Urban and Environmental Policy Program 

Environmental Problem Solving, Fall 2005 

Professor Mark Vallianatos

Thursdays, 3:00 to 4:25 in Weingart 209

The Environmental Stewards class allows students to become campus greening practitioners and to advocate for a more environmentally sustainable Occidental College. This semester, the course will focus on the new Campus Master Plan that will be unveiled and debated this fall – and likely be adopted by the end of 2005. The Master Plan is being developed by Moule & Polyzoides, one of the most renowned ‘new urbanist’ architectural and design firms in the world. The ongoing planning process is a rare opportunity to shape Occidental’s future physical growth and layout and to enshrine environmental commitments in a guiding document.

With the Master Plan process at its core, the class will cover a number of campus greening themes, including transportation, landscaping and open space, and building design. Students will help publicize and promote aspects of the Master Plan as well as systems to ensure its future implementation. Students will be divided into four teams:

• Transportation
• Landscaping and open space
• Buildings
• Council for a Livable Campus and Master Plan Implementation

Each team will prepare a presentation on its area of focus, designed to show how the Master Plan recommendations could benefit Occidental. Teams will also plan and carry out at least one public event or demonstration project drawing attention to their area of focus. During the semester, students will capture their thoughts on campus greening possibilities and on the progress of their work in a new blog hosted by the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental.  

Course Readings:

• Bartlett and Chase, eds. Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change. MIT Press, 2004. Available at Bookstore.
• Additional articles, chapters, and memos. Available in electronic reader.

Class Schedule

September 1: introduction to course goals and methods. Brief history of stewardship and campus sustainability efforts at OXY. Initial discussion on what campus stewardship and campus greening/ sustainability mean to us. The Master Plan as a key focus. Basics of blogging.

September 8: Discussion on Master Plan’s potential and limitations followed by a Campus Walkthrough. Teams will ‘tour’ campus with eye on planning implications (either led by campus experts or self-led).

Readings for Sept 8^th:

• Talloires Declaration, http://www.ulsf.org/pdf/TD.pdf
• Moule & Polyzoides, “Occidental Master Plan, Phase 1: summary of team findings.”
• Barlett and Chase, Sustainability on Campus: “Introduction,” pgs. 8-24.
• Smith, Campus Ecology, pgs. 68-72.

September 15: Meeting with David Thurmond, project manager for the Occidental Master Plan at Moule & Polyzoides. The master plan process at Occidental. Key concepts & recommendations in the areas of Buildings, Landscape, Transportation, and Implementation.

Readings for Sept 15:

• LEED rating system for new buildings pgs. 1-8 http://www.usgbc.org/Docs/LEEDdocs/LEED_RS_v2-1.pdf
• Creighton, Greening the Ivory Tower, Pgs. 105-111
• Toor and Hevlick, Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities, Chapter 1: “Transportation and Sustainability in Campus Communities,” pgs. 18-29.
• Kendra Giamario and Yumi Tomita, “Memo on Resurrecting the Council for a Livable Campus.”
• Keniry, Ecodemia, pgs. 187-204.

September 22: No Class. Teams meet separately for planning. Teams discuss ideas and goals for presentation and public event/demonstration.

Assignment: Each team should develop a few questions or specific topics that they want to discuss with David Thurmond during next week’s class. Email these questions/topics to professor Vallianatos by Monday, September 26.

September 29: Problem solving session with David Thurmond of Moule & Polyzoides. Each team will meet with Mr. Thurmond to seek clarification on aspects of the master plan and to work through aspects of their presentation and/or demonstration projects.

Readings for September 29:

Buildings team:

• Orr, “Can Educational Institutions Learn,” in Bartlett, Sustainability on Campus, pgs. 159-174.
• LEED, Green Building Rating System for Existing Buildings, skim entire document, focusing on Requirements & Potential Technologies sections. http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=221&

Landscape team:

• Kinery, Ecodemia, Chapter 2: “Landscaping and Grounds,” pgs. 25-38.
• Franz, “Restoring Natural Landscapes,” in Bartlett, Sustainability on Campus, pgs. 229-242.
•  LEED, Green Building Rating System for Existing Buildings, pgs. 11-12, 22-27.

Transportation team:

• Toor and Havlick, Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities, pgs. 31-69
• LEED, Green Building Rating System for Existing Buildings, pgs. 14-21.

Implementation team:

• Creighton, Greening the Ivory Tower, Chapter 2, pgs. 11-41.
• Filho, Sustainability and University Life, Chapter 7, 105-127.

October 6: Strategy discussion and continued planning.

October 6 readings:

• Draft of Occidental Campus Plan (if it’s been released by this date). Students read introduction and sections relevant to their issues.

October 13:  Analysis of Draft Master Plan and continued planning.

October 13 reading:

• Close reading of sections of draft master plan (to be determined).

October 20: fall break no class

October 27:  Trial run of demonstration projects/ events.

November 3: Implementation of demonstration projects/ events. (We may decide to stagger the events, in which case they will be carried out during late October through late November.)

November 10: Team planning for presentation

November 17: Run through of presentations in class.

November 24: Thanksgiving no class

December 1: Public presentations by teams.

December 6: [presentation of plan to board of trustees – possibility of short student presentations?]

Grading:

Team effort: 50%

• Presentations: 20%
• Promotional Event: 20%
• Team meetings and coordination: 10%

Individual effort: 50%

• Class participation: 40 %
• Blog writing: 10%