There has been some difficulty in getting an official response published in the Gazette regarding the story they ran on DSUSO being "Unsustainable". However, it looks as though some headway might be made with the Gazette's next publication date (possibly Feb. 7, 2008). In the meantime, here are two official responses from both DSU President Mike Tipping and the Sustainability Office itself on the actuality of the office:
Response #1: DSU Sustainability Office - The Real Story
The staff of the Dalhousie Student Union Sustainability Office recognize that they perform vital work.
“If we can’t create move towards sustainability on a university campus, which is supposed to be a centre of learning and knowledge, how can we expect change to happen on a larger scale?” asked Sustainability Planner and Promoter Sarah Applebaum.
Applebaum is currently creating the foundations for Green Week, which she hopes will be one of the premier events sponsored by the new office. The week will be completely student-run and will allow societies and student groups to host events on campus that promote awareness of sustainability on campus and jump-start wider discussion and action.
Applebaum is one of three part-time staff members who now work to promote sustainability on campus out of a small office on the third floor of the SUB. The others, Sustanability Liason Mark Johnston and Sustainability Coordinator Emily Rideout are also anxious to educate and engage their fellow students.
“It’s important to have student feedback about what we’re doing and to make connections with student groups,” said Rideout. She looks forward to the upcoming Imagine ’08 session where she and her colleagues will be hosting a forum so that interested students can get a chance to help set the direction of the office. “I hope that we can help more societies and students, not just SustainDal and the EPSS (the Environmental Programs Student Society), to create projects and events that promote sustainability on campus,” said Rideout. “Expanding our network is key.”
Johnston, who became concerned about environmental issues due to experience with the tar sands and oil fields of his native Alberta, hopes that the student network they are building can create change on the university level as well. His job as Liaison involves working closely with the University’s new sustainability office (which was founded as a response to student activism) and lobbying the administration.
“Eventually, I hope that we can encourage the university to make changes increase both sustainability and efficiency and save students money while we save the environment.”
Johnston has also set up a blog where students can get weekly updates on the office’s work and learn how they can take part in the office’s initiatives.
Response #2: Letter To Gazette Editor
I was very disappointed in the coverage of the DSU Sustainability Office in a recent issue of the Gazette. I’d like to take this opportunity to address some issues arising from that coverage, and to hopefully correct the impression left by the newspaper’s cover.
The two main points I’d like to make absolutely clear are that the office was never in debt and in fact has incredibly good financial management and that the supposed concerns from SustainDal members about the office have been significantly exaggerated.
The office is not and never has been “in the red”. The change in the calculation of student fees (which would only have resulted in a $3,000 to $4,000 shortfall and not $7,000 as was reported) would have been completely covered by a transfer from the DSU surplus funds. In the end, it wasn’t even necessary to do that, as the office restructuring actually allowed the management committee to hire three staff instead of one and still have money left over for programming and events.
The $7,000 figure came from a very early estimate of the office’s finances and student numbers. It was certainly within the Gazette’s purview to report that this had been a past estimate, but the impression given by the coverage was that this $7,000 was a looming problem, which it absolutely was not.
I’ll note that the DSU is also providing rent-free office space for the sustainability initiative. We see its work as a service to the student community, and the DSU council and executive are committed to making sure the office is both effective and fiscally sound.
The truth is, the sustainability office has a greater degree of financial oversight and student representation than any other student levy. Its budget and operations are overseen by a management committee struck by council, the DSU board of operations and the DSU council, at which every student at Dalhousie has representation. I would contrast this with the Gazette’s own student levy and the levies of other C-level societies, which are controlled by much smaller and less representative groups with far less oversight.
The exaggeration of student concerns is just as big a concern for me as is the dissembling about finances, and extended even to the photograph accompanying the article.
“I was surprised when the photographer asked us not to smile for the photo” SustainDal executive member Mark Coffin, a major focus of the article, told me after its publication. “We were asked to convey an emotion we didn’t actually feel”.
Although portrayed as a critic in the article, Mark is actually a fan of the sustainability office, calling it the “biggest accomplishment” of the sustainability movement on campus.
When I asked him about some of the criticisms expressed in the article, Mark said his quotes were truncated and did not convey his true thoughts about the office.
“I meant the bureaucracy should be eliminated, not the sustainability office itself,” explained Mark, “but that’s not how it looks in the article.”
And what about the contention that SustainDal did not have a say in planning the office? “That’s completely untrue,” said Mark, “We were happy to have a huge role in creating the office and we hope to have a role, along with other societies, in its continued operations and management”.
Finally, I’d like to say that the sustainability office has huge potential. Mark Johnston, Emily Rideout and Sarah Applebaum are a dedicated group of students who are working hard to fulfill a vital mission. (For regular updates on their work, visit dsuso.blogspot.com).
As Sarah says, if we can’t move towards sustainability on a university campus, which is supposed to be a centre of learning and knowledge, how can we expect change to happen on a larger scale?
It’s unfortunate how easily some cherry-picked quotes, some staged cover art and some big red letters can make a success like the student sustainability office seem like a failure
Sincerely, Mike Tipping DSU President
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