By Gary Glancy
gary.glancy@shj.com
Spartanburg Herald-JournalSpartanburg Herald-Journal

Published: Thursday, April 23, 2009


Photo by Tim Kimzey/Spartanburg Herald-Journal

Using the analogy of a track-and-field relay team, Wofford College President Bernie Dunlap told students Wednesday that it's up to them to make up ground in "a race against time to save the Earth."

"I want to tell you that my generation has run a very poor leg, at least as far as environmental sustainability is concerned," Dunlap said from the lawn of the Main Building during a special Earth Day program, which also included the annual Alternative Car Show.

"We've coped with all sorts of difficulties in the course of our leg, but we have ignored what Earth Day is attempting to address. And we are passing you the baton in a very difficult situation. You will take it from our hands, and you will run faster than we did."

During last year's Earth Day program, Dunlap announced Wofford had become one of about 500 institutions to sign the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. Through that commitment, Wofford developed a task force of students, alumni, faculty and staff to determine the college's carbon footprint, create an action plan to achieve the eventual goal of carbon neutrality and establish a Web site (gbg.wofford.edu) documenting its efforts.

Bob Keasler, Wofford's senior vice president for operations, said "it took courage to move forward with this, to truly understand what carbon neutral would maybe be in 2020. We did it because it was the right thing to do."

Keasler also presented Dunlap with the college's inaugural Gold, Black & Green Sustainability Report, based on an environmental audit of campus resource use conducted last year by members of Wofford's Go Green initiative, a student coalition-led movement.

Keasler said the college has changed more than 50 policies and procedures to make Wofford a greener campus - from reducing the amount of water and fertilizer used on campus grounds by more than 50 percent to using biodiesel fuel in campus equipment.

Also Wednesday, Wofford students Amy Chalmers and Sarah Hager encouraged students to sign a petition in support of the initiative's commitment to the national Real Food Challenge campaign.

The campaign's goal, Hager said, is "the implementation of a specific percentage of local, organic and fair-trade food to the dining services contract" with Aramark, the food-service company that operates Burwell Dining Hall on the Wofford campus.

The target of the national campaign is to redirect 20 percent of all food purchased by colleges and universities (currently $4 billion) toward "real food" by 2020.