Washington College Magazine
"Last Fling" is part of a recent art installation in what is now the River Room in Bunting Hall. The work of Chestertown artist Marcy Dunn Ramsey is grounded in the grasses and marsh flora of local waterways.
In a few hundred years, much of Chestertown may be under water.
How George Went Green
In barely two years, WC's environmental program has grown, and grown famous—but its roots run deeper. Nowadays, you know Earth Day is coming if you see a chalk line on the outside wall of the Toll Science Center, a grim indicator of where the Chester River will be if global warming trends continue. Students, faculty and staff sign a voluntary Green Pledge, dorms compete to see which can be the most energy-efficient, and the College President signs a nationwide campus-sustainability pledge. "George Goes Green," indeed.
Washington College is celebrating its 225th birthday year in a climate of environmental activism that is beginning to draw a good deal of attention. Earlier this year, the school's efforts toward ever-greater greenness were the subject of a syndicated news feature; next up was a cover story in the Newsweek-affiliated national student magazine Current. Washington College's enviromovement may be flourishing, but it wasn't always so. Perhaps most remarkable of all is how fast it has blossomed.
Since January 2006, when the George Goes Green initiative was launched, campus efforts and student awareness have grown faster than a melting Arctic ice-sheet. Instrumental in much of this uptick was Shannon Holste '07, a transfer student from the Savannah College of Art & Design. But while the Washington College environmental movement has since hit the Jcurve, Holste is quick to point out that today's campus activists have their antecedents. "It's not that we just came to this out of nowhere," Holste says. "Students had been trying to get the school to go green for years."
Today's Student Environmental Alliance (SEA) actually is descended from an earlier club called Terra Firma. On the curricular front, the school's green roots trace to 1995, when Donald Munson championed the creation of a new major, Environmental Studies. Five years later, the Center for Environment & Society came into being. Meanwhile, there were students in the 1990s, led by activists such as Howard Kronthal '98 and Rob Savidge '01, who were sounding the sustainability clarion-call before "global warming" became ubiquitous fear-words; those pre-George Goes Green students look like visionaries now.
In 2001 Savidge tried to launch a sort of proto-George Goes Green movement, "but the timing just wasn't right to be successful," Holste noted. By 2005, the BEMOC (Big Environmental Man on Campus) was Michael Hardesty '05, who worked with Dining Services and Buildings and Grounds to establish a composting program, set up a local-produce purchasing plan, and switch to eco-friendly cleaning agents. He also dreamed up an interdepartmental, faculty/student "Green Committee," eventually dubbed the Committee of Sustainability. Web Editor Shane Brill '03, who had been involved with a similar committee at Dickinson College, helped it along.
The Committee of Sustainability met, fittingly, at the CES. "The Center for Environment and Society became a magnet for students, faculty and staff who wanted to develop a shared vision of a sustainable campus," recalls Brill. "As varying areas of expertise coalesced, there was a great deal of excitement as we began to synchronize WC's growing ecological consciousness with progressive initiatives."
Then Shannon Holste arrived, and the soon-to depart Hardesty had found his heir apparent. The Holste-Hardesty alchemy, combined with fortuitous timing, contributed to the College's green-movement growth spurt. It certainly didn't hurt that, as the twosome arranged to meet with President Baird Tipson, the College's electricity rates had just spiked dramatically. The President was especially receptive to their ideas and suggested they do something to raise student awareness about energy conservation.
Hardesty and Holste liked the concept of an energy-saving competition among dorms, and thus was born George Goes Green. Queen Anne's dorm won that first sustainability showdown in spring 2006 (2007 honors went to the Hill dorms). Holste remembers with bemusement, "That first year everyone thought that it was all a plot of the administration to try to save on electricity bills." By Year Two, "they had figured out that it was a real thing, and student-driven."
Through the tireless foot-soldiering of student activists such as Emily Richardson '07, Christina Bell '07 and Kascie Herron '07, the campaign quickly expanded to include other events: more lectures, the Green Pledge, "Green Drinks" mix-and-mingles at Andy's, public-awareness displays, a bigger Earth Day event. The movement even now has town-and-gown synthesis: through such liaisons as Sarah Gregg '07 and CES Program Director JoAnn Fairchild '84 M'94, WC has set the stage for a combined sustainability effort with Mayor Margo Bailey.
The slogan itself, "George Goes Green," is a Madison Avenue dream come true. Where'd it come from? "I was making posters," said Holste, "and was using a photo of the Washington statue, and I noticed the statue is actually green ... I was struggling with a name, and there it was!"
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