188 Business View - November 2015
CLEAN & GREEN
tainability means and how these various systems – eco-
logical, social, and political – talk with each other to try
to create a more sustainable world - because problems
in the 21st century do not happen in disciplinary silos,”
he adds.
Hoover, himself, teaches a class called “Environmental Is-
sues and Sustainable Solutions,” a course that has both
pedagogic and practical outcomes. “The honors section
of that course makes recommendations to our campus
operations crew at the end of the semester on what the
next sustainable initiative can be,” he says. “From those
presentations, there are a few nuggets that fall and take
root here on campus. So, some of the projects that we do
here are from the curriculum.”
Shafer believes that it’s all well and good that students
have ideas and she admits, in fact, that many of the
school’s sustainability initiatives over the years have
been student-driven. Indeed, it was a small group of stu-
dents that pushed Messiah’s President, Kim Phipps, to
sign the Presidents’ Climate Commitment, pledging that
the school take concrete actions to achieve campus wide
climate neutrality.
But she also tries to make sure that their ideas have
practical applications. “When they came to me about a
community garden, I said, ‘That’s great, but you need to
put a business plan together. How are you paying for it?
How are you going to keep it going after you graduate?’
And they did it,” she says. “And it’s been extremely suc-
cessful. Not only is the current garden producing more
produce than ever, we’ve expanded to another location.
And the profits out of that garden have actually helped
pay for some of the student workers in the garden.”
