SSU Restructure and ED - Sustainability Committee?

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

If you haven't heard about the SSU restructure... You might want to find out, because it passed with the approval of 66% of the student body, and that means you probably voted on it.

The restructure mostly serves to redirect the student government towards resolving student issues and developing the student body, rather than focusing on events for the events' sake or being lead by interest groups that do not necessarily have the interests of the entire student body in mind. It also seeks to represent the student body more evenly and help the entire SSU to run more efficiently and effectively. This will have an effect on much more than Environmental Department, but it will affect us in a few ways:

1. Environmental Department is going to become Sustainability Committee.

Although E.D. is currently required to attend monthly Chair Persons' Meetings (CPMs) with all SSU leaders, Sustainability Committee Chairs will not be required to do so. They will, however, be able to present concerns or propose ideas to SSU as a guest at these meetings if they would like. This is because...

2. Sustainability Committee chairs will be appointed by the previous year's chairs rather than elected by the student body. (This is actually how it was done until 2 years ago.)

First, Sustainability Committee has relatively narrow interests, rather than aiming to better student life in general. Therefore, we cannot accurately be said to represent the student body as a whole.

Second, if Sustainability Committee / E.D is meant to act as SUA's version of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)... Well, guess what? That's an appointed position too.

This will not change any of E.D.'s current rights or responsibilities, such as meeting with and making recommendations to the campus Environmental Committee, listening to student environmental concerns, proposing ideas to the SSU, or hosting events. However, it will more accurately reflect the intentions and goals of the student government.

In addition to the SSU Restructure, the study body also voted to repeal the Environmental Amendment this week.

What does this mean?

The Environmental Amendment was a list of restrictions on disposable and single-use items (like individually wrapped candies) and the number of large posters that could be printed.

These were admirable goals, approved by the student body several years ago. Unfortunately, the amendment was never enforced. Every year, clubs use bowls of candy to attract new members, event leaders leave candies or bookmarks outside people's doors to encourage attendance, and Graduation Department posts several large posters. This year's SSU decided it was time to either start enforcing this rule or get rid of it, which raised several questions: Who should be responsible for enforcing such an amendment? (EC? ED? Hyon Moon?) How could it be realistically enforced? Are students willing to sacrifice aspects of some events, like the hilarious 100 days posters? Will enforcing this rule take away man power from other student initiatives? Are these the most important environmental issues for us to focus on?

The student body did not vote to start actually enforcing it.

However, this does not mean it has to disappear from the conversation.

Although we have decided to remove the amendment from the SSU Constitution, it can still be included in the Sustainability Charter--perhaps in an even better form. As students of this university and future world leaders, we have a responsibility to continue to discuss these issues and find new solutions.

How can you personally reduce your use of disposable items in your daily life?

If you are interested in helping shape official Sustainability Department attitudes, goals, and policies on this and other issues, contact Chelsea, Yona, and Sarah. This May we will be revamping and updating the current Environmental Department Charter. If you're interested we'd love to include you in that process!

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please get in touch with ED or EC. You can comment below, find us on FaceBook, or shoot us an email.

February's Green Superstars: Learning Clusters

Green Superstars

February 2014

Learning Clusters with Sustainability Themes

You might have seen these hard-working students at Learning Cluster fair. However, if you haven't, you still have a chance to get a taste of what they learned here. This year, there were quite a few Learning Clusters with a focus on the environment or sustainability. Students from 6 of them were willing to share their experience.

Nick Peck
Class of 2015

"My learning cluster was about Marine Protected Areas. We spent several days going to the MPAs in Southern California and learned a lot about the organisms that live there and the negative impacts humans are causing to their environment. I loved learning about the effectiveness of MPAs and the amount of people that want to protect the ocean as a resource."

Scott Bower
Class of 2015

"In Sustainable Housing and Urban Development, we learned about the housing sector in relation to economics, societal impacts, and health implications while getting a hands-on experience constructing an adobe home on the rural periphery of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I really liked visiting different neighborhoods in Buenos Aires with Tomas because our long walks through suburb and rural areas highlighted the social stratification of the city, revealing the stark physical and social divisions between the affluent areas and the neighboring slums. "

La Boca, Argentina (photo from Google)

Ali Houghton
Class of 2015

"Our learning cluster studied the effects of two non-native species (gourami and guppies) on the native Amazonian fish populations. We learned that most of these introductions are due to human development. I loved fishing in the Amazon, and it was really cool to catch, cook, and eat pirahnas!!"

"This is our LC playing soccer with some local Peruvian kids...they whooped us, but it was a blast!!!"

Guangda Tang

Class of 2017

"Our LC (Natural History of Southern California) was about local geology, plants, animals, ecology, and marine biology. Southern California is characterized by a very unique environment that is only found in very few places around the globe. For me, I really enjoyed the field trips. They all were so awesome! We went to the beach to study about rocks and to the zoo to meet with most common local animals, and we saw sea lions."

Poster about racoons by Guanda

Yuta Maeda

Class of 2017

"Through our Learning Cluster, China and Africa, I learned that sometimes governments are not willing to publish Environment Impact Assessment of infrastructure projects prior to the commencement of their construction, which might indicate that government attempted to hide serious impacts on environment around the local community. In addition, due to lack of governmental environmental regulation, Chinese companies (and most likely local companies) do not care about the environment, so actions from the government seems necessary to protect the environment."

Chinese dam in Africa (photo from Google)

Sage Dunham
Class of 2016

"Campus Sustainability focused on the ways in which our campus and others like ours can become more environmentally, socially, and economically friendly. We spent our first week trying to understand what SUA does and does not do to make itself more sustainable while comparing SUA to other educational institutions. The last week I took on a project to better understand our campus energy use and what we can do to reduce it."

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Here's hoping that this semester is as interesting and productive as winter block!

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 If you know someone who deserves recognition as a GREEN SUPERSTAR in the coming months, please message us below, on facebook, or at SSU_EnvironmentalDepartment@soka.edu .