Bennington College
EN-3: Student Life

There are at a minimum two: Student Action for Environmental Justice and The Purple Carrot Farm. SAEJ is committed to eradicating environmental injustice and the structures that create it and to creating a campus culture of education to that end. The Purple Carrot Farm is a student organization with a process driven and experimental approach to small scale agriculture. We strive to engage with our school community and provide a peaceful, accessible, sustainable space.

The Purple Carrot Farm is a student organization with a process driven and experimental approach to small scale agriculture. We strive to engage with our school community and provide a peaceful, accessible, sustainable space. The student led farm has existed in many forms at the College, starting with students being required to work on the farm during food shortages in the mid 1900's. The small farm is less than an acre and has a hoophouse, a tractor, and we started construction of our first barn in 2016. (from their website)

The purple carrot farm actively plants, harvests, and sells its produce to individuals and to the College dining hall to prepare for meals.

In our buildings and grounds operational budget, we have a line item for sustainability. Each year, we use this line item-- which fluctuates year to year-- to perform energy efficiency and electrification projects. With each project, incentive money replenishes this fund and we continue the cycle. Student are involved with buildings and grounds in both formal and informal collaboration on use of these funds.

https://www.bennington.edu/events/sustainable-working-landscapes-challenges-and-opportunities
https://www.bennington.edu/events/trump-assault-environmental-protection-and-what-you-can-do-about-it
https://www.bennington.edu/events/davis-projects-peace-showcase-and-info-session
https://www.bennington.edu/events/plastics-litter-cleanup-and-brand-audit-bennington-rotary-club
https://www.bennington.edu/events/forgotten-farms-film-screening-and-panel-discussion

https://www.bennington.edu/events/uprooting-racism-food-system

Yes, these programs change each term based on the interests of the students. They are run through the office of student life.

Yes. We have a program on campus called the first year forum-- where new students to Bennington have to take a series of one hour classes to learn about Bennington. In these classes, they learn about how to act sustainably on campus through their own personal actions. https://www.bennington.edu/academic-services/first-year-experience

Yes. Each term we have a house competition to see which house can use the least amount of resources that week. In previous years it has been called Peak Week.

The Assistant Coordinator for Sustainable Initiatives serves as the lead student coordinator at Bennington College for new and ongoing sustainability initiatives directly tied to campus and community life. This student in this position has a passion for and/or willingness to learn more about volunteer coordination, event planning, conscious consumerism, resource and inventory management, and community partnerships as they pertain to campus wide sustainability efforts.

N/A

https://curriculum.bennington.edu/spring2020/tag/sustainability/

This is the student workers job description:

The Coordinator for Sustainable Initiatives has a flexible work role that may accommodate the interests of the person holding the position. The largest component of the role is maintaining relationships developed in prior years by students in the Coordinator position. Whichever student holds this role will also be the supervisor of the nascent student organization L.E.S.S, which was initially developed to be a conduit where students with specific opportunities can work on campus lands or to participate in events such as Waste Brand Audits, collection of stored inventory, tree planting and care, advocacy for issues. A student doing an excellent job in the role will:

develop this organization in the flexible manner of their choosing for the Fall-2021-Spring 2022 academic year
center their work on land stewardship
study and be familiar with concepts such as ecology, sustainability, and stewardship in class and outside of class
have the capacity to reason and attend to a diverse array of political, environmental, personal perspectives
collaborate with other students, faculty, and staff members such as groundskeepers and dining hall workers, Buildings and Grounds, Dining Services, Science Department, CAPA, IT, President's Office, among other disciplines and departments.
develop composting management in residential housing (with B&G), waste disposal for electronic waste (with B&G, IT), waste reduction throughout campus, student engagement with campus lands, and the management of an open-year round letter sharing program called Summon, Spring!
Will oversee and collaborate with student positions in Buildings and Grounds, Dining Services, IT, and other offices that develop positions in the years to come.