Anya Cohen
Managing Editor
In an effort to reduce the College’s carbon footprint and fight climate change, Wooster students are signing a petition that they hope will encourage President Grant Cornwell to endorse the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). The ACUPCC is a contract for colleges and universities that demonstrates a commitment to becoming carbon neutral in whatever time frame the institution deems feasible. By press time, the petition for President Cornwell had received approximately 581 signatures.
Spearheading the project is Rita Frost ’14, who spent her summer working toward living a carbon neutral lifestyle in Washington D.C. Frost had heard about the ACUPCC prior to attending the College and believes that Cornwell’s signature is long overdue.
“I really think that it’s time for President Cornwell to step up to the plate and sign this,” Frost said. “The biggest global problem that we have today is climate change, and if we want graduates at the College of Wooster to be ‘global citizens’ – as we clearly state in our mission statement – then we have to do something on an institutional level to say that we care about that.”
The steps of the commitment are threefold. First, the institution must create a comprehensive plan that will attain climate neutrality as quickly as possible. Second, the institution must implement two tangible actions that work to eliminate greenhouse gasses while the comprehensive plan is being created. For example, the ACUPCC suggests participating in the Waste Minimization component of the national RecycleMania competition and encouraging the use of and providing access to public transportation. Third, the institution must make the action plan, along with its inventory and progress reports, readily available by turning them into the ACUPCC Reporting System.
According to Frost, completing the carbon neutral commitment is possible and has already been achieved by some U.S. institutions.
By press time, 673 colleges and universities had signed onto the commitment, including Wooster’s Ohio neighbors, Oberlin College, Denison University, Ohio University and Case Western Reserve University.
President Cornwell acknowledges the importance of decreasing the College’s carbon footprint, but is hesitant to commit before all logistics have been covered.
“I am open to the possibility of signing the Presidents’ Climate Commitment,” Cornwell said. “The commitment is a covenant, however, and I don’t enter into those lightly, especially on behalf of the College. Before signing, we would have to do the research necessary to understand what the commitment would entail and what it would take to keep the promise.”
President Cornwell believes it should be evident that the Board of Trustees and the Administration make environmental issues on campus a priority.
“In the last few years, we have taken great strides in reducing our carbon footprint,” Cornwell said. “We invested over $5 million in energy conservation, we installed the largest rooftop solar array on any campus in the United States and we changed our power plant from coal to highly efficient natural gas and electricity. These are actions speaking, not words.”
While Frost recognizes the positive efforts made by the College — the abundance of locally produced foods in the dining halls, the near elimination of plastic water bottles sold and the availability of compost and recycling bins — she believes we still have a long way to go.
“The biggest problem on this campus is energy — where we get our energy and how we use it,” Frost said. “If you talk to most any professor or student on campus, they will tell you that climate control in the campus buildings is awful. It’s either way too hot in dorms or way too cold. We do a really awful job of energy saving and using energy efficiently.”
The petition urging Cornwell to sign the ACUPCC is available in the form of a paper petition as well as online. Frost encourages not only students to sign the petition, but also faculty, staff and anyone, whether Wooster affiliated or not, who takes issue with climate change.
“It’s not just a College of Wooster issue, it’s a colleges and universities issue — as well as a global issue,” Frost said.
The petition can be found at https://www.change.org/petitions/president-grant-cornwell-sign-the-acupcc.