Haverford College
Tier2-4: Themed Housing

EHAUS E-House (Ehaus) is a co-op on Haverford's campus that works to live in a more environmentally sustainable way and bring awareness about the possibilities and impacts of living this way. Mission Statement: EHAUS is an intentional community that strives to be a model for communal living and environmental consciousness. As we all operate within a consumer driven, waste producing, and steadily polluting culture, EHAUS challenges ourselves, and our community to emerge from this behavioral pattern in order to offer a different and more conscientious alternative. Environmentally destructive behavior seeps out of many of our everyday actions, and much of our cooperation in the exploitation of nature and the production of waste is not particularly thoughtful or indicative of a developed perception of our impact on our environment and ourselves. EHAUS envisions two useful precepts in conceiving of a paradigm shift toward a more eco-friendly and environmentally conscientious lifestyle: (1) Developing a consciousness regarding our personal responsibility to our natural world, and our impact as we walk our journeys and build our roads on this earth. (2) Developing a connection with the larger community (scholastic, local, national and global) with the intent to raise awareness and provide opportunities for education about how one can actualize this lifestyle. The most basic opportunities for education include the dissemination and development of informational materials. This involves engaging the community through the use of speakers, films, workshops and classes, information about current environmental activism and health, and resources. EHAUS perceives its educative role as being more importantly located in its capacity to be a model of an intentional cooperative lifestyle that operates in an environmentally friendly and conscious way. We therefore believe that the best way to be educated in this area is to actively participate in our community. EHAUS works to provide a space where the ideals of an eco-friendly –cooperative lifestyle are actualized and examined. Our most important function is the example we provide in our capacity to be a model of the possibility of living in this way, with values of community, conscious consumerism, sustainability, local consumption and energy conservation. EHAUS is, more than anything, a space for students, and other members of the Haverford community to come together to experience a lifestyle that exhibits these ideals. It is part of EHAUS’ vision that through experience and participation individuals will feel empowered to habituate these behaviors and consciousness in their own lives. EHaus members will provide guidance and resources on these issues, including how people can get more involved on and off campus. With these open gatherings, we hope to become a hub for green activism on campus, drawing participation from existing activists as well as curious members of the general community.