Green thinking college doing well at Dalhousie

College of Sustainability setting example for green buildings and programs

Dr. Claire Campbell is a history professor at Dalhousie University and one of people behind the new College of Sustainability. Photo: Peter Clarke

Students at the College of Sustainability at Dalhousie University have built a wall out of clay, grass and wood. It's an example of recyclable and sustainable architecture learned from Nova Scotia's early Acadian settlers and one of many environmentally friendly topics covered by a popular new program.

The college's prospective student page says that the program is unique in Canada and it's open to students of many academic backgrounds. Students take sustainability as a second major to compliment whatever degree program they're in.

While organizers only expected about 150 students, more than 300 registered.

Instructors come from many faculties. Dr. Claire Campbell, a history professor at Dalhousie, says the college contains all the components of university life. She has been heavily involved since the college was conceived just over a year and half ago and she cannot believe how quickly it came together.

Campbell says students are eager to learn about the environment. There's a political culture of environmental discussion and this generation of students grew up hearing about it. They practise it as well - a study by Ipsos Reid says 88 per cent of young Canadians recycle and 33 per cent use public transit.

"It's something they have in their bloodstream," she said

All students take Sustainability 1000, an interdisciplinary course that tackles issues such as history, architecture, consumerism and farming and how they relate to a sustainable environment. Three professor attend every lecture: Campbell for history, Steven Mannell from architecture and Nicholas Hill from biology at Mount Saint Vincent University. Each specializes in environmental studies and sustainability in their respective fields.

The Sept. 29 class demonstration combined Acadian history and architecture when the students built a wall with Jef Achenbach, who uses clay to build for a living.

Mannell hopes students learn "building materials don't simply come from a lumber yard or big box home improvement store - that they can be harvested from the
environment immediately around us."

Timothy Roth, 21, worked in house construction before he enrolled. He wants to get into environmental urban planning and sustainable building. He hopes the college will give him job opportunities in architecture and development.

For Roth, the college is unique from other environmental studies because it's "focused on sustainability as an issue." He says having three professors for one class requires takes a lot of patience and understanding but he likes having different perspectives.

Campbell says it's necessary to have different views on the environment. She says the ability to communicate with different fields is important to solving environmental and sustainability issues.

"You don't have to sacrifice who you are," she says of students entering the program. It gives students and professors "the ability to see the whole board."

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