Reducing our environmental impact

By Elizabeth Johnstone

The upper school campus has a sustainability problem, and it’s nothing new either. We all know about our plastic-packaged food in the cafeteria, excessive waste problem and extravagant energy use — and the list goes on. Contrast this with the new River Park campus, whose team has taken great care to bring environmental initiatives — like stormwater capture systems, native landscaping and solar panels — into every aspect of development. When looking at these two campuses, the reason for the disparity between them seems obvious: everything in River Park is new while the buildings at our Coldwater location are mostly remnants of the 20th century. Renovations at the upper school campus are extremely costly and tricky to pull o ough the problem seems inherent due to the natures of the campuses, after speaking with members of the administration and my peers, there’s a more fundamental issue with how we move forward with environmental initiatives. A disconnect between the administration and the general student body about the de nition and scope of environmental action paralyzes any e orts toward sustainable development by making it impossible to do anything on a united front. Moreover, a general awareness but lack of impetus on both sides disincentivizes the other from mobilizing, exacerbating the crisis further. When it comes to students, most environmental action looks like grassroots organizing on quite a small scale relative to the size of the school. On the more formal side, the Environmental Club and classes like AP Environmental Science and the Environmental Service at HW directed study have all inspired students to take action in the HW community, shaping the recycling, hydroponics and native plants programs. While I love our work on campus, it can often be frustrating to myself and other students that this is the extent of student opportunities on campus. is work, though rewarding in its own right, diverts such a trivial amount from the waste stream and reduces such an insigni cant amount of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere compared to what our school could be doing at the institutional level.

On the administrative side, action on sustainability looks like long-term renovations and operations updates. For instance, Director of Operations Dave Mintz spearheaded a recent initiative to replace all energy-ine cient bulbs with LEDs around campus. CFO and lead on River Park development David Weil expressed interest in reopening his push for purchasing an industrial composter to combat our school’s food waste problem. However, most of the environmentally-minded changes on campus are limited by time, funds, and the people who propose them: essentially a “we’ll do what we can when we can” approach, and only if there’s an available advocate of environmental policy. When funds are tight or another project takes precedence, sustainable development often shifts to the back burner. While these initiatives have been empirically e ective and great examples of administrative individuals’ sustainable-mindedness, steady change is sparse. e discoordination between students and administration seems dire, but even worse is the lack of impetus from both sides required to change it. is perceived apathy from students and administration creates a feedback loop of paralysis that makes uni ed change not just sparse, but nearly impossible.

On the student side, widespread apathy is a barrier to any e ective organizing that would put more pressure on the administration to prioritize environmental policy. Perhaps the most egregious example is the plastic waste problem on the Quad. Something so simple as tossing waste in the correct bins to divert land ll trash is a challenge. Further examples all revolve around excessive consumption — telling of the role of privilege in all these problems. In the cafeteria, students buy reusable water bottles and toss them within the day. ey get too much food and dump a quarter in the trash.

ILLUSTRATION

Addressing Misogyny

By Zoe Goor

Andrew Tate, a far-right social media in uencer, has been searched via #AndrewTate 22 billion times on TikTok as of the end of 2022, according to New York Magazine. Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist, once said, “You can’t be responsible for something that doesn’t listen to you. You can’t be responsible for a dog if it doesn’t obey you, or a child if it doesn’t obey you or a woman that doesn’t obey you.”

While appalling, when incidents like this one show up on our "For You" pages, it is easy to feel like our generation has risen above this type of discrimination. I have always known that all women are likely to be victims of misogyny, but I never imagined myself on the receiving end.

I transferred to the school this year, and in the past seven months the word “bitch” has been used to describe me twice. e rst time was to my face because I called out a male student for cheating during a competition, and the second time was on a group chat (that I was not on) and of which my friend sent me a screenshot.

It is easy to rationalize this behavior because of how common it is, but we cannot excuse these comments and pretend like they have no meaning. When we permit this language, instead of teaching male students that this language is o ensive, we teach them that their actions will have no consequences.

But the problem is that it is impossible to “grow out of” a behavior that is deemed acceptable by the culture of the school. And it does not stop at language: according to a survey done by the school, 40% of respondents reported experiencing a comment of a sexual nature that was demeaning or o ensive and 25% of respondents reported that someone touched or tried to touch them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. While the survey was not separated out by gender, a 2018 study done by National Sexual Violence Resource Center shows that women are at a higher risk of being sexually harassed or assaulted, as 81% of women and 43% of men report sexual harassment or assault during their lives. It would be challenging to track and time-consuming to prosecute each instance that "bitch" is used, but the school needs to take concrete steps to make the culture less hostile to female students.

Head of Upper School Beth Slattery said she thinks representation matters when it comes to empowering students, and she feels many students think the school no longer has instances of gender-based discrimination because of the high representation of female students in leadership positions. Additionally, Slattery said most of the microaggressions that she has heard about happen in social and athletic settings, attributing them to displays of toxic masculinity. Slattery said she sees the solution to the problem as male students standing up for female students during misogynistic incidents.

Slattery is correct in saying that male-female allyship is the answer: all students should participate in mandatory ally training to create a more supportive school environment for women. However, the problem is not one of education, but of culture. "Bro culture" and fragile masculinity mean that male students may have outsized reactions to claims of misogyny because it threatens their "manliness." ese crises of masculinity inhibit women from standing up for themselves because their male aggressors either gang up on them or label their concerns as overly sensitive or feminist. It is up to the male students of the school, then, to speak up when they hear misogynistic comments, even if they are in a crowd of all male students.

Currently, feminism is seen negatively: when searched on YouTube, "feminism" yields results that read like Tucker Carlson Tonight headlines. To combat the prevalent anti-feminist narrative, the school should hold mandatory assemblies to speak about why we should all be feminists and to provide actionable ways for students to show their support for their female peers.