Been a long time coming

Oh no! What's this? A happy girl?

Things are slowly but slowly changing at EMU. I haven't written in quite a while, I know, but I have been busy. the sustainability fever is growing at EMU and others are getting into it.

Last fall I wrote a proposal for a grant to help form a sustainability unit here and since that time I have been working on being a part of a group, which, since I have been here has not been easy. I have not fit in well in Michigan. Once again the prophetic words of my mentor ring out clearly: You can take the girl out of California, but....

So now, 10 years later Michigan is ready to move in the direction I was headed while still in grad school all so many years ago. But come to think of it, USC was also not ready to hear the kinds of things that were going through my (and many others) heads. I will never forget a professor there who told me when I started to talk about negative feedback: Chris, you have to stop being so negative.

I was negative probably way too much because she had no idea what I was talking about, even though there were scores of articles dealing with negative and positive feedback. I was interested in living in a steady state world, rather than the one I found myself in operating from crisis to crisis. Of course, I still live in that positive feedback world, the world where one small thin amplifies beyond control. It what happens when you work in a reductionist -fragmented way, the way we have all been taught, but which for some of us stuck in our craw.

So, now at EMU things are slowly changing. I have started another sustainable class (Sustainable Cities) and we are working with setting up some indicators for the city of Ypsilanti - something to measure how we are doing in being sustainable. Ann Arbor has indicators and we are using them amongst others to set up our own. It is a good way to study where our city is in relation to others, as well as to learn what are the elements of a sustainable city.

But beyond that movement, Liz Palmer has taken over the sustainable development class, and Tom Wagner is interested in teaching the sustainable cities class, and that may allow me to begin another class: this time on consumerism. Last October I was fortunate to be able to go to Vermont to learn about what is happening there in the way of sustainable education, and there I met Stephanie Kaza and she teaches a class called "unlearning consumerism" and that is where I want to go next. I am hoping that she and I will be able to continue our conversation and I will receive more inspiration from her on that subject.

But even more! has happened. My proposal for bringing other faculty into sustainability was granted and we had our first meeting last month. I have chosen to focus on three aspects of sustainability for each of our months:
1. local. What is happening in Michigan that we should be aware of.
2. more local. What is happening at EMU that we should be aware of.
3. bringing sustainability into the whole school. Where we can go next.

I have been fortunate to have speakers for each:
1. Janet Kaufmann spoke last month on how our dairies have changed in the past 10 years, especially in the Hudson area of south central Michigan. The dangers of factory farming has taken on its own horrors in our state. She has been talking and writing about it for years now. I was fortunate to meet her when I first arrived and kept contact. She stimulated a lot of conversation.
2. Steven Moore has been in our physical plant at EMU for a few years now and has been working to find more efficient means of using energy at EMU. He will be discussing the headway he has made. That will be this Friday in the library at 2PM.
3. Terry Link will be talking about what a sustainability director does. I met him now 3 years ago when he had this job at MSU. He has since left but has kept the way of thinking and kept in contact. He will add a lot of information to what we can do and how we can grow sustainably at EMU. April 9.

The faculty group I have been working with are still people that I still do not know well, but it is obvious that they are all committed to learning more about what sustainability is and how to incorporate it into their classes, and so it has forced me to go deeper into what I have learned and how I operate. I am fortunate to have this opportunity and look forward to learning from them as I teach.

It is a good case of negative feedback to make me work without going off because it moves so slow and I want to move faster. All this forces me to fill in blanks that I may have overlooked in my path toward the sustainable. but it is also positive feedback, that initial break with the continuum that changes everything. See I can be positive!