Kissel, Adam. “Under the Green Thumb: Totalitarian Sustainability on Campus.” Academic Questions 23.1 (2010): 57-69. Print.
The author of this article is Adam Kissel, who is currently a PhD student in an American university and has graduated from Harvard University and the University of Chicago. He has written and spoken on the topic of sustainability in college campuses, and is considered knowledgeable, to the point of expertise. Kissel claims that universities that enact sustainability policies are autocratic and effectively pushing their ideals down the throats of other students, and at times depriving them of student rights. Kissel’s main audience is students and faculty in universities who would benefit from reading about such indiscretions.
The article does seem biased. Kissel sites a few circumstances where universities did mistreat students in an effort to improve sustainability on campus, but ignores successful accomplishments made by other universities. The article definitely seems to be against the sustainability movement, at least when the movement is run by faculty itself. The article does present a new viewpoint on the topic of sustainability and its few negative examples of totalitarian methods by universities serve as a good reminder of what Brooklyn College should avoid. This material is not very relevant to the project, and it would mostly be used as a reminder of the mistakes and dangers of forcing sustainability programs on students, instead of suggesting or fairly implementing them.
Interesting! I’m curious what some of the autocratic methods are.
One particularly chilling example is in the University of Delaware. Apparently, in an effort to ensure more social sustainability, the University hired “strong male RAs” who would question each male and essentially find out if there was anything he seemed” intolerant” to. And once they found out, create files about this person and hold mandatory group sessions that would try to correct these false ideals.
Kissel states the “the program was dismantled as soon as it came into public view.”