Life gets in the way

I felt good this morning, like I was getting a good start on the day and could finally take time to do a bunch of life-maintenance errands that I've been postponing all week. I got them all done, but by the time I was home and had lunch, I was exhausted and it was much later than I had dreamed it would be. If I hadn't taken care of it, none of it would have gotten done (what I wouldn't give for an old-fashioned kind of wife!), but the time all that took meant I didn't get anywhere near as much student work done as I hoped.

OK, and I confess, after I had lunch, I was so exhausted I had to lie down--which turned into a monster nap. (I am a championship napper, in the endurance events.) And I don't want to keep working tonight because I want to try to keep my weekend schedule closer to the weekday one: I think it's hard on my body to go from getting up at 5 to getting up at 8 (or later), with the corresponding shift in bedtimes. And since it's cold/flu season, I need to be careful not to get run down; I already feel a potential cold lurking (which I'm working to stave off in every way I can).

Anyway, I checked my work e-mail to see if I had any panic messages from students about their revisions. I didn't, but I did get a message from a colleague who is on a committee I retired from a few years ago; he's taken over chairship of the subcommittee that tries to address any/all kinds of environmental issues on campus, from the physical (like getting bottle/can recycling bins around campus) to the intellectual (an annual "Greening of the Campus" colloquium, which grew out of my pressure: the committee wanted to host an event, and I pushed for the focus on environmental issues--and for it to be an annual event). Anyway, he said everyone on that subcommittee is new, so he asked me for ideas. Here's part of what I said.

... Last year I did a report to find out which departments included environmental issues in their curricula (the report was sent from CWCC to the academic senate). In the process, several colleagues in the science departments mentioned the fact that students are still being misinformed about causes of issues (many students still think hairspray is a problem, for instance; someone has to be teaching them that--and many students think the hole in the ozone layer is letting in too much sun which is the cause of global warming). We thought it might be interesting and helpful to do a colloquium about incorporating environmental issues into curricula across the disciplines--and making sure that the information passed along is correct and current.

Just informationally, Sierra magazine annually does a round-up of the 10 "greenest" campuses in the U.S. (and a little bit of a hall of shame). Might be interesting to look at that to get ideas for things NCC could do.

One final note, across the board, the biggest problem I encounter is the enormous mass of students who do not think that they have any reason to care. They dismiss people who are concerned about the environment as "hippies" and view the entire issue with disdain. How do we counter that attitude???

And that is a concern that chews away at me all the time. I believe colleges and universities should be in the forefront of raising awareness about how our choices affect our planet and of producing citizens of all political persuasions who understand that a radical paradigm shift is required in our society if we are to leave any kind of livable world for our grandchildren. And still, the vast majority of my students have the "I don't care, I want my SUV" attitude. Or, perhaps even more discouraging, "It doesn't matter what I do. No one else is going to change, so anything I do is useless." Even when I point out the self-fulfilling prophecy aspects of that attitude, I can't seem to get past it.

I start thinking about this and I feel frustrated and discouraged. There is no magic bullet for any of these problems. I just have to keep renewing my faith that the students who are affected by what I try to teach will contribute to what Rick Bass calls the "glacier effect." Glaciers are, after all, made up of individual snowflakes, and they move very slowly, but they do literally move mountains....