TWO UNIVERSITIES, ONE GOAL Haskell and KU both work hard toward a more sustainable environment for students, faculty and staff.
by Joshua Falleaf, photos bt Steven Hertzog
As thought leaders in the Lawrence community, Haskell Indian Nations University and the University of Kansas (KU) are taking strides to build more sustainable campuses and communities. With faculty, staff and students at each institution interested in sustainable practices, bringing energy and coalitions together can be a challenge for both. Despite this similarity of purpose, the practical application and implementation of sustainability differs significantly in terms of scale. With 28,500 students and 400 various degree and certificate programs, KU consumes massive amounts of energy to keep its residence and academic halls functioning for students, faculty and staff. Add to that the energy necessary to run state-of-the-art research facilities, and one can see the challenges for Jeff Severin, director of the Center for Sustainability, and its three-person staff. Haskell, on the other hand, serves just under 1,000 students and offers four bachelor’s degree programs along with a number of associate and certificate programs. A residential university, Haskell houses students from across Indian Country, less than 10% living off campus. Yet, despite its small size, Bill Welton, adjunct instructor and project director of several grants, and a few other faculty, staff and students committed to creating a more sustainable campus are trying to create a more sustainable infrastructure to maintain the efforts. A teaching university serving a 100-percent indigenous student body, many of Welton’s efforts are aligned with the academic goals of the university, in particular the environmental science program. His office was created to “manage
initiatives that provided experiential learning opportunities for students in sustainability,” according to its previous USDA-NIFA (National Institute of Food and Agriculture) equity grant proposal. For the most recent cycle of the grant, the emphasis is on “developing student leaders who will drive sustainability programs forward” in an effort to create a more significant presence and stability for sustainable initiatives. Under the leadership of Daniel Wildcat, Ph.D., the Tribal ecoAmbassadors program brings classroom teaching into real-world application. Two primary initiatives, food waste reduction and landscaping/habitat restoration, were supported by project-based learning activities in classes from the environmental science, indigenous and American Indian studies, and business programs. For instance, some Tribal ecoAmbassadors are concurrently enrolled in AIS 301, Native and Western Views of Nature. In the class, they learn that the efforts of ecoAmbassadors reflect many North American indigenous worldviews, philosophies and cultural practices as they contrast with western approaches that now have made sustainable practices more necessary than ever. Former Tribal ecoAmbassador Shane Lynch says, “It was nice that it was driven by students,” adding that “more publicity” and “more accessibility” are important to keep the momentum going. An emphasis on getting the word out about sustainability is just as important at KU, despite the significant difference in scale. “One of the things we’re working on,” Severin explains, “is how do we do a better job of telling the story of sustainability at KU, because a lot of folks don’t even know that we exist?” Previous chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little 71
