The Issue: Sustainability must be explored in academic context
What we think: Educate tomorrow's leaders on this topic
Though Boston College's flora and fauna has been replaced with bedraggled shrubbery and the campus is blanketed in snow, no one can deny that BC's blood runs green. With the inspiring resurgence of student groups Ecopledge and Real Food BC, the appointment of Dierdre Manning as director of sustainability, the opening of organic and local food seller Addie's Loft, recycling in the dining halls, and the elimination of water bottles from the dining halls, BC has made plenty of progress toward being an "eco-friendly" campus in the past few years.
With all the progress we've made, it can be easy to rest on our (very green) laurels. We must remember, though, that there's always more to be done. We can't lose sight of the meaning of this movement and the goals we have yet to achieve.
Sustainability is not a goal that can be reached once and abandoned. With the interconnectivity of our world at the forefront of our minds, we must seek to remain conscious of how our actions affect the world around us.
It seems only natural, with its Jesuit mission and moral framework, that sustainability remain close to BC's heart. Earlier in the year, The Heights asked the BC community to infuse the principles of sustainability into every department, noting that only through critical discussion can we concoct creative solutions. Today, we ask BC to go further.
Last month, a master in sustainability was awarded to the first graduate of Arizona State University's School of Sustainability, a program installed in the university in 2007. Similar programs are being initiated at Ithaca College, Hofstra University, and Loyola University. With these developments, we cannot ignore the fact that a sustainability major is not just a pipe dream but a distinct possibility.
Though BC is already home to an environmental studies program, a sustainability major would delve even further into the problems that face our Earth, as well as the enormous social, political, and economic consequences these problems will inevitably cause.
The program would draw on an assortment of disciplines - much like the international studies program - in order to understand these complicated problems and find real solutions. If the need for sustainability and the need to be conscious of the world around us is instilled in students at BC, we can only hope that our fellow students will carry these values out into the world, no matter what field they chose to enter.
A sustainability major is a feasible option - we cannot deny that fact. With the Institutional Master Plan already in motion and the fact that "sustainability" has become a buzzword in our daily lexicon, why shouldn't BC be on the cutting edge of tackling the question of sustainability head on?
At ASU, students focus on areas of study such as international development, social transformations, sustainable ecosystems, and urbanization. With similar concentrations already in place at BC, such a program could be constructed to afford BC students opportunities to snag careers at regulatory agencies, in consulting, at non-profit organizations, and more. People who understand the problems we face and are capable of devising creative, sustainable solutions to solve them are in high demand. Why shouldn't BC, with its mission of social justice, be the one to send those people out into the world?
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