2015 Conference

Workshop

Workshop Title and Description: Making Campuses Green and Gold? A Political Ecology Workshop on the Technopolitics of ‘Greening’ Higher Education Spaces is a half-day workshop that explores the power dynamics, political processes and techniques that are central to greening higher education spaces.

Learning Outcomes, Topics and Activities: This workshop is part of a pilot research study that explores how ‘green’ or sustainability rating systems such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for buildings, the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus USA program, Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Colleges and the STARS national tracking program of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), achieve not only material ends in campus landscapes, but also relatively unacknowledged political ends. The project’s PI, Dr. Ingrid L. Nelson (University of Vermont) is a political ecologist studying the politics and practices of new forms of intervention in ‘green’ human-environment processes and relationships. Examples of key project questions include:

1) How can we understand campus spaces as sites of enacting particular normalizing views of nature and what new political or green geographies follow from these actions?

2) In what ways do green rating systems constrain and/or expand both the actual and the possible practices and discourses of sustainability and nature?

3) How do rated campus spaces include or exclude different groups and how do racialized, gendered and other intersectional dynamics shape green campus technopolitics?

One of the intended outcomes of the workshop is to identify potential collaborators to develop a proposal for a funded nationwide comparative study and possibly an international analysis of greening campus spaces.

The proposed workshop consists of three parts to be facilitated by Ingrid L. Nelson (confirmed) and possibly an undergraduate student collaborating on the project (pending funding confirmation and availability). Part I of the workshop titled, Green and Gold in Practice, presents key conceptual working definitions of political ecology, sustainability, ‘green economy’ and technopolitics and an overview of the different ‘green’ campus rating systems. This presentation will also present results from an initial qualitative analysis of the nine previous Ball State University Greening of the Campus conferences and the Smart and Sustainable Campuses conferences hosted by the University of Maryland, which broadly emphasize the technical, strategic and pedagogical aspects of greening campus spaces, but rarely advance critical questions about the power dynamics and politics that are central to the greening of educational spaces. Participants will discuss the specific ‘green’ or sustainable practices that they have personally performed and observed and that are credited in various ‘green’ rating systems and those that are not presently acknowledged by these systems.

Part II of the workshop titled, New Green and Gold Norms, focuses on how we can understand campus spaces as sites of enacting particular normalizing views of nature and what new political or green geographies follow from these actions. Participants will work in groups and develop diagrams, map and describe the new relationships and practices fostered by participating in ‘green’ campus rating systems. Such ‘new norms’ may be very positive, introduce entrenched conflict or produce a mix of consequences for differently positioned people. Part II concludes with reflective moments and discussion on the potential hidden results of new campus greening norms that may have significant gendered, racialized or other implications across common axes of difference.

The final part of the workshop titled, Ethics and Methods in One’s Own Workspace, focuses on the key epistemologies, methods and ethical considerations necessary for pursuing critical political ecological questions in campus spaces. This is a brainstorming and sharing of strategies session that will inform future collaborative research on this topic. Example strategies might include ways of supporting ‘green practices’ on campuses that are not part of broader rating systems, as well as respectful ways of generating curiosity and critical feedback on campuses with shifting administrative goals and agendas.

A summary of the workshop discussions and content will be distributed to all participants two weeks after the conference, followed by a call for collaborators in co-designing a nationwide comparative study of key themes explored and suggested by workshop participants and suggestions for follow-up activities at future conference venues or virtual seminars/events.