, that’s some specialist niche thing and there’s the people who are into that. That’s cool. That’s not me, but you know, that’s cool. And so, and really moving from that to, Oh, I see how this affects literally everything. I mean, if you’re in, if you’re in religious studies, does this relate to sustainability? Absolutely. Cause it gets to the most fundamental questions, you know, what’s the good life is, you know, consumption. How, how much is that a part of every major spiritual tradition? I don’t know.

Paul Morgan:
Not exactly. And so it really cuts across the disciplines but in a beautifully transdisciplinary way. And that’s why, for instance, at Westchester, we have two new minors in sustainability. But they’re not for any, any major can take the minors, right? Because it can eliminate and transform whatever you want to major in. If you’re in health sciences or business or education, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s kind of the real transformation is not seeing this as some, you know, narrow niche that a few people are going to do. And that’s fine. That’s swimming against the stream. No doubt, but that’s, but that’s the good work that we’re doing is really trying to show those connections. And that’s why I get excited about this and doing this kind of stuff. That’s the, I guess the last thing I’ll say, otherwise, you’re going to, you’re going to cut me off is when it comes to, you know, sustainability learning, I’m a big fan of the pedagogical piece.

Paul Morgan:
You know, content is content. That’s great, but it’s really how we do it. And it’s gotta be fewer fake projects, more real engaged, actual working on things. Right. and that’s important. Some of the most exciting stuff we’re doing in the Philadelphia region is sort of a multi-institution collaboration and then working with community organizations to say, okay, what are the issues that we can then get our students K through 16 and beyond involved in real work of sustainability and community that that’s learning and that’s stuff nobody ever asked, you know, why do we need to know this? Because it’s just too, too interesting to,

Keith Edwards:
Well, I love this about I think one of the things higher ed has done is we have we have worked on a lot of fake problems and sometimes we spend a lot of time inventing made up problems when we are surrounded by real life problems that we could go to work on both on our campus and in the communities around us. And so I think it’s just, it’s such more meaningful. It’s so much more memorable. You’re connected embodied, right? You’re, you’re touching it. Maybe you’re in the dirt or you’re sitting there with those students in the high school and the emotional connection. And when you, when you have all of that, that’s really where it’s going to as Vigor pointed to one class in undergrad lit the candle and now he’s off like a BottleRocket right. And we go,

Vigor Lam:
And I wish Paul was like, Paul, you need to offer an online class versus sign up after this. Like, come on. Like,

Paul Morgan:
Well, I won’t say just to interrupt again, the, the, one of the most exciting things that I didn’t mention is like living, learning communities, because this is actually how my first semester, my first year actually at University of Colorado at Boulder way back in the last century I was in a, you know, all fresh person dorm in the living learning community. And that’s where I did a whole semester long project on the environmental crisis. And I haven’t turned back since, cause it, cause we were living it altogether and that was a student affairs facilitated operation that set me on my track. So

Grace Kazmierski:
Yes, and I can share too. We’re in a, we have a living learning community here called the green quad. It’s a building. I’m in it right now. And I know that a lot of our students who are interested in sustainability get their start here and then learn how to make change.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Well, Vigor, you said we should push to do an online class. I imagine there’s many people who are watching or listening to this conversation who were curious about sustainability, but now are super energized and engaged and would like to get more involved. And I would love to hear from each of you what’s a resource you would recommend or ways they could get involved. So let’s start with Paul. How about you? What’s what are some resources you would recommend for people who want to get more and we’ll make sure we get all of this in the show notes for folks.

Paul Morgan:
Okay, awesome. Well kind of the sort of obvious examples, whether you know, it or not the big organization that addresses sustainability in higher education is AASHE an associationfortheadvancementofsustainabilityinhighereducation.org. And it’s a beautiful organization because it engages students, faculty, staff, business, you know, everybody from the canvas community as welcomed at these conferences. I go to the usual, you know kind of academic conference and it’s just, you know, the narrow specialist, this is everybody from across the board and they’ve really stepped up their game when it comes to equity and racial justice. And so they’re on top of it. And I would recommend that the other big organization that’s, that’s leading some of the more institutionalized facets of sustainability, like climate commitments is called Second Nature. And so Second Nature has, is, has done a great job, particularly around you know, carbon neutrality and resilience. And AASHE is working on things like, you know, STARS, which is the sustainability tracking assessment rating system. So we can have some, some standards for, you know, what, how, how well are we doing? So those organizations have, you know, webinars and conferences and have, been virtual for the last year, of course, but a really tremendous resources there. And I’ll, I’ll turn it over to my colleagues to add on.

Keith Edwards:
Well, and we, we got Grace and Vigor connected through ACPA and NASPA. So let’s not fail to mention ways, you’ve connected there. Grace, what are other resources or ways for folks to get involved?

Grace Kazmierski:
Absolutely. I think one thing that’s more practical is normalized learning alongside your students. If you don’t know something, that’s okay. Learn with them. Start a book club with your group of students, share an article that you read normalize that because that creates change. And then aside from that, I would echo what Paul said about AASHE, AASHE is fantastic. If your campus has an AASHE membership, you have access to their resource hub, they have all sorts of different resources for programming, for buildings, everything on there. So I highly recommend AASHE as well as NASPA. We have a sustainability knowledge community specifically for student affairs professionals who are interested in sustainability. There’s also a ton of kind of Changemakers on Instagram that I would recommend. Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is fantastic. I have become recently very obsessed with her. She has a book called All We Can Save that kind of integrates feminism and Oh, Paul you’ve read it great. Great feminism and art and poems and it’s in sustainability and it’s fantastic. So I would really recommend that as well.

Keith Edwards:
Awesome. Vigor how about you, what other resources or ways to get involved, would you say

Vigor Lam:
So many, thank you for sharing Paul and Grace. There’s really good choices. I think some of them, I need to look up, actually, I think one thing to not discount too, is kind of the squall, the qualitative storytelling, right. I think that sustainably, it was founded on nitrous values of living in balance with the world. Right. they are the original land stewards, and I think that their stories are really, really important. Right. So listen to your peers. Let’s do the folks that have lived this experience for years. I think you can’t discount that a few more things to add to speaking of right. I think there is a CAS standards actually for sustainability in student affairs now. So I think it was just published I believe last year. And I think a lot of folks in the KC helped publish that.

Vigor Lam:
I think about also just reflecting on what you’re spending your money on, what brands material, food. I’ve really started to look at that and I tried to stop buying clothes and thinking about what type of brands I’m buying into. And there’s multiple resources online about, I think it’s Earth Hero and like even the skin products you’re having, everyone wants the skin products now. And as you’re getting older to a, I’m thinking about hair, just all this stuff that you use everyday, toothpaste. There’s websites are dedicated to like searching for how that affects your body, but also if that’s sustainable in the sense of materials and the ingredients in them.

Keith Edwards:
Wonderful. Well unfortunately we are running out of time as we always do. But this podcast is called Student Affairs Now. And so we always like to end hearing from each of our guests what’s on your mind right now. And that can be kind of what you’ve been reading or thinking about lately, or it could be just really right now as we end this conversation, this is really what I’m thinking on. So Paul, let’s start with you and then Grace, and then Vigor can wrap this up.

Paul Morgan:
Well, what’s on mine and part on my mind in part, because I’m teaching this stuff is the important question of kind of individual versus collective action. I think often sustainability is pitched as, you know, it’s a shopping list. I buy this, don’t buy that, make sure you recycle and don’t use the straw. And so it comes down to too often, this reductionistic list of kind of ethical behaviors that you should do as an individual. But, you know, the reality of course, is that we can make all those personal changes and then the system hasn’t changed. And so there is absolutely a place for paying attention to what we’re doing, because we’re kind of a model of our values, right? But there’s lots of things that aren’t going to change unless we become civically engaged. And that’s a big part of higher ed as well is learning to become effective engaged citizens, not just savvy consumers.

Paul Morgan:
So what’s, what’s the role of collective action. And how does that balance with, you know, the necessary role of also kind of individual choices? I think being able to model that at the institution where we’re getting engaged in the community, but also paying attention to what we’re eating and, you know, whether there’s food waste and things like that. I think there’s room for all of that, but I think we all need to be engaged in that conversation. So we kinda know that, we know, the right balance, but also recognizing that students come in and maybe they’re, you know, they’re, they’re in a growth process and sometimes you get them because they care about recycling and then four years later, they’re out there in the community, making change as change agents. So that’s okay.

Keith Edwards:
I think this is really great. And I love that you’re talking about sort of take them wherever they are and see how you can engage folks from there. And I love the both and of the individual in the collectivist, right. What I do makes a difference, but what we do also makes a difference. How do we both add that Grace? What are you thinking about now?

Grace Kazmierski:
Really excited. Sometimes it can be challenging to work in sustainability. We hear no a lot. We hear that’s too expensive a lot. And so getting to talk to these folks who have the passion for sustainability is fantastic. Another thing I’ve been thinking about and pondering is as COVID-19 has impacted our campuses so much, what things about this have we learned what things about this, have we started to improve upon that we can make in the new normal? So a lot of campuses have done outdoor classrooms, a fantastic way to have students out in the environment, whether they are even just sitting in a chair that vitamin D is always good. You know, being able to reduce air travel by having these virtual meetings is fantastic. So really thinking about the way that we do things and challenging the status quo, I think is really important.

Keith Edwards:
Right and Vigor what’s on your mind, what are you pondering troubling or thinking about now?

Vigor Lam:
Yeah, it was really nice to your hear Paul and Grace’s first, cause I think what Paul was mentioning about the collective individual, I think that’s such, it’s like, I think of Eastern Western, right. As an Asian American, I feel like my family values are just what you were saying. Paul, like very collectivist thinking about yourself and the family, not just yourself, but the family. Right. I think that that’s really infused in me. And I have to kind of think about that as an American to growing up here. What does that mean? And then I think about, you know, next generation, right? I’m have a few nephews and a niece now and shout out to them. But you know, how can we really set our world up in our, in our, in our colleges or nation or how do we set it up for them so that they can really live more fuller lives without having this climate anxiety that Grace brought up in the beginning of this race, how do we set up, how do we do the best we can now in this generation and while we’re professionals in this world to set them up so that they have a world to live in that is a good, like really, just, you know, it does, it’s, that’s there for them.

Keith Edwards:
Right. Right. Well, and as Paul said, you know, the UN has told us, we got to turn this around by 2030, which to me sounds like a science star Trek science fiction, way off in the future, just to, for people who are not good at math. That’s nine years from now at 2030 is nine years from now. So that sense of urgency is really critical. And I think if you want to see the impacts of climate change and what that might look like, watch the news, turn on the news. We’re seeing it play out right here, right now in the U S and Canada, around the world with disease, with weather, with earthquakes, with poverty who has access and who doesn’t so many things playing out now. I want to thank each of you for being awesome guests today. You’ve really helped us understand sustainability better and how we can better integrate it into our work and into our lives.

Keith Edwards:
Really appreciate each of you. To our listeners, you can receive reminders about this and other episodes by subscribing to the Student Affairs Now, newsletter or browse our archives studentaffairsnow.com thanks to our sponsors today, LeaderShape and Stylus, please subscribe to the podcast, invite others to subscribe, share on social or leave a five star review. It really helps conversations like this, reach more folks and build the community so we can continue to make this free to you and a special shout out today to our production assistant, Nat Ambrosey, who will help get all of this transcribed, on the website, produced, and into your ears. Thank you Nat, you’re a wonderful member of the team. Again, I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to the fabulous guests today and to everyone who is watching and listening, make it a great week everyone. Thank you all.

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)

Second Nature

Enhancing Sustainability Campuswide

Toward a Sustainable Future

ACPA Task Force on Sustainability

NASPA Sustainability Knowledge Community

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Two Ways of Knowing by Robin Wall Kimmerer