Eric Zuniga, Campus Carrier deputy news editor

Nathanael Mooney, Campus Carrier staff writer

Though Berry often promotes the beauty and educational value of its 27,000-acre campus, some faculty members and students have doubts about the college’s handling of environmental issues and commitment to sustainability. 

Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy Courtney Cooper (11c) studied environmental science at Berry and joined the faculty last year. She said that Berry’s extensive campus gives it the potential to be a leader on environmental issues but finds the college’s lack of a clear sustainability plan concerning. 

“To the knowledge I have, a lot of the sustainability stuff that is happening on campus isn’t organized through a formal planning process,” Cooper said. “Like, what is Berry’s sustainability? Can you hand me a statement or a document that we could use to unpack or understand sustainability?”

Some of Berry’s peer institutions, such as Furman University and Rhodes College, maintain sustainability pages on their websites with links to environmental reports and commitments. Berry has a sustainability page on its website with recycling information and links to waste policies, but no comprehensive sustainability statements or pledges. 

Cooper said that Berry’s administration should consider implementing the kind of sustainability planning that occurs at other colleges. 

“I think there’s plenty of room for growth, and Berry has a lot of different priorities out there, but we haven’t done the planning and the systematic assessments that many of our peer institutions maybe have,” Cooper said. “I haven’t seen as much as some of the other places I’ve been and worked.”

Some students and faculty feel there is not enough dialog with administration on sustainability issues. Mykelle Patterson, a sophomore environmental science major and member of the Eco Club, said that leaders at Berry have not made an effort to hear students’ views on environmental issues. 

“If there is effort to hear students’ perspectives, I personally haven’t heard of it,” Patterson said. “Even a focus group—like, we have a group of students who are studying environmental science studies—I think that would be a cool place to start to get students’ perspective.”

Some faculty members have also raised concerns about what they perceive as a lack of transparency from administration on environmental issues. Last year, a committee of five professors was formed to look into Berry’s land use practices. The committee recommended that administration be more transparent about land management in its final report. 

“The committee feels there should be greater transparency in the administration’s decisions regarding significant development on Berry land,” the report said. 

Vice President for Finance Brian Erb has recently agreed to meet with a faculty representative to discuss land management issues every semester. 

While administration has begun to address some concerns about land management, there are other actions the college can take to improve its sustainability. Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy David Barr said that environmental concerns should be considered in every decision Berry administration makes.  

“The important thing for a school to do is to have these [issues] be considerations in its decision-making,” Barr said. “[Berry] is going to build a new health sciences building. A priority in building that should be ecological impact of construction.”

According to Barr, reducing the college’s carbon dioxide emissions is one of the most consequential things Berry could do to further sustainability. 

“The category of things they should be doing is thinking about [Berry’s] carbon footprint. I think that’s the most pressing,” Barr said. “I know Evans is getting $5 million heating and cooling renovation this summer, which I imagine will be much more efficient. That sort of thing is really important.”

Barr added that Berry should consider transitioning to renewable energy sources for its electricity and vehicles. 

“Ways I’ve seen other schools do this is using the campus to produce electricity—windmills, solar panels, things like that,” Barr said. “Berry owns a lot of vehicles. Some schools are transitioning to electric vehicles, at least hybrids. Some of them run their vehicles on biodiesel from grease from their own kitchens.”

While many of these initiatives require substantial amounts of money and support from college administration, Barr emphasized that student-led efforts can also be effective.

“I think appeals to the administration can work and they should be pursued,” Barr said. “You’ll often find that leadership at an institution may be resistant to taking costs and doing things themselves, but they’re often fairly permissive and open to students starting initiatives and doing things themselves.”

Patterson started a program this semester to make better use of Berry’s food waste after noticing how much food was left over when the dining hall closed. 

“My friends and I were in the dining hall really late after 8 p.m., the closing shift, and we just saw everything that got thrown away,” Patterson said. “As a human, it really opens your eyes to the amount of waste. We’re students, so it’s being provided for us, but when we don’t eat it, just how much is going to waste.”

After consulting with Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Brian Campbell, Patterson decided to begin a program to donate leftovers from the salad bar to feed a local farmer’s animals. The effort is entirely student-led, according to Patterson. 

“We’re able to collaborate with the dining hall, and then we have a set of student volunteers—they go to the dining hall, they get up, they do pickups from the dining hall,” Patterson said. “We created bins that have locks. We set the donated waste into those bins and [the farmer] comes and picks it up in her truck and she feeds it to her cattle and her chickens and her goats.”

Patterson encouraged students to be mindful of the waste they produce as a first step in becoming more environmentally responsible. 

“Sustainability is one of those things that feels really hard, especially when you’re just one person, but I feel like looking at consumption as a whole is a start,” Patterson said. “How many paper towels do I go through when I’m just trying to wash my hands and can they air dry? When I go to the dining hall like how much am I eating? How much am I wasting? How many napkins am I using?”

The actions of an individual student or college may be small, but Barr said that everyone at Berry should take sustainability seriously to set a good example. 

“Colleges have the possibility of multiplying their impact because of the flow of young, impressionable people that come through here,” Barr said. “On the one hand, we should just take care of our stuff the way we should, but on the other, doing a good public job of that has an impact far beyond Berry.”