Haverford College
EN-3: Student Life

Committee on Environmental Responsibility Mission: The Committee for Environmental Responsibility (CER) was created by the students, faculty and staff of Haverford College and founded on the socially responsible principles of the college. CER has a deep concern and respect for all communities of which it is a part, both social and ecological. Our mission, therefore, is to educate our community towards an awareness of global concerns and to set a positive example of forward thinking, environmental stewardship for our campus and for other colleges to follow. To do this, CER works to ensure that environmental concern is an integral part of Haverford College’s daily life informing our curriculum, administrative decisions and maintenance of facilities and grounds. History: At the fall plenary meeting of 2000, the students of Haverford College voted to form the Committee on Environmental Responsibility Resolution on campus. The resulting Committee for Environmental Responsibility (CER) was composed of four students appointed by Student’s Council, two professors, two staff members, and an administrator appointed by the President of the College, and was charged with creating an environmental policy for Haverford. Over the next two years, CER members researched college environmental policies, presented drafts of policies at faculty and staff meetings, and held open community meetings on the evolving policy. In the fall of 2003, the policy, A Vision For a Green Haverford, was formally accepted by the President and senior administrators, and is official college policy. The policy affirms Haverford’s support of environmental principles and guides current and future college practices. Additionally, CER was recognized as a Presidential Committee, and as such is directly responsible to the president and senior administration. Due in a large part to CER’s efforts, the Gardner Integrated Athletic Center was built with environmental principles in mind, and received LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification at the Gold level. It is one of the first LEED certified athletic buildings in the country. Other projects that CER continues to be involved in include developing an environmental curriculum at Haverford, raising student awareness through campus wide energy and paper saving campaigns, and bringing composting to the dining hall.

The Haverford Garden Initiative A student organization with a mission to create food gardens and similar green spaces on campus for the benefit and use of the Haverford community. We seek to reconnect the Haverford community to the physical landscape and to the process of food production that is rooted in the land. By providing spaces for sustainable food production and education, the Haverford Garden Initiative contributes to Haverford’s commitment to environmental sustainability. We envision the gardens as both academic and recreational spaces where students and other community members can work alongside one another for fun, for educational purposes, or for research projects. More concretely, we are currently responsible for the Student Garden found in the Haverford College Apartments (off of Ardmore Avenue). Our organization is successfully growing a large quantity of vegetables including tomatoes, green beans, peppers, lettuces, cucumbers, potatoes, radishes, beets, onions, peas, cauliflower, and herbs. In the coming year, we hope to move to a larger site on campus and to secure funding for an official campus farm. The Haverfarm is part of a burgeoning program called ACES, which stands for the Agricultural Center for Environmental Studies. The program is the brain child of the 2014 senior capstone in environmental studies that sought to utilize the interdisciplinary expertise of the students in the class to make a positive impact on the Haverford community by more deeply embedding environmental issues and consciousness into the campus. The center seeks to engage the intersection of environmental issues and agriculture on campus. At the moment the program is attempting to make institutional, community and academic connections to promote institutional memory. There is a working group focusing on building a proposal for a premanent greenhouse that would serve as the center for ACES, and would provide a place for students to engage with farming for the entire academic year. The Haverfarm is the farm component of the center. At the moment, the Haverfarm is beginning its first season in two locations on campus, growing vegetables on approximately 1/5th of an acre. The farm is recognized as a student club and has nearly 20 active members, and at least double regular volunteers. In its first season, the Haverfarm hopes to engage the interest of many underclassmen students in agriculture, and give its produce to the campus community, as well as the local Ardmore Food Bank.

Lunt Cafe is 100% student run and student staffed. Lunt Cafe operates as both a non-profit business and a student club. As such, we work for the benefit of Haverford & Bryn Mawr students, both our customers and employees. To this end, we maintain extremely reasonable prices and hours, host a variety of student events, and pay our staff above-market wages. We recieve support and funding from Students' Council through the Student Activities Budget, which goes towards price & wage subsidies aimed at student welfare. Lunt has been serving Haverford College since 1982, and we look forward to continuing and improving our service in the future.

There are three core programs which enable students to engage with sustainable development and investment at Haverford: 1. The Committee on Investment and Social Responsibilityis a Board committee consisting of board members, faculty staff, and students. They focus on shareholder activism operating a small "sin portfolio" of holdings of corporations that they have selected to work to influence corporate policies in the areas of sustainability and corporate responsibility. They were recently engaged in a conversation with the student group, Divest Haverford, which had requested disinvestment of the endowment from fossil fuels. In response to this, the committee is evaluating whether to take a broader role in working to influence campus sustainability initiatives. The following are part of the Haverford Microfinance Impact and Investing Initiative (Mi3), which is supported by Professor Shannon Mudd of the Economics department. 2. Carter Road Capital: Is a student run microfinance initiative at Haverford that provides loans to small businesses in the area who otherwise would not have access to capital. The club has done national and international research prior to actually making loans and will make its first loans in spring 2014 3. Impact Investing: Mi3 has joined Investors Circle (IC), an angel network focused on impact investing. Mi3 participates in the IC Philly group that meets monthly, inviting entrepreneurs to pitch their business plans to the IC Philly Investors. Utilizing students in an Impact Investing course and subsequent Independent studies, Mi3 conducts due diligence on potential investments in order to direct funds from the foundation of a Haverford Alum. Mi3 recently helped close its first investment, a $25,000 purchase of a convertible note in a LED design and manufacturing firm. Mi3 is currently exploring two other investments, including one into a firm that provides funding for energy retrofits for organizations with sub 50,000 buildings that are usually excluded from standard bank lending. Claire Perry Haverford College '14

Saving Communities/Saving the Environment A two day seminar focused on bringing sustainability and social issues to Haverford College. Speakers included Steve Curwood host of NPR’s Living on Earth and Lois Gibbs and environmental activist involved in the Love Canal controversy. The seminar also included a local food dinner at the dining center and an environmental faire. Running The Numbers Exploring the detritus of American mass culture, Jordan’s photographs depict staggering statistics through intricately detailed large-scale panels. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: 15 million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (30 seconds of can consumption), 100 million toothpicks (the number of trees cut in the U.S. yearly to make the paper for junk mail), or 38,000 shipping containers (the number of containers processed through American ports every 12 hours).

In Fall 2012, Haverford College hosted Jenny Price, an environmental artist and member of the Los Angeles Urban Rangers. Jenny gave a public talk and held a series of workshops with students focused on connecting to nature on non-rural environments.

The Haverford Outdoors Club is a student club that runs outdoor activities such as hiking trips and rock climbing expeditions for students. The club is run on leave no trace principles.

There are two sustainability positions for students. Both are paid. One is the sustainability assistant, which is the paid student worker on the Committee for Environmental Responsibility. The student worker organizes and facilitates meetings, conducts research and does anything that needs to be done for the committee. The second position is the energy czar. This person's job is to go around academic buildings and turn off lights at night when they are left on.

Haverford College is a liberal arts College with a distinctive character that prioritizes superior undergraduate education and original research as core vehicles for preparing students for lives of scholarship, service and community leadership.

Earthquakers is the student run environmental group on campus. The Committee for Environmental Responsibility is the student, faculty and staff environmental committee. Haverfordians for a Liveable Future is the student fossil fuel divestment group. Ethos Food Initiative is the sustainable food student group. Ehaus is the environmental living cooperative.