Council Wants A ‘Green’ Harvard

Old bathwater may nourish Harvard’s lawns and paper cups may disappear from the dining halls if an environmental bill passed last night by the Undergraduate Council is adopted by the University.

The bill, which passed 27-4-1, calls for a committee composed of students, faculty members, and administrators to advise the University on its environmental policies.

Council members said they will present a proposal for the committee to Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 this week.

The committee, designed to compensate for what organizers called the lack of “a permanent body to facilitate broad campus environmental communication,” will be composed of students, faculty and administrators.

Council members said incorporating faculty members into the group will give it legitimacy and make it a more useful mechanism to enact change.

“It’s a more effective venue than rallies or lock-ins or petitions,” said Student Affairs Committee member Shira S. Simon ’04. “It’s more powerful when it’s an organized committee.”

John Y. Hsu ’02, who helped draft the recommendation along with two other students, said he had already recruited faculty members to help rally support for the committee.

“It can’t be done only by students,” he said.

As well as providing a forum for discussion, Hsu said the committee will tackle specific issues such as eliminating banner pages from computer printouts, re-using bathwater for Harvard’s lawns, and adding recycling bins to dormitories.

Committee organizers stressed the potential to save the University money through reducing energy costs.

Organizers said they hoped the committee would serve as an umbrella organization for the numerous environmental groups that already exist. The bill does not specify which part of the University would have jurisdiction over the group.

While the recommendation states that the committee would have a University-wide impact if it were placed under the Office of the Provost, it also suggested placing the committee under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences or the Harvard Center for the Environment as possibilities.

“A great deal is open to the discretion of the dean,” Council President Sujean S. Lee ’03 said.

Hsu said the idea of council action to support environmental initiatives “has been floating around for a long time.”

In a 2001 bill, “Resolution for a Socially Responsible Harvard,” the council proclaimed that “there is currently no established avenue within Harvard to address environmental issues, making institutional change in this area extremely difficult.”

Last spring, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles organized a similar committee composed of students, faculty, and administrators but gave the group “no official status,” according to the students who authored the current recommendation.

Some council members called last night’s proposed committee superfluous.

Council veteran Adam M. Johnson ’02, one of the four who voted against the bill, said the council has a tendency to create unnecessary committees.

Groups composed of faculty and students, such as the Committee on House Life, already have the ability to deal with environmental issues, he said.

“Just because it’s good to help the environment doesn’t mean we have to create an institutionalized committee to show that we’re in favor of the environment,” Johnson said.

In other business, the council viewed a presentation from Gabriela Gonzalez ’03, manager of the student group Pulse, a division of the Harvard Advertising Club, on Springfest advertising plans.

The office of University President Lawrence H. Summers granted the group money to launch an advertising campaign to promote the event, to be held on April 27.

This year marks the first time Springfest has been professionally promoted.

“It’s a huge departure from past years,” Lee said.

—Staff writer William M. Rasmussen can be reached at wrasmus@fas.harvard.edu.