NCC Hosts First Student Sustainability Conference
Myra Saturen
November 13, 2009
Northampton Community College (NCC) hosted the first-ever Lehigh Valley Student Sustainability Conference on November 13 at the Fowler Southside Center. NCC, Cedar Crest, Lafayette, Moravian, and Muhlenberg colleges and DeSales and Lehigh universities cooperated to bring about the event, part of the Campus Sustainability Initiative. Students from Temple University and Pennsylvania State University also participated.
Gail Mrowinski, NCC associate dean for community education, opened the daylong conference by describing the College's investment in sustainability such as courses on green living and solar energy and the recent installation of solar panels on Main Campus.
A talk by keynote speaker Alex Grosskurth (Lehigh '09) detailed "How to Effectively Organize on Campus to Bring about Sustainability." Grosskurth's concepts, based on a campaign for wind energy at Lehigh University and his experience as a community organizer in Philadelphia, outlined steps students can take to increase awareness of, garner support for and propel issues of importance to them. Students need a spectrum of allies, he said, encompassing staunch former opponents to active supporters. He recommended a person-by-person approach to gathering support. He is pictured below. 
Megan Kerr, Melissa Linden and Brenna Bowman, all current students or recent graduates of Pennsylvania colleges, discussed the value of internships based on their own experiences. These benefits range from making key contacts to learning about an organization's operations firsthand. Maryann Helferty, green campus coordinator from the Environmental Protection Agency urged students to join professional organizations and attend their conferences. "Meet people, go network, find mentors, be a mentor," she said.
A session, "You Are What You Eat: Eating Your Way to Sustainability" alerted the audience to the health dangers posed by the most common farming and food manufacturing processes and presented arguments for organic methods as an alternative.
The program also included presentations on the Lafayette College composting program,
Lehigh University's greenhouse gas inventory, and a campus sustainability panel with leaders from campus groups.
Information tables for local projects such as the Community Exchange Time Bank and Lehigh Valley Dough demonstrated sustainability in action.
After the conference's conclusion, students had a chance to do some informal networking with each other.