They say that home is where the heart is. If this is true, then the residents of the newest Special Interest Community, GreenBurough, keep their hearts in an environmentally conscious dorm.
Come next September, that will be home sweet home.
They say that home is where the heart is. If this is true, then the residents of the newest Special Interest Community, GreenBurough, keep their hearts in an environmentally conscious dorm. Come next September, that will be home sweet home.
The residential group, to whom Housing Services bequeathed a 114th Street townhouse of six doubles and one single that is to be christened by 13 inaugural members, has been formed with one clear goal: to establish a model for sustainable living and education on campus. But this intent might not be surprising; a look at the community’s roster reveals that the majority of residents are also EcoReps, a campus student group focused on issues within the vein of environmental stewardship.
What might not be quite as obvious is why such a group would require an integrated, specialized housing community. The question begs to be asked because of the notoriously difficult struggle that SIC, or Special Interest Communities, go through to be approved and subsidized by University Housing and Dining. What is different about GreenBurough? Why does it legitimately deserve funding?
The answer lies in resources—resources that will allow active implementation of environmental initiatives and the tracking of their impact, resources that will make it possible for the green-minded on campus to truly practice what they preach, resources by which, the hope is, a paradigm of environmentally responsible living will exist and influence Columbia’s Housing and Dining services. The townhouse will grant the community space to create a true campus sustainability center, from which Green Umbrella, the University’s green-group catchall, will monitor all environmental activity on campus. Such a space is a necessary step in the University’s commitment to the environmental movement, which was established formally with President Bollinger’s signing onto Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative, a commitment to reduce global warming emissions 30 percent by 2017. In doing so, Columbia has become what Bloomberg calls a 2030 Challenge Partner, part of an assembly of nine New York City universities that all pledged to lower carbon emissions. This information, which is proudly displayed on the Columbia University Web site for the Office of Environmental Stewardship, only emphasizes the responsibility that the University has to initiatives like GreenBurough. Without a centralized office, campus environmental groups exist in a limbo of anonymity and disorganization. The space is necessary if the environmental movement on campus is to function with any impact.
The community operates on a principle of unified living—a kind of LLC-minded system of dorm-wide events, from organized green political discussions and education and city tours to green building developments. Themes such as energy conservation, recycling, movements in political activism, and environmental engineering will be each explored each month, Elizabeth Allocco, CC ’11, co-organizer of GreenBurough, explains. The areas of research will each be broken down and distributed among the residents for further study. In addition, as a more environmentally conscious bastardization of the neighboring SIC Potluck House, the dorm will feature sustainable potluck dinners, timed showers, and low-impact utilities.
The most important aspect of the community, however, is just that: it is a community. Socially progressive movements like environmentalism cannot operate on an individual level. Their development simply relies too much on cooperative effort and an influx of ideas. However, communication must not remain within the student body.
It would be absurd to imagine that GreenBurough has the capacity to do anything significant without the help of the administration; no one has this belief. What the house signifies is not established—it is an opportunity to open dialogue. In giving GreenBurough a specialized place to function, the University has given the environmental movement on campus room to grow. Now it must be present for the cultivation.
The author is a Columbia College first-year and a member of EcoReps.
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