| Summary: | My one reason, To provide hope for need. You only need one reason to (mate plasma. 1 loll how hrr,ominu 1 pIxolivi dont)! (An mcikn v In! And rirlp ynItrAin rxtrii mnnry , Asa new (d0f10f, yPu ta'IVOArn up to :TM this wok Tillgalis Mom Pomo 000 Fiptitto Moothoad (218) ;2,8747)30 Opinions of your own? SUBMIT'EM. {What's on your mind?} Send your responses or story ideas to concord@cord.edu . STEPH BARNHART • THE CONCORDIAN Cathryr-Erbele, Allie Busta and Kelly Knu son eat lunch with PSU Food Acton Collec-tive members during their High Impact Ltadership Trip to Portland, Ore. 10 Elaincordian theconcordian.org • March 8, 2013 Opinions Continue Wish I was a Dragon Distaste for the snowday handling CONCORDIAN EDITORIAL BOARD Sustainability Sympoisum: Just a hand-waving? Last semester, the college is-sued a vision for sustainability, stating it "will embrace a con-cern for sustainability that is rooted in the responsibility to ensure the environmental, eco-nomic, and social health of the college and of our global com-munity." This year, students have pe-titioned to go disposable water bottle free and SGA campaigns have laid down sustainability as a platform plank. Over break, a group of students visited Port-land, Ore. to examine lifestyle habits in one of the most envi-ronmentally progressive cities in the nation. This week, stu-dents are passing around a peti-tion to hold the administration to their sustainability promises, and on Tuesday the symposium topic for 2014 was announced-sustainability and the global need for action. Obviously, many students have gathered under the banner of sustainability on campus, and this year they are making waves like never before. Compared to this movement from students, it seems like actual progress on the college's side seems slow. In the face of unsettled students, the timing of the Symposium an-nouncement seems like it could be used as a hand wave to allow the college more time. The prob-lem is that with a commitment to sustainability, action needs to follow. When you make your New Year's resolution, it starts at that moment, and not two years down the road. Ultimately, it may be a ques-tion of student action. If this is a value that we believe is in-tegral to the school's future, we have to advocate for that our-selves. The small vegetable gar-den on campus didn't come from faculty advisors or a six step strategic plan—it came from dedicated students. If we want to diminish the use of plastic water bottles, we have to accept individual responsibility to re-duce demand. This may mean tackling small projects first that can be carried out by a few stu-dents or requires a small change in individual habits. However, that makes us a sustainable stu-dent body, and not a sustainable college. This still runs the college against a wall since lasting changes need funding. Long-term investments will require Concordia to put its money where its mouth is. Projects like promoting recycling by remov-ing wastebaskets from class-rooms or going trayless in DS are steps forward, but we are clearly avoiding projects with a price tag. Without student dol-lars, projects like replacing win-dows, installing a rooftop gar-den for the school of business or buying a composter will not happen. If we want to change our campus culture into one that visibly models sustainability, we need both student funding and strong support from the ad-ministration that doesn't push projects down the road. TONY SANG CONCORDIA JUNIOR Now don't get me wrong, I real-ly do love Concordia. I love going to class with the most intelligent and driven of peers, visiting with the most pleasant of administra-tive and support staff, and spend-ing all my free time BREWi ng. Acknowledging that not every day is going to be all roses and tu-lips, I think that for the most part we have a great campus. However, as my title hints at, there are a few instances in which I am sorely disappointed to be associated with that fabled gold and ruby ring. I have always felt that as a Cobber I should be aware of myself, my thoughts and my actions and how they have an impact on the world around me. That is one of the reasons .I love Concordia. Having learned how an individual can make a change, I recycle more, stay current on events, listen to social issues de-veloping, etc, and there is a whole student body that would probably agree with me. For this reason, I am sometimes shocked at the seemingly lack of concern with which the professional leaders of this college act. It was like they thought all the snow on Monday, February 11 would magically dis-appear at 11 a.m. and all the rob-ins were going to fly north to sing us back to class. Yes, I do admit that those who make decisions about snow days are not as delusional as I imply. It just was screamingly obvious to those who were trudging back and forth late that Sunday and early Monday that it would be completely silly-to use a the po-litest word possible-to even pon-der holding campus functions on Monday. Granted, I do not know all the intangibles that go into making such a tough decision, and I am glad that it is not mine to make. There must be immense pressure and stress on having to call off a day class. It would be unwise of me to assume that there were not innumerable fac-tors going into that call. This is not why I am disheartened by Concordia. I am dissatisfied, to use an-other overly polite term, because those in power appeared to forget about the most important part. That is namely, they apparently forgot about how their decisions would affect people and their safety. Did they not think that driving across town in 10 inches of snow would be dangerous? Was it not obvious that there would have been undue stress caused on those who were trying to traverse those snow covered paths? Were the possibilities of extra hindrances on the city snow removal by unnecessary ve-hicles in the streets not obvious? My list of grievances against the decisions to post-pone class until 11 is very long, so I will truncate it. My point is that it was unwise to risk the wellbeing of support staff, many of whom we drasti-cally under pay and under appre-ciate as it is, by telling them to come to campus. This is not even considering the stress caused on off campus students by not being clear with them about the plan for Monday. It is just frustrating know-ing that this mishandling of this weekend's Blizzard is out of character for our campus. One can recall how the campus closed down early before a Thanksgiv-ing break to give students a day to travel before a storm came. Imagine that, a day without class because people had a chance of getting stuck in the snow What a wonderfully wise choice that should be often emulated. As one who loves this campus and truly wants it be reach its fullest poten-tial, I just wish there was a way to better understand how those people make those calls so that students and staff can help make better ones. Tell us why you make the decisions you do, for example, why our tuition is being raised. I would like to know where my money is going. There are a whole host of issues that those in the know should share what they know with those that don't. Pointedly, don't treat students as if they aren't worthy of that in-formation. It just feels to me that as a student, I am not supposed to what really going on until it has already happened. Reminds me of that email I got at 1130 saying that campus would be closed all day and not just at 11. Perhaps, in the perfect future there would be true dialogue and introspection among those who populate our campus; like we are all under the illusion actually happens. Maybe then those across 8th street might truly be jealous of us as opposed to us just joking they are. S Living the green life BY ANDREW CARLSON acarlso8@cord.edu "At this time of year everything in Port-land is dead," said Portland State Univer-sity student and Oregon native Rob Duran. But his statement contradicts the land-scape 15 Concordia students saw when stepping off the Amtrak train in Portland, Ore. "It was a lot warmer than Fargo- Moorhead," sophomore John Stelter said. "There were green things that seemed alien to the arctic wasteland that we live in." And "green" was exactly what the trip was designed to see. The 15 students and a staff advisor em-barked last week on a Spring Break High Impact Leadership Trip planned by se-niors Megan John and Kelsey Kava. The trip focused on sustainability in the United States' green capital, Portland. The students toured some of the city's multiple sustainability initiatives, talked with sustainability advocates about their roles in the city, and chowed down on lo-cally grown foods from one of Portland's many farmer's markets. Representatives from Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability talked with the group about steps the city has taken to become more sustainable. These steps have included providing citywide compost-ing that's picked up yard-side each week. This and other programs have the ultimate goal of reducing Portland's carbon emis-sions by 80 percent by 2050. "I didn't expect the government to be so involved with sustainability," freshman Maddie Hyde said. Hyde said that for her, the highlight of the trip was talking with Duran and other PSU students about sustainability action on their campus. The students have start-ed the PSU Food Action Collective, raising awareness of the issues surrounding food, connecting students with farmers in the area, and learning how to cook locally and healthily. But Portland wasn't always sustainabil-ity's city on a hill. "We learned that about fifteen years ago, Portland was a lot like Fargo-Moorhead," Hyde said. "They didn't have all this crazy sustainability stuff. It all grew from there." In addition to learning how a city like Portland can be sustainable, the group learned to navigate a public transit system. The goal was to take public transportation experiences back to Fargo-Moorhead's MAT bus, our local public bus system. "Everything went exactly as planned, except for little . mishaps with the transit system," Kava said. "Sometimes it would rain or we'd miss a stop, but it helped us learn about navigating a big city like Port-land." During the trip, students developed a new sense of sustainability and are now looking to bring ideas they learned to Con-cordia's campus. "Portland had a big influence on me," Stelter said. "To be biblical, it peeled the scales off my eyes about sustainability." Hyde felt the same way. `After Portland, I have this feeling that sustainability is possible and important," Hyde said. • "It's not just about recycling. There are so many things we can do." With graduation around the corner, the seniors who were a part of the Portland HILT trip realized they have limited time to implement what they learned from the trip on Concordia's campus. "It was tough going on this trip as a senior," Kava said, "but I now know that there are 10 underclassmen that are pas-sionate about sustainability and getting in-volved in sustainability on campus. Hope-fully, this trip will start a sustainability chain reaction."
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