Each trustee responded to our inquiry about sustainability at Wesleyan. Read what they said!
Read the Email we sent to the trusteesCandidate Responses:
David Sewell '96
Sidney Espinosa '94
Joe Haddad '78
Susan Sutherland '82
Bill Macomber '96
Paul Mason '77
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Email Sent to the Trustee Candidates
Dear ________,My name is Nate Kaufman. I am a senior at Wesleyan and a member of the Environmental Organizers' Network here. Before we graduate, we will be voting for who should become Wesleyan trustees in the coming year. Right now, one of the biggest concerns among students at Wesleyan is the university's commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability.
While great strides have been taken this year thanks in large part to the leadership of President Roth, there is still a great divide between what is being done on campus and what needs to be done to truly achieve the carbon reduction goals that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contends are needed throughout the country—and the world—to mitigate the worst consequences of climate change (not to mention the commitment that the President signed in November to make the campus completely carbon-neutral). These aggressive goals cannot be accomplished under the current system that Wesleyan employs for addressing sustainability.
One of the most important things Wesleyan needs to do is to hire a full-time Sustainability Director who has experience in the field and an expertise suitable to addressing Wesleyan's needs to achieve carbon neutrality in an innovative, efficient, and timely way.
Many of us will be basing our votes on how you respond to these issues, and what ideas you have personally for addressing environmental sustainability at Wesleyan, and perhaps most important, creative ways for funding sustainability initiatives. Please respond to this email, and I will forward your response along to the many like-minded seniors who will be voting.
Thank you very much!
Sincerely,
Nate Kaufman
Candidates' Responses
From David Sewell '96
Nate --
Thanks for your message. I worry that substantive issues usually go unaddressed in these elections, and I'm glad you have raised an extremely important one.
Let me start by saying that while I fully support the goal of a carbon-neutral Wesleyan, I am far from an expert on environmental or sustainability issues. For that reason, I think my own ideas on the subject are of limited value. What is important is the commitment of board members (present and future) to hire actual experts who will conceive and implement sustainability initiatives. Your idea of a "Sustainability Director" is excellent; I would enthusiastically support its creation. It's far more important for Wesleyan's leadership to empower a well-qualified, executive-level official with authority to make the campus "greener" than it is for the trustees or administration to devise such plans themselves.
With that caveat, I do have a few ideas. Lately my law firm has been engaged in a sustainability initiative of its own. We have implemented a few changes that will reduce the firm's energy consumption and carbon footprint significantly. While Wesleyan may have already taken some of these steps (it has been 12 years since I graduated), similar efforts might make a difference on campus. We installed movement sensors in every office, restroom, and storage room in the building so that lights turn off 10 minutes after the room is vacated. We eliminated the sale and availability of bottled water in the building and provide instead pitchers of filtered water and glasses. We hired a new printing vendor that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council; that vendor now produces all our stationery (including letterhead, business cards, invitations, etc.). And we purchased and installed double-sided printers for all attorneys to use. To the extent they haven't already occurred, efforts like these would be worthwhile at Wesleyan.
Of course none of this can happen without money, and you rightly raise the key question of how we can afford a sustainability initiative. As you know, Wesleyan doesn't have the luxury of a huge endowment and faces budgetary pressures year in and year out. But, like financial aid and faculty recruitment and retention, environmental stewardship is vitally important to the school's future (and the planet's). We have to find money for it. I think we could take three immediate steps.
First, alums can allocate their donations to the annual fund for certain uses (e.g. financial aid, sports programs, etc.). We should also give them the option of dedicating donations to "campus sustainability and environmental initiatives." Second, we should seek external funding, likely through foundations, for campus sustainability efforts. I am aware of grant programs of this sort for high schools; I would guess that similar funding is available for colleges. Third, we should explore the possibility of allowing students to allocate a percentage of their student activity fee to sustainability initiatives. That, of course, would create a shortfall for other programs that would need to be addressed, but it would have the benefit of giving current students the option to support these efforts and "buy in" to the broader goal of making Wes greener.
These are just a few preliminary thoughts, and I'm sure that there are other ways to accomplish the worthy goals you have articulated. I'll just end by saying, again, that while I do not pretend to be an expert in this area, I recognize its critical importance and -- if elected -- would be an enthusiastic supporter of sustainability initiatives at Wesleyan.
I hope your remaining weeks at Wes are terrific (they usually are) and wish you good luck in the future! You or your colleagues are always welcome to write or call me (646-673-2415) with additional questions or concerns.
Regards,
David Sewell
P.S. One other thing. Whether you vote for me or someone else (and, of course, I would love to have your vote), I'm delighted that you have taken an interest in this election. The fact that one-third of Wesleyan's board is alumni-elected gives us a powerful role in directing the school's future. I hope you and your classmates will vote in the trustee elections for years to come.
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From Sidney Espinosa '94
Hi Nate. Thank you for your message. There is arguably no greater crisis facing our world today than climate change, and as you know, moving the needle on this issue -- and environmental sustainability generally -- necessitates everyone’s active engagement immediately.
Just last night at our council meeting (I am a city councilman here in Palo Alto, CA), we worked through five hours of new aggressive sustainability policies from purchasing programs to alternative-energy development to recycling to building standards to carbon emissions to water use and so forth. We are about to hire a full-time environmental sustainability director to oversee these issues for the city, so I understand the need for that type of leadership at Wesleyan too. By the way, did you see that Berkeley hired a Director of Sustainability a few months ago?
At the same time, in my “day job” as the director of philanthropy at Hewlett-Packard, I have been overseeing millions of dollars of investment in environmentally focused non-profits doing climate change research and environmental education around the world.
Regarding Wesleyan (and universities generally), there must be a comprehensive approach to fundamental changes in:
(1) Operations and institutional practices. This would include many of the issues listed above related to Palo Alto: building practices, recycling/composting/waste, carbon emissions, energy efficiencies – the list is long.
(2) Departmental and curricular integration. It is imperative that all educational institutions (from K-12 to high-ed) focus on “eco literacy” and the integration of environmental curricula in all subject areas. At colleges and universities, the development and funding of environmental studies programs is also paramount. There is also needed support for increases in research funding, university-sponsored lecture series, and other initiatives that institutionalize the priority within the organization.
(3) Student programming and engagement. As you know, climate change will not be addressed without lifestyle changes by all of us. School support for awareness campaigns and then policies and programs that encourage and incent environmental responsibility among all students is absolutely necessary. We also need to support the efforts (and power) of students who have mobilized around this issue.
I could go on, but I think that this gives a general overview of how I would approach environmentalism at Wesleyan. If you have other ideas, I would love to hear them. Regardless of whether I make the cut for Trustee, I plan to work on these issues at Wesleyan and elsewhere.
Thanks for the consideration and if you have other questions, please let me know.
Sid
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From Joe Haddad '78
Dear Nate
As a physician and research scientist, I applaud your efforts and that of the Network. Issues around sustainability have enormous global public health ramifications affecting current and future generations. Personally I would like to see these problems addressed in the curriculum, so that faculty and students could work together to brainstorm on ways for society to address the most pressing issues. Working on this, the university administration, either through a task force or a position leader (Sustainability Director), could lead the effort to publicize recommendations and act as an agent for change. The university should look at its endowment as a way to support companies and technologies with a demonstrated track record in sustainability. The group and its leaders could reach out to alumni active in the cause to support the effort and encourage outreach. Finally, there should be a coordinated effort to join forces with like-minded institutions of higher learning, both here and abroad, as coordinated efforts will be most effective in engineering change.
As you may know from my personal statement, I work in Central America, and I have seen negative changes to the environment in my 20 years of travel to the region. Seeking out individuals working in other countries can give added impetus to the effort, and contribute to a global program for sustainability.
It's hard to capture all of my ideas and enthusiasm in a short email, but this is very close to my heart and I would be committed to supporting the work as a trustee. Thanks for contacting me, and best of luck as you graduate and start a career!
Sincerely,
Dr. Joe Haddad
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From Susan Sutherland '82
Nate, My apologies for not responding sooner - I've been traveling the last week and a half on business and am quite behind on my emails. I see that my fellow nominees have provided clever (and quotable!) responses; either way I still owe you a proper response so I hope this isn't too late. I'm not sure I'll be quotable, but here goes:
My view of this is that environmental sustainability (reducing/neutralizing carbon footprint) is a critical issue for any organization, and one that we need to devote urgent, constructive attention to. As someone who often "packs out" my trash from my business destination to a place where I know it will be fully recycled (my San Francisco home) and travels with a water bottle to fill up at water fountains so I don't buy or use bottled water at my meetings, this issue is one I'm passionate (and maybe a bit neurotic) about. My employer is currently struggling with a number of "green" issues and with how to shift our traditional approach to, well, pretty much everything using the filter of whether a process or activity can be modified to make less of a negative impact on the environment (or even produce a positive impact!). I mention this because while the issue is urgent, in my experience, large organizations change slowly but momentum can be surprisingly easy to create with leadership, attention and energy. So the notion of a dedicated function director is compelling to me.
And now a caveat: as you could probably imagine, I have little insight (yet?) into what Wes has accomplished in this regard and how the agenda has been defined by the current leadership and trustees. So while I see the importance of the issue and the potential value of a sustainability director, I would want to immerse myself in more information about how far Wes has come, what remains to be done, and even entertain and consider other/additional ways to make the kind of dramatic progress you describe. In short, I'm on board, but I also would want more information and discussion, something I'm sure you'd find reasonable (and even desirable) for a new trustee (should I be so lucky).
I hope this is helpful and responsive to your request, Nate. Thanks for the opportunity to respond to an important issues, and again, my apologies for my delayed response.
Best,
Susan
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From Bill Macomber '96
Nate-
Is it already Wednesday?! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I've been on deadline, and now looking at my inbox I see that I've let some important matters slip, like your email.
So - to your question:
I am a committed environmentalist, and I think that sustainability is the rallying cry of our era. I'm happy to hear that Wes is, at least on paper, committed to getting carbon-neutral.
I admit that I am not as in the know about campus politics as I will be when I am (hopefully) an alumni trustee. Having a full time member of the administration sounds like an excellent idea.
Who is in charge of this effort right now? Is there money in the university budget going towards sustainability efforts now? I know that there will be a lot of focus on how to pay for this administrator. Give me advice so I can be an advocate for this cause.
To back up a bit, I have always felt that there is a well balanced relationship at Wes between different "stakeholders" * -
1 - students whose stakes are basically four intense years
2- faculty who are trying to build careers over 5-40 years
3- parents and alums who tend to have very specific agendas ("get my kid into your class", "build a bigger gym")
4- administration staff who are focused on their specific area of the institution.
* is there a better word for that? Hm.
My belief is that Trustees act as stewards, keeping all of these groups functioning like an ecosystem. This belief would inform all of my opinions and decisions as a trustee. Fixing problems (like this sustainability problem) requires a holistic approach, so that everybody feels involved and committed. As you probably have experience with, "solutions" that one group tries to stuff down another group's throat often have the opposite effect than what was hoped. Patience and spoon feeding have better results, in my experience.
Sorry for the digression - back to the point. It is essential for Wesleyan to continue its record of strong environmental action. Is adding to the administration the best solution, as you strongly advise? That could be. I think perhaps the most important part of that move would be to simply signify the ongoing commitment that the school has to green causes. In turn, this would energize the school to pitch in on an effort that they see as being well-led.
There might be other solutions, that would have similar effects:
Are there Alumni who run environmental advisory companies, who could donate their services to come up with action plans that the school as a whole would put in place?
Are there state programs that Wesleyan can participate in?
Are there existing people at the University whose roles could be shifted to focus more specifically on sustainability?
As I said before, this is an issue I feel very strongly about. I know that when good ideas are put through committees, "how do we pay for it" always comes up. Give me ammunition to use in those discussions.
I hope I've laid out my opinion clearly - please let me know if it's muddled.
More importantly, any comments and further advice would be most appreciated!
Regards - Bill
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From Paul Mason '77
Dear Nate,
My time has been getting away from me, but I have been thinking about your very thoughtful inquiry.
Here's the truth - I don't know enough about the specifics of what Wesleyan has done or plans to do.
Environmental stewardship and sustainability are important today, and will be more important as we move forward. But I am not an expert in this field, nor can I promise you that if elected we will hire a full-time Sustainability Director. I think the best thing I can do is promise to keep an open mind and a willingness to work hard and do the right thing.
Thank you for being concerned enough to write.
Paul Mason
P.S. If it means anything, I drive a hybrid.
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