Southeast Missouri State University recently announced the formation of a new Committee on Sustainability to address energy and environmental challenges. The committee will be lead by Dr. Chris McGowan, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics.

Southeast Missouri State University President Ken Dobbins also invited Dr. Tom Kelly to visit the campus. Dr. Kelly is the director of the Office of Sustainability at the University of New Hampshire, which enjoys a reputation as a leader among universities as a leader in sustainability.

McGowan says that the committee will be charged with performing an inventory of what is already being done sustainably on campus and to look at new sustainable projects. One new project that the committee has already considered is a proposal for a horticulture facility near the current greenhouses.

Every college and workgroup on campus is represented in the multidisciplinary committee. “There’s probably a heavy emphasis on folks in the College of Science & Math and in the School of Polytechnic Studies. That’s because I think there is a great deal more expertise that lies there, but it is a campus-wide organization.”

Universities in many ways are like small municipalities, Dr. Kelly says, and they have many of the same problems. “We have to feed our community, we transport our community, we need energy for our community, we need to govern our community,” he notes. “All of those provide marvelous examples to model these principles of sustainability and really to reinforce what goes on in the classroom or in research activities.”

Kelly says that embracing sustainability encompasses all aspects of life. “It really is a cultural process of reflecting on our quality of life and what makes up and sustains that quality of life.”

Conceptually, Kelly says, the variety of disciplines and perspectives provide universities with a unique aptitude for adapting sustainable change. “In a cultural or social sense you also need very broad participation in the process because you’re asking questions not just about technical areas of community life, but you’re really asking about the values and identity of that community life.”

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