Environmental Council meets with Liebowitz

Author: Katie Flagg

The Environmental Council met with Ronald Liebowitz on Monday, January 17, in what was Liebowitz's first meeting with the Council as College president.

The Council came bearing gifts; Liebowitz left with a reusuable travel mug and cutlery, personalized notebooks made fully from recycled fibers from the College's printing center, a canvas tote bag and a compact fluorescent light bulb. The Council also purchased a year's supply of "Cow Power" for the President's House. This locally-derived energy will be produced by the Blue Spruce Farm in Bridport, the first farm-based methane gas project to generate electricity for the main power grid.

"I really appreciate this memorable message and your leadership," Liebowitz told the group at the onset of the meeting.

"The meeting went well," said Clare O'Reilly '05, ex officio for the Environmental Council. "I think everyone thought it was a positive meeting."

The Environmental Council presented its current priorities to Liebowitz, speaking to the importance of a pedestrian campus, environmental purchasing, land stewardship policies and the continuation of the environmental grants program.

"President Liebowitz expressed an interest in funding the environmental grants program through the President's office," said O'Reilly.

In another memorable gesture, the Environment Council also arranged for the meeting to be carbon neutral - that is, the Council estimated the amount of energy required to conduct the meeting and then purchased a carbon dioxide offset. The investment will be made in a renewable energy wind project in South Dakota that is run by the Rosebud Sioux tribe.

This carbon neutral meeting may be a harbinger of what lies ahead for the Council and for the College. The Director of Environmental Affairs and the Chair of the Environmental Council, Nan Jenks-Jay, pushed the importance of carbon reduction, noting that carbon reduction should play an important role in the strategic planning process now underway.

"[Liebowitz] indicated that the task force will not impact the ongoing work of the Environmental Council," said Jenks-Jay. "We will work in consort with each other and continue our own agenda rather than put things on hold while the task forces are meeting. This was reassuring to hear."

While, in O'Reilly's words, the president does not have a "concrete plan" for the environment, the meeting was generally considered a success. (Jenks-Jay confirmed that Liebowitz is "still in the developing state of his future agenda at this point.")

"President Liebowitz requested that he meet with the Environmental Council on a regular basis so a close and active advisory role to the President is developed," said Jenks-Jay. "This regular contact has not occurred in the past."

Liebowitz, like members of the Council, expressed satisfaction with the meeting in a press release put out by the Environmental Affairs office.

"I look forward to a close working relationship with the Environmental Council and will depend on this body for insight and guidance in setting our strategic long-term vision," Liebowitz said. "It is exceptional to have such broad-based environmental leadership serving the President's office and I intend to tap it frequently."