It’s a hot June morning and Anthony Capezio is building raised flower beds on an acre of land behind Anderson Hall at Northern Illinois University.
“I've been coming like three days a week from 7 a.m. to noon, just helping out,” he said.
Capezio graduated a few weeks ago, but he’s stuck around this summer to help with this -- the “Edible Campus” project. The 20 beds grow everything from onions and tomatoes to Thai basil. Once harvested, the food will be sold back to campus dining halls. There are 100 other beds planted around campus where students and staff can pick off any fruits or vegetables that look good on their way to class.
Capezio was the only undergrad student on NIU’s Sustainability and Climate Action Task Force. They developed a recently unveiled nearly 100-page Sustainability & Climate Action Plan. It outlines how -- from transportation to food services -- the university said it will commit to sustainability.
He said climate change is so colossal, so global that it’s overwhelming. It’s easy for students -- for anyone -- to feel like there’s nothing they can do to make a difference in the wake of giant corporations and governments. But, a Philosophy grad, Capezio said the sustainability plan can help show students there is something they can do -- even if it’s small, like planting peppers on their campus. And that individual work might motivate more large-scale change.
“If everyone has the mindset that I'm not good enough to do anything -- nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to change,” Capezio said. “So, just taking that first step and seeing where it takes you -- hopefully that's where the change starts.”
Courtney Gallaher is NIU’s campus sustainability coordinator. She said that universities can play a unique role in sustainability and have huge “Climate Shadows.”
“Climate shadows kind of look like, what are those downstream effects that you can have through implementing not just personal changes, but structural changes that then enact wider scale changes in the community,” she said.
Gallaher said it’s really unfair to expect students to make personal changes if the university isn’t doing anything.
The sustainability plan has 13 goals including cutting water consumption and making food services sustainable through Edible Campus. The university can reduce carbon emissions. It’s also planning on borrowing ideas from other schools like installing carport solar arrays in campus parking lots.
But it’s also an academic institution -- so they can conduct research, teach sustainability and inspire more downstream effects. A big part of that is the university’s planned $23 million-dollar Center for Community Sustainability. Late last year, NIU secured the final state funds it needed to move ahead with construction.
Gallaher said NIU’s sustainability goals also intersect with their diversity, equity, & inclusion goals and that diverse voices have to be at the table with every aspect of the plan.
And she said it’s not just for experts. Everyone should be learning about sustainability -- not just students studying environmental science.
“That could be done through a Gen-ed course focused on sustainability. It could be a student learning outcome related to sustainability that's embedded in existing Gen-ed courses,” Gallaher said. “There are some recommendations around how we tweak our curriculum to make sure that this is being taught more comprehensively.”
But, even before the sustainability plan takes effect, students have already been taking action.
Killian Becker and their classmates Grace, Gabe, & Kaiden have spent months restoring and stabilizing the shoreline of the East Lagoon on campus with native plants and flowers.
“We have milkweed which is beautiful. It actually smells like bubblegum. You can even see a bumblebee right there!” Becker said. “So, we have upland flowers, inland flowers, and then we have some plants that actually go into the lagoon itself.”
It’s an ongoing project. Becker said it not only increases biodiversity, but it also just looks really nice. They hope one day the entire shoreline is prairie.
“I grew up in DeKalb and the lagoon has always been a place we would come and bike," Becker said. "I've walked around here all the time. So, it's really cool for me to be able to physically see how it grows through the years, because last year, this did look like that! It's cool to see the progress of it."
Keeping tabs on progress will be important. Courtney Gallaher said the university is creating an online sustainability dashboard to promote transparency about how close they are to meeting their goals.
The Sustainability and Climate Action plan won’t be finalized until the fall. Gallaher said they’ll be holding town halls once students return to campus. In the meantime, students, staff and the community can go toNIU’s website to share feedback and make suggestions for the plan.
Gallaher said she hopes people see that climate change isn’t so big that it’s completely insurmountable. But, it will take all hands-on deck to build a sustainable university.
