With its notorious city traffic, poor air quality and increasing drought issues, there’s no questioning why Los Angeles has a bad reputation for being “the poster child for all that is unsustainable,” said Stephanie Pincetl, director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at the University of California Los Angeles.
While there is no doubt that these problems have resulted in numerous growing environmental and social issues, Pincetl said things could be looking up.
In a March 2013 article on the Association of American Geographers website, she said that because of the recent concerns about climate change and the drought, California — and Los Angeles County in particular — is at a crossroads. Society has the option of finally committing to collaborate on the alleviation of these issues or continuing the destructive patterns that got them there, while watching environmental problems worsen and social and economic inequality increase.
Universities respond
As a result of the heightened concern, many California universities have made it part of their core values to uphold and promote sustainability, and they have been recognized by the Princeton Review for their strides in the field. Of the 50 universities listed in the 2015 Guide to Green Colleges, nearly 20 percent are California schools.
Pepperdine — which is not a part of the top 50, but is included in the full list of 353 colleges — has stepped up in the field of sustainability over the past few years as well. In addition to adding relief measures, such as turning off the on-campus fountains to save water and creating an entirely green residence hall, the university has started to tap into perhaps an even more important solution to these issues: interdisciplinary education.
“It’s our goal as a university to educate students on issues that are important in our modern culture, and sustainability and environmentalism are quickly becoming the most important issues that we’re facing today,” said junior Avery Davis, intern for Pepperdine’s Center for Sustainability.
Across academic divisions, Pepperdine is educating students on the importance of social, economic and environmental sustainability.
Christianity and Sustainability
As a Church of Christ university, Pepperdine’s commitment to sustainability uniquely derives from its Christian values and mission to strengthen students for lives of “purpose, service and leadership.”
“Pepperdine brings a unique perspective to sustainability in that we view it as a moral obligation,” said Rhiannon Bailard, director of the Center for Sustainability. “We believe that our mission, and our Christian heritage, demands that we engage in practices that conserve our resources for the good of all people.”
Through general education religion courses like Christianity and Sustainability as well as Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, religion professors Chris Doran and Daniel Rodriguez teach students about the link between Christian principles and the responsibility to address social, economic and environmental sustainability issues.
Rodriguez, professor of religion and Hispanic studies, teaches Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, a course on domestic and international hunger and poverty.
“We are talking about solutions and ideas, either in our major or in general, for people and Christians to come up with ways to help this huge global problem of inequality, whether that has to do with racism or poverty or money,” said junior Arin DeGroff, a student in Rodriguez’s course.
Rodriguez said Christians respond to these and other environmental, social and economic issues in three ways: relief, usually meaning immediate but short-term solutions like food and shelter; development, such as building schools or teaching people necessary skills; and structural change, which helps to prevent the problem from continuing to occur.
“Most Christian organizations focus on relief, but we need educated Christians to get involved with development and especially structural change,” Rodriguez said. “The problem is people wanting to make a difference fast.”
Whereas relief is immediate, development and structural change are sustainable — they help leave a positive and lasting impact on those affected by social and economic inequality.
By educating students on these needs, Rodriguez said he hopes to inspire students to consider their own career aspirations and determine what people in their chosen field can do to implement development and structural change in order to help others.
“In the class I’ve been able to examine how (by) being a media production major and being involved with film and photography, instead of perpetuating idea of ‘buy this’ or ‘look at this famous person’ or ‘look at me,’ I can bring awareness through my media, or my film, or my writing, or my photography to global issues,” DeGroff said about using her unique skills and interests to help others.
“I feel like if Pepperdine students looked at their major and thought about how they could impact someone other than themselves through their major, then that would be a good first step.”
Conscious consumerism and social entrepreneurship
The increase in interdisciplinary education about sustainability is in part based on the university responsding to student demand.
The Pew Research Center showed in a 2011 study that millennials are the most sustainably conscious generation yet. Overall, they were found to be more supportive of environmentally sustainable policies, more motivated to work for companies that made a positive impact on society, and even likely to pay more to support such companies.
Business Administration Professor Amy Johnson said these trends have given rise to the business philosophies of servant leadership and social entrepreneurship. These trends influence businesses to go beyond the traditional approach of just making the most profit, and instead focus on a higher purpose of making some positive impact on the world.
“If you see a company that cares about education, or cares about the environment, that’s going to resonate with you more and you’re willing to go buy that product to support it,” Johnson said. “People, especially young people, are resonating with that.”
In Johnson’s Service Leadership course — one of the capstone courses for business administration and international business majors and for nonprofit minors — students are grouped in teams and work collaboratively with a nonprofit on a consulting project. They assist in business practices such as finance, human resources, volunteer acquisition, and retention and management, depending on the individual needs of their client.
Johnson said the project is mutually beneficial for the nonprofit and the students.
“Nonprofits really need good business skills,” Johnson said. “These people have great social minds, but they don’t know how to run an organization and don’t have business skills, which (has) been a big problem in the nonprofit space.”
Through working with nonprofits that implement environmental or social change, students are exposed to a variety of sustainability issues affecting the community and are getting the chance to work with clients who operate based on a higher purpose.
Johnson said the course also shows students the value of sustainability in the business industry today. As consumers become more environmentally and socially conscious, businesses are being influenced to make changes to their traditional models.
“Sustainability is a business opportunity,” Johnson said. “More people will buy from you if you have a purpose.”
The model of social entrepreneurship, in which a for-profit company places social or environmental responsibility as one of its core values, is becoming increasingly popular in the marketplace, Johnson said. By incorporating it into the classroom, students are learning how to use their own skills to make a difference, as well as the importance of working for and supporting companies that share those values.
Sustainability minor
Though Pepperdine does offer a variety of courses that promote social and economic sustainability, in the past professors and students alike have criticized the university’s lack of academic emphasis on environmental sustainability, Doran said.
“Pepperdine was way behind in the college landscape in offering classes on sustainability related issues,” Doran said. “So about four years ago, I decided that we needed to do something in this area.”
In an attempt to bring environmental sustainability to Pepperdine academics, he started going through the academic catalog in search of courses related to the topic.
After years of collaborating with other professors, Doran has finalized a sustainability minor — the university’s latest academic sustainability advancement.
The minor was approved over winter break between the fall 2014 and spring 2015 semesters, and will be included in the academic calendar in fall 2015 for incoming freshmen.
Currently, five of Seaver’s eight academic divisions offer courses included in the sustainability minor, making it the university’s largest interdisciplinary minor. With diverse topics from communication to science, students who minor in sustainability are able to see these environmental problems from a multitude of perspectives, which Doran said is crucial to understanding and solving these highly complex issues.
| Sustainability Minor Courses | |
| – SUST 100 Colloquium for Sustainability Minors
– REL 301 Christianity & Sustainability – PHIL 315 Environmental Philosophy – BIOL 328/POSC 428 Environmental Policy & Politics – COM 590 Risk & Crisis Communication OR Environmental Communication & Sustainability – ENG 380 Topics in Literature: American Nature Writing |
Davis, who declared the minor this semester, said the development is a long overdue and necessary step for Pepperdine.
“Having an interdisciplinary minor on the books legitimizes sustainability and environmentalism as academic subjects and opens up the future for a major and for more classes,” Davis said.
The future for sustainability
Doran added that he hopes to continue developing the sustainability minor until all eight divisions are included. He said this would be an advantageous development, as it may encourage students with different perspectives to get involved.
“I don’t think you can just be a scientist and fix problems, and I don’t think you can just be a thinker in a religious sense to fix problems,” Doran said. “Many different disciplines have to work together to solve one problem.”
Doran said it is important to educate students about how they can use their individual abilities and interests to make a positive and lasting impact on environmental, social and economic issues and then help others do the same.
“If we can train them to educate other people, then we’re not only educating them for a class, but we’re equipping them to be the kind of leaders that our nation needs and that the world is going to need as we go through a new set of problems.”
Amanda Salz completed this story in Professor Elizabeth Smith’s Jour 561 spring 2015 class.
