<p>Yesterday's USA Today had an interesting article.</p>
<p>“A report card released Wednesday evaluates North America's 100 wealthiest colleges and universities. Those that rely on renewable energy sources, buy locally grown food and disclose where endowment money is invested get high marks from the non-profit group Sustainable Endowments Institute.”</p>
<p>A-….Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, Williams.
B+… Midd, U Michigan, Yale
B…. Brown, Columbia, Duke, UC system, U Pennsylvania, U Wisconsin, Vassar and <em>Smith</em></p>
<p>Yay Smith. I know they make serious efforts, an outgrowth of the sometimes grating or overwhelming PC. Kinda as with my now hometown of Santa Monica, there are sometimes some good bits of fallout that spring from this.</p>
<p>"I know they make serious efforts, an outgrowth of the sometimes grating or overwhelming PC"</p>
<p>Smith makes serious efforts at least in part because of the hard work by student groups such as Gaea to get their fellow students, and ultimately the administration, behind environmental initiatives such as the purchase of renewable energy, etc. I don't think it is PC-ness that is motivating the students in these organizations but rather deep concern. </p>
<p>Sorry, TD, I happen to know one of these students rather well and had to speak up.</p>
<p>Pesto, don't get me wrong: I'm for Smith's environmental efforts. And Smith has a laudable record for student activism. It's just that sometimes I experience it as a form of check-list liberalism that I can find as stifling as any other agenda, say that of the College Republicans (a different check-list). The result is an orthodoxy that often garners the hairy eyeball if one is not on board up and down the entire list.</p>
<p>(Shucks, I'd probably get a score of 80 to 90 percent on said hypothetical list. I have a friend who's on the State Central Committee who has experienced this in the Real World...being anti the Iraq war isn't good enough in some quarters, you <em>must</em> be for immediate withdrawal or else you're regarded as a conservative.)</p>
<p>On the larger scale, it's a relatively small thing, but D's <em>biggest</em> complaint about Smith is the degree of PC. Between read Jolt upon occasion, reading the Sophian for every issue that I'm e-mailed, listening in on student conversations when I get the chance, and listening to my D's anecdotes, I'd have to say I understand her position.</p>
<p>Smith's environmental efforts stem in part from its region - although obviously the other four colleges in the area are not mentioned in the above.</p>
<p>The idea of recycling, miminizing fuel use, and other "green" decisions took root in New England long before the rest of the country considered them important. These issues are deeply ingrained in the actions/psychology of the region, so it makes perfect sense that Smith, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Williams, Middlebury, and Harvard are on the list. Even Vassar can be considered more New England than Middle Atlantic, despite its New York state location.</p>
<p>The CA schools make sense as well. Although CA got a later start than NE on environmental issues, it has recognized the importance of them for decades. The state, with its strict emissions standards, is probably responsible for the auto industry as a whole trying to reduce harmful pollutants.</p>
<p>Places like UMich, Duke, Penn, and UWisc should be especially applauded because it can't be easy to make the top "green" universities given that the competition has been at it for much longer.</p>
<p>Of course, it takes students and staff at the individual institutions to create and follow the best environmental practices.</p>
<p>Good point about local mindsets. One of the reasons I like visiting Chicago is that I feel twenty pounds thinner when I go back there. For good or for ill, there's a much more pervasive "health" culture in CA. Now that I think about it, the good and ill are pretty much inseparable.</p>
<p>Remember that it is not all about "energy management". Some of it, for example, is about transparency of endowment. Take out the endowment questions, for example, and Smith ranks well above Williams (and Dartmouth, I think.) On the actual energy management/environmental questions, I think (I'd have to go look again) Smith got all "A's".</p>