Ben Stevenson and Roque Sanchez
A pithy 112 words, the policy is key to Johnson’s role on campus. In addition to fueling his daily efforts, it also provides him the freedom and flexibility to pursue his initiatives. “The policy gives me room to operate,” he says. “It lets me know the university is serious about my position and will have an open mind about the ideas I bring forward.” The policy has an interesting history—one that continually inspires Johnson as he pursues his goals. As it turns out, creating the environmental mission statement was easier said than done. Faculty, students, and administrators tenaciously drafted and redrafted the policy for years before it was approved. How did the process begin, and who finally saw it through? “Those are questions better answered by Paul Harcombe,” says Johnson. “Paul is the dean, czar, and godfather of Rice campus greening.” Officially, Harcombe is a professor of ecology and environmental biology. A tall, soft-spoken man with a gentle manner, he has worked at Rice for 34 years. His major research project focuses on tree population changes in the Big Thicket National Forest in East Texas, and since he began the project in 1980, he’s tagged tens of thousands of trees there. Once a year, he and his research assistants venture out to document the health, growth, and death of his trees. Clearly, Harcombe is not afraid of commitment—and one thing he’s been passionate about during the final part of his career is Environmental Studies 302—Sustainability: Rice into the Future. ENST 302, which Harcombe currently co-teaches with Johnson, is an interdisciplinary environmental studies class dedicated to minimizing environmental waste on the Rice campus. The curriculum centers around student projects, which are carried out in the serveries, the college bathrooms, the floors of academic buildings—wherever there’s an opportunity for conservation. In recent years, students have campaigned to use recyclable carpets in new remodeling projects. They’ve tested waste reduction campaigns in serveries to motivate students to stop throwing away so much food. They’ve convinced construction project managers to use water-efficient sinks that, according to calculations, should save the university $70,000 during the course of several decades.
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Rice Sallyport
These projects often engender real, lasting, and cost-effective changes on campus. But Harcombe has another impetus for his assignments. He says that, while he always believed and hoped his research was useful, he knew that data alone would not inspire real change. The world’s environmental problems need more proactive, informed fighters. In addition to covering the scientific elements of environmental problems, ENST 302 teaches environmental policy and activism. “It’s not the projects that the students take with them,” “The policy gives Harcombe says. “It’s the ability to do me room to projects.” The class instructs undergraduates operate. It lets how to research new environmenme know the tally friendly products and processes, network with influential people, and university is present new ideas in a persuasive and serious about my compelling yet factual manner. The position and will Rice campus thus becomes a training have an open mind ground for the outside world. ENST 302 began in 1999. That about the ideas I year, Harcombe co-taught the class with political science professor Don bring forward.” Ostdiek. The next spring, Harcombe —Richard Johnson went on sabbatical while his class went forward without him. But in his absence, ENST 302 continued to develop its voice on campus, beginning a longterm undertaking that would dramatically change Rice environmentalism. That semester, a guest lecturer told the students that if they really wanted to advance conservation on campus, the university needed to adopt a sustainability policy. The class rallied around the idea. Although ENST 302 was not offered in 2001, the following year’s class resumed efforts to create a sustainability policy. It drafted the initial statement and passed it on to the administration for approval. By the end of the semester, the project found itself in limbo, but even