Students at Boston College take an active role in raising awareness on campus and combating environmental issues. Ecopledge, a rapidly expanding student organized club, is the center for student initiatives on sustainability. Emerging groups include Sustain BC and the Environmental Law Society as part of the Boston College Law School. Raising awareness about critical issues is one of the clubs’ principal goals, as well as taking active steps to overcome these issues and unite students for the cause. Statements from club members and past events held by the clubs demonstrate the proactive attitude of Boston College students.
Ecopledge
Ecopledge is a student-led organization that works toward making Boston College a more sustainable campus. Ecopledge educates the BC Community about environmental issues by showing films, presenting lectures, and hosting annual celebratory events, like Harvest Fest and Earth Day. Through the leadership of Ecopledge members, Boston College has participated annually in RecycleMania, a national intercollegiate recycling competition, and the Better Off Contest, a two-month energy conservation contest among the residential halls. Ecopledge also runs campus-wide campaigns to promote water and energy conservation, and an increase in commingled plastic, paper, and food waste recycling. Ecopledge members often go beyond the campus, participating in local community clean-ups, national environmental conferences, and hiking and camping outings throughout New England. Ecopledge pledges to collaborate with faculty, staff, and fellow students in campaigning for a more sustainable Boston College campus. Join the Ecopledge facebook group!
Congratulations to Ecopledge for winning the 2008 "Ever to Excel" Award. This honor is awarded by the Office of the Dean for Student Development (ODSD) to the group who has made an outstanding contribution to Boston College as an organization.
Katherine Walsh, the co-President of Ecopledge also won the 2008 Leadership Award for her efforts on behalf of the environment.
Ecopledge has also been awarded with the Massachusetts State Lottery Community Champions Award.
Ecopledge Leadership
The dedicated students of Ecopledge are responsible for this club's outstanding success. The leadership team in particular works tirelessly to plan events and raise awareness on campus.
In 2008, Merril Putnam, Katherine Walsh, Katie Cava, Peggy Fox and Jessica Young earned the Heights Person of the Year Award for their leadership efforts. Read the Heights article and see praise by their colleagues!
Thank you to past Ecopledge Leaders for all their hard work, and congratulations to the new 2009-2010 team!
President - Colleen O'Connor, oconnoha@bc.edu
Treasurer - Emily Luksha luksha@bc.edu
UGBC Representative - Natalie Raffol, raffoln@bc.edu
Webmaster - Chris Soeller, christopher.soeller.1@bc.edu
Listserv Manager - Noel Schaff, schaffn@bc.edu
MAPS (Massachusetts Power Shift) Leaders -
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Emily Simone, simoneem@bc.edu
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Katie Chin, chinkh@bc.edu
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Rebecca Redmon, redmonr@bc.edu
Senior Leaders -
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Jacqui Geaney, geaneyj@bc.edu
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Katie Brady, bradyko@bc.edu
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Sunny Kasabwala, kasabwal@bc.edu
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Brenna Davis, brennadavis24@gmail.com
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Sarah King, sarah.kingpin@gmail.com
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Renee Roark, renee.roark.1@bc.edu
- Elizabeth Barthelmes, barthelm@bc.edu (first semester only)
- Kelley Fitzgibbons, fitzgike@bc.edu (first semester only)
- Brendan Brooks, brooksjh@bc.edu)
- Jessica Drevins drevinje@bc.edu (first semester only)
- Daley Gruen, daleygruen@gmail.com
- Cliff Baratta, barattac@bc.edu (first semester only)
Sophomore Leaders -
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Maggie Lister, listerma@bc.edu
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Katya Rucker, ruckerk@bc.edu
Sustain BC
Sustain BC is a student/faculty committee dedicated to promoting greater actions towards sustainability on campus. The organization is a great opportunity to for students to collaborate with administrators and faculty interested in the environment at Boston College. This committee helps sponsor events and uses their leadership role to enact real change towards sustainability at Boston College. Furthermore, its members have developed a Green Course Checklist as well as a Green Checklist for Sustainable Events in order to outline simple and effective ways to put sustainable practices into action across campus.
Would you like to learn more about sustainability through your coursework? Have you taken a course, or offered a course, that includes an environmental or sustainability theme? As an educator, are you interested in seeing the incorporation of these themes into the BC curriculum? If you answered yes OR no to any of these questions, please take the online, SustainBC Curriculum Survey. In less than 10 minutes, you can help Sustain BC learn what's happening and what the BC community wants regarding incorporation of sustainability themes into the curriculum.
Check out Sustain BC's page on facebook! To join the email list, contact Laura Hake at hakel@bc.edu.
Real Food BC
Real Food BC is a student group on campus that strives for the establishment of a more sustainable food system. It was started as a part of the nation-wide Real Food Challenge. The goal of Real Food BC is to promote the purchasing of food from local, green, humane sources in order to support localized food production and reduce carbon emissions that result from long distance food shipments. BC Dining services have already taken the initial steps towards more sustainable food procurement, and our group wants to help them take greater strides. In collaboration with Real Food BC, BC Dining created Addie's Loft, an organic eatery that offers food from local, sustainable sources. Located on the second floor of Corcoran Commons (Lower), Addie's offers delicious artisan fare as well as photos and posters that provide insight into the sustainable food system.
Since BC is first and foremost an academic institution, Real Food BC also focuses on raising student awareness about the major impact of their food choices. In the Spring of 2008 we hosted Real Food Week, and have been consistently active in Harvestfest and Earth Day events. Furthermore, took an active role in Green Week, hosted by the Undergraduate Government of BC. During this week we provided information at a variety of events, and showed the award winning film The Garden in order to promote sustainable agriculture. One of our proudest accomplishments is the Boston College Community Garden, an organic garden on BC's Brighton campus created in the spring of 2008. Read the article Group Brings Garden to BC in the Heights.
Join Real Food! Contact Mariana Souza at mariana.souza.1@bc.edu or Julia Gabbert at juliagabbert@gmail.com
Read the Final Report: Cultivating Change: The Boston College Community Garden.
Watch the Video! The Boston College Community Garden
Read Joe Reganato's testimonial about the Garden
Environmental Law Society
The Boston College Environmental Law Society (ELS) is a community of students, faculty, alumni, and friends who share a social consciousness regarding important environmental issues. They offer a variety of unique opportunities for students to become informed and active in the pursuit of a better and healthier environment. In order to accomplish this, the society organize an increasingly broad scope of activities which are fun, educational, and service-oriented.
ELS sponsors a variety of opportunities for students to learn about environmental issues and to become involved in educational and service-oriented activities. Students can testify at public hearings on environmental issues, work with the environmental justice organization based here at the law school, Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), and/or do legal research for several non-profit environmental groups. ELS (along with help from professors and alumni) organizes a speaker panel in the fall and a six-week course in the spring. At these seminars, practitioners and academics, employed in all types of environmentally related legal professions, speak about their career paths as well as teach mini-seminars on related topics such as environmental law, land use, urban planning, and administrative law. Additionally, ELS sponsors activities such as fall foliage hikes, canoeing, clean-ups, Earth Day events, and the famous (or, infamous) Winter Weekend getaway at the Sargent Camp in Peterborough, NH.
ELS’s goal is to offer members of the law school community opportunities to learn about environmental issues as well as how to utilize a legal education to make real contributions to the field of environmental law.
For more information, please see the Environmental Law Society website.
Events
Boston College’s environmental clubs are always looking for new ways to become active on campus. Many sustainability events are organized and supported by EcoPledge, Sustain BC, and the Environmental Law Society. Please see our Events Page for upcoming and past events, as well as possible future activities related to sustainability at Boston College.
Additional Information
For those interested in pursuing connections between sustainability and religion, a group of Boston Theological Institute graduate students recently formed the "BTI Religion and Ecology Forum." The idea is to create a common space for exchanging ideas and support around this theme, and for coordinating efforts on larger projects. For the purposes of this group, "religion" is defined broadly. To learn more, see (or join) the forum's google group.
Hear what students have to say about sustainability and the environment in their own words in our Student Statements Page.
Read the latest Heights article on EcoPledge activities around campus: Pledging to Make BC Green (Nov 12, 2007).