A PCC trustee outlined her vision of a sustainable campus with students and faculty Oct. 11, in an effort to take back the planet for future generations to come.Hilary Bradbury-Huang discussed her plans for turning PCC into a green campus with the environmental club in a classroom in the E building.
Her first priority has nothing to do with the physical aspect of campus but with the mind set of the people on it,
“Attitudes don’t change without behavior, and behavior doesn’t change without attitudes,” Bradbury-Huang said.
Students voiced their concerns on issues such as classrooms without windows and the huge lawns that are watered only to be cut by noisy, fuel consuming mowers.
“We have to think about five things, five categories of things when we think about sustainability, otherwise we get trapped into thinking it’s just about turning off the light,” said to Bradbury- Huang.
Bradbury-Huang, who is also the Director of Sustainable Business Research Programs at the Center for Sustainable Cities at the University of Southern California, will give a lecture on a sustainable campus on Wednesday in C333 at noon, where she will discuss the five issues she believes necessary to focus on to create a green campus: the lithosphere, techno sphere, social sphere, ecosphere, and ego sphere.
“We want to work with the board, expressing and acknowledging that there is an interest on campus and the student body to see [greening the campus] through,” said student John Cantwell. “What can we do to take steps in the right direction?”
Although Bradbury-Huang didn’t get into specifics, Associate Professor Susie Ling did.
“We can’t all drive in to school,” she said. “This is especially disgusting as we all live in the same communities but we all drive separately.”
“The Gold Line is something in the right direction, but going the wrong direction. Many of our students travel north-south, not east-west. We can have a van pick up on Rosemead Boulevard, Garfield, and Atlantic and head north to PCC.”
Bradbury-Huang encouraged students to appreciate what was already being done, and was receptive to the students presenting a petition to the administration to affect positive changes on campus.
“It’s important to have a sustainable campus because not only does it save money and energy, it also sets an example for other schools to start doing the same things,” said global studies major Amy Yang.
United Nations Campus Ambassador Paulo Rodriguez was not completely in favor of the project.
“I’m still pretty skeptical as to how she wants to bring about a greener campus. If she does it right, we won’t notice anything but a cleaner school and community,” he said. “But if she does it the way most places have been doing it so far, it’s going to raise costs in the short term, which affects students directly.”
The three areas she plans to address on Wednesday will be the infrastructure, the programs and curriculum, and leadership.
“Right now we are underperforming in the district, Caltech is way beyond us,” she said. “It’s not because they are very smart or very rich, it’s just that they made a commitment, and we couldn’t make the same commitment 10 years ago.
“Do you want the frog or do you want the smokestacks, because right now we got the smokestacks.
- EDITORIAL: Apologize about the real problem - April 23, 2014
- STATEMENT: District apologizes to Oscar winning alum - April 21, 2014
- EDITORIAL: The Forgotten Students - March 26, 2014
