Sustainability
October 6, 2016
EcoPAX hopes to plant seeds of resisting injustice
“Please, please, water these seeds,” the EcoPAX Club urges the community. Seeds of resistance towards ecological injustice, seeds of social tolerance, seeds of knowledge, seeds of opposition towards a system that denies climate change, seeds of growth and healing. EcoPAX is a club that promotes ecological awareness, action and education to hopefully transform the way people live. EcoPAX forms connections between national and international ecological issues on the Goshen College campus and in the larger community, by providing education, event planning, community networking and campaigning for GC Divest. “It is really tempting to think that college is only about academic...
September 29, 2016
Mark Campanale to speak on institutional divestment
On Sunday, Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m., Mark Campanale will be presenting the lecture “Climate at the Crossroads: The Investor Role in Achieving a Low-Carbon Future” in the Goshen College Church-Chapel. The event is sponsored by Goshen College, Everence, and the Mennonite Education Association. While this event is not part of any lecture series, it is relevant to recent conversations about divestment at Goshen College. Campanale could be called an expert in the relationship between economics and sustainability. He received his B.A. in politics and economic history and his M.Sc. in agricultural economies. Campanale is the founder and executive director...
September 29, 2016
Protesting in solidarity with Standing Rock
In an effort to stand in solidarity with Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline protestors, Goshen College students organized a rally downtown on Saturday Sept. 17. In July 2016, the U.S. Army Corps granted authorization of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a pipeline that will destroy cultural lands as well as endanger the tribal citizens’ access to clean water. The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is currently home to members of the Dakota and Lakota nations. The reservation lies at the border of North Dakota and South Dakota, near landmarks such as Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. This area has been home...
March 31, 2016
Multiple upcoming EcoPAX club events
With spring officially here, EcoPAX is ready to capitalize on the warm weather with an array of events lined up for the final stretch of the semester. All of the events in one form or another represent the goals of Goshen College’s ecologically-minded leaders by broadening community through ecological awareness, action, education and living by forming connections on campus and throughout the entire Goshen community. Ben Wiebe, a sophomore and one of EcoPAX’s planning committee members, expressed his enthusiasm about the upcoming events when discussing some of the specifics. “It’s difficult to have a lot of interactive EcoPAX events throughout...
March 3, 2016
GC named “Tree Campus USA”
The Arbor Day Foundation has named Goshen College a “Tree Campus USA” for the year of 2015. The college has maintained its status after 2014’s initial induction into the program. The program Tree Campus USA is a nation-wide opportunity for colleges and universities to engage students and faculty in practicing conservation and forest management. To be included in the program, the campus must meet the five standards of a “Tree Campus”: maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its tree program, Arbor Day observance and a service project that engages the students on campus....
February 11, 2016
GC Divest and Divest EMU write joint letter
The GC Divest movement, whose mission is “to lead the Goshen College community’s divestment movement through values grounded in ecojustice and Indigenous rights,” grew out of EcoPAX, an environmental justice organization on the campus of Goshen College. The goal of divestment movements is to stop investments in companies that are believed to be acting unethically, particularly in regards to environmental issues. Looking to build partnerships beyond the college, GC Divest recently began to partner with Divest EMU, a similar student-led organization at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. Divest EMU student leader Alicia Poplett is grateful for the chance to...
December 3, 2015
Brenneman attends White House summit
The Goshen College campus was surprised on Thursday, Nov. 19 to find out, after the fact, that our president, Jim Brenneman, had attended a meeting at the White House. On Nov. 11, the college received word from White House executives that we may be one of 50 colleges from around the country invited to attend a round table discussion about sustainability and green initiatives on college campuses. The official invitation and plans were not finalized until Monday, Nov. 16, just three days before the event. “This whole thing was embargoed to the press until after the event,” said Brenneman. “No...
October 29, 2015
EcoPAX hosts Food Week
This week, the EcoPAX club has put together numerous events to celebrate Goshen’s first ever Food Week, including presentations, volunteer opportunities, and conversations about food. Hannah Yoder, a sophomore leader of EcoPAX and an organizer of the week explained that Food Week is a week where “we are focusing on themes of food justice, food waste and packaging, food production, food deserts and scarcity, and food in community.” By hosting these events, EcoPax is hoping to encourage discussion on campus about global problems surrounding food. In order to allow time for discussion on campus, planners of the events decided to...
September 24, 2015
Science students out in the field
This is the third year of operation for the Sustainability Leadership Semester at Merry Lea, where Goshen College students live on campus in Rieth Village and take a set of courses focusing on what people can do to make their communities more economically and ecologically sustainable. The SLS is open to anyone who wishes to enroll, but it especially serves to complete a concentration in sustainability within GC’s environmental science major. This year there are six participants: senior art major David Pauls, junior peace, justice and conflict studies major Naomi Gross, junior environmental science majors Cecilia Lapp Stoltzfus and Kayla...
February 19, 2015
Students organize Divestment Day potluck
EcoPAX hosted a potluck on Saturday, February 14 in honor of Divestment Day. According to Cecilia Lapp Stoltzfus, a sophomore and one of the coordinators of the event, the potluck was created as an attempt to engage the larger campus and community in the divestment discussion. Everyone on Goshen’s campus and members of the surrounding community were invited to eat, discuss and learn more about divesting from fossil fuel companies. Global Divestment Day is a day devoted to education about fossil fuels and how they affect our global climate. On this day, people and institutions are encouraged to divest their...
December 3, 2014
Eco-PAX Encourages Community, Sustainability
The Eco-PAX Club hosted 25 students who shared “stone soup.” Stone Soup is an event that promotes a strong sense of community and fellowship. Each person who attends the event brings an ingredient, and the various offerings are thrown into a pot. The participants enjoy the resulting soup. “At the beginning we had some lofty goals of actually making the soup in a large cauldron, which we did attempt, but we just took it into the kitchen—and now we carry on with that tradition,” Joanna Epp, a junior, said. Eco-PAX is a student-led group–the leaders for the 2014-15 year are...
December 3, 2014
It’s Really Really Free
The Really Really Free Market is an event where students donate items that they no longer need, and other students can acquire those items free of charge. Hannah Sauder, a junior, is in charge of the event this year as she was last year. She took over the enterprise from the 2014 Goshen College graduates and creators, Lauren Treiber and AL Krawiec, who first put the event together in 2010. “The goal of this event is to encourage the recycling of material,” Sauder said. “In a society where we are encouraged to consume, this event encourages conservation of resources. I...
December 3, 2014
New Sustainability Course Being Offered Next Spring
A new student instigated class on sustainability will be coming to Goshen College in the upcoming semester. Sustainability has always been a vital part of Goshen College. Last May, Goshen announced that it would voluntarily purchase all of its energy from renewable sources. The Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center earned the Platinum LEED certification, the highest ranking for green buildings, in 2007. Students have initiated projects such as the SunShower project, which harnesses solar energy to heat the shower water in the Roman-Gingerich Recreational Fitness Center. This new course, entitled Sustainable Living Skills, will focus on various sustainable lifestyle skills....
November 19, 2014
Interdisciplinary Panel Calls For Cooperative Climate Action
The annual interdisciplinary coffee hour left students and staff with individual and collective calls-to-action in regards to climate change. Ryan Sensenig, associate professor of biological and environmental sciences, tapped a few shoulders of the students who marched in New York earlier this semester, but the details of the event and the arranging of the panel was left to the students. Cecilia Lapp Stoltzfus, a sophomore and event organizer, said, “We wanted to have ecology, economics, policy, community and international interests represented in this interdisciplinary discussion.” Members of the panel were the aforementioned Sensenig; Phil Metzler, author at Transition Goshen; Noemi...
September 10, 2014
Merry Lea Houses Sustainability Students
Off-campus sustainability semester creates opportunities for GC students. On Friday, Sept. 5, four Goshen College students (Hannah Barg, a junior; Mikhail Fernandes, a junior; Jenna Lee, a junior; and Jessie Smucker, a senior) began paddling down the Elkhart River to the St. Joe River towards Lake Michigan. As they go they will meet up with groups from different colleges, business owners, farmers and even mayors in order to learn about the local Elkhart watershed and its health. This is how the Sustainability Semester begins; actual classes do not begin until Sept. 16, after the end of the canoe trip. The...