Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of five articles about Dartmouth and the environment.
Environmental advocacy is more popular than the average student may suspect.
"There's a huge group of students involved in the environment at Dartmouth," said Oliver Bernstein '03, who was coordinator for the Tucker Foundation-affiliated Environmental Conservation Organization until last term.
These students have a diverse set of perspectives and backgrounds on the issue, from engineers who are looking at the more technical aspects of environmental problems to students who want to change consumption habits, according to Charlie White '02, who has been involved in many environmental organizations.
The range of student organizations that are involved with environmental issues reflects this.
They run the gamut from the Dartmouth-centered, well-funded and highly coordinated ECO to the highly political Dartmouth Greens to Dartmouth's organic farm just north of campus.
ECO hires up to 20 paid interns that receive their funding from the different departments where these interns try to encourage sustainability, according Michael Ricci, the ECO faculty advisor.
This can be anything from printing intern Jeff Kemnitz's '03 efforts to improve GreenPrint, which ECO helped develop, to ECO Coordinator Brent Reidy's '05 looking at ways to decrease the amount of junk mail coming to students' Hinman Boxes.
ECO is more focused on Dartmouth-specific issues than the other student-run organizations here, said Reidy.
For example, the Environmental Studies Division of the Dartmouth Outing Club focuses equally on global environmental issues and educating those around the Upper Valley about the outdoors, Bernstein said.
Other groups include the Dartmouth Vegetarian Alliance, which works to improve the quality of life of Dartmouth vegetarians and vegans and to educate people on the merits of those diets, and the Ivy League Environmental Council, which works with schools outside Dartmouth. Both organization were founded by Sue DuBois '05.
"Dartmouth is a good place to work on environmental issues because the student mix is like an exaggerated version of the real world," said Bernstein. "There are the environmentally conscious and the environmentally apathetic, but at Dartmouth each side is exaggerated."
Bernstein felt that most Dartmouth's students privileged lifestyles keep them insulated from the impact of the decisions they make that have an environmental impact. For example, Dartmouth students do not have to deal with their own trash or pay their own electric bills.
He also thought that the administration does not give enough emphasis to sustainability. For example, the College has no sustainability coordinator on the provost level, so decisions such as the College's move to ban kegs in favor of canned beer have not been considered for their environmental impact.
However, Reidy said that ECO enjoyed a very smooth relationship with a number of different departments at Dartmouth.
Something about Dartmouth also seems to inspire a great deal of environmental passion.
"Being rural means that Dartmouth has more students involved in outdoor activities than the average college does," said Bernstein. "It makes people more aware of their natural surroundings, and that gets more people involved."
Dartmouth also focuses more on land-use and local issues whereas urban colleges focus on big companies' and governments' actions, Kemnitz said.
The most frequent problem that student environmental advocates face is the lack of time students have during Dartmouth's short, 10-week terms. For example, Kemnitz decided to start a quarterly magazine devoted to environmental issues only after he decided not to do a thesis.
The D-plan can also leave some environmental projects left in limbo. And, Bernstein noted, being at the College for only four years means the administration does not have to stall a project long for it to fall by the wayside.
Students' environmental passion can continue after students graduate.
Doing environmental work "ignites a passion that probably won't die for a long time to come," said Kemnitz. "You also start to understand the kind of connection you need to be making ... you understand how the whole system works."
The Dartmouth Environmental Network is a group of about 500 alumni who are interested in environmental issues. Each year there about a dozen recent graduates who are very excited about DEN join right away, according to its president, Dan LeBlanc '93.
DEN also helps students network and promotes environmental careers on campus.
Over the years, the range of environmental careers available has expanded, LeBlanc said.
