Swarthmore College
EN-3: Student Life

There are 9 student groups considered part of Swarthmore's sustainability Ecosphere': Bird Club, EAT (Enjoy, Appreciate, Taste), Garnet Go Green, The Good Food Project, The Outsiders Club, Serenity Soular, Sunrise, Swat Put A Price On It, and Sync Up for Zero Waste.

https://www.swarthmore.edu/sustainability/student-community-groups

The College has two vegetable gardens: the Good Food Garden (student-run) and the Our Food Garden (led by a Biology/Environmental Studies course). Both gardens are managed in the summer by student interns hired by the College's Arboretum. The summer interns focus on harvesting and providing food to communities on campus and locally.

Article about Our Food Garden: https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/%E2%80%98our-food%E2%80%99-garden-connects-students-and-community-members-to-larger-food-systems

The Worthmore Free Store is a donation-based enterprise that provides access to room furnishings and other supplies for students who may otherwise face cost or transport barriers in obtaining such items. Complementing this environmental and social mission, Worthmore aims to reduce waste by fostering a culture of reuse and preventing unnecessary purchases. As a “free” store (where all items cost $0), Worthmore is an alternative economic practice that challenges students to think creatively about resource sharing.

Website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sustainability/worthmore

The College's Sustainability Committee hosts the Green Initiatives Fund, which is an opportunity to small-sized grants for creative, on-campus sustainability projects.

Website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sustainability/green-initiatives-fund

The College hosted Paul Hawken, founder of 350.org, and Kamuela Enos, a prominent indigenous leader and activist from Hawaii, in a public lecture in December 2019 that discussed solutions to the climate crisis, indigenous practices, and centering marginalized communities in conversations about the climate. In November 2019, the College invited Professor Mimi Sheller to speak about climate change and the resulting migratory patterns in a lecture entitled "Climate Refugees, Kinetic Elites, and the Struggle for Mobility Justice". In October 2019, Professor Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream and pipeline activist, presented a lecture entitled "Waking up to the Reality of Climate Change". In September 2019, Professor Aly Mbaye of Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal presented a lecture to discuss the effects of climate change on economies and societies in the Sahel region. In September 2019, Professor Richard Alley gave a lecture on the human impacts of climate change and his work with ice cores in Antarctica for identifying the increasing trends of atmospheric carbon concentrations.

The Peace and Conflict Studies and Environmental Studies departments offered a film screening of "Half-Mile, Upwind, on Foot", along with a Q&A session with the filmmaker and anti-pipeline activists featured in the film. In November of 2017, the campus held an exhibition called "What goes Around Comes Around: The Circle of Trash", which aimed to illustrate the lifecycle of trash along with the history of student environmental justice activism at Swarthmore.

The "Outsiders" Outing Club is dedicated to giving Swarthmore students across all class years and experience levels the opportunity to explore the outdoors through a wide array of activities, including climbing, hiking and backpacking.

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The student Green Advisors become experts in and teach community members about composting - as well as reduction/diversion methods more broadly. The College also has student clubs on campus, such as Swarthmore Zero Waste (SZW) that hosts clothing swaps in which students bring in old clothes to donate or trade, in addition to workshops for sewing and mending clothes. We also have student workers hired throught the campus arboretum who tend to onsite vegetable gardens year-round, which provides vegetables for weekly summer vegetable giveaways to community members and students living on campus. Fieldwork, gardening, and food management are also taught through courses under the Environmental Studies major such as Compost and Climate Change and Our Food.

Many student positions with the Office of Sustainability & Scott Arboretum: Green Advisors, President's Sustainability Research Fellows, Office Interns, Worthmore Move-Out Assistants, Summer Interns, Garden Assistants

GAs: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sustainability/green-advisors
PSRF: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sustainability/presidents-sustainability-research-fellowship
Scott Arboretum Interns: https://www.scottarboretum.org/learn/

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Annual Crum Woods Clean Up: for the past several years, the College sets aside a day to welcome staff, students, and community volunteers for a collective woods clean-up and meadow planting effort.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Participation: for the past several years, Swarthmore has sent a delegation usually consisting of about 4 students and 2 faculty (each year), to the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) as observers, to learn about the negotiations. The students and faculty regularly update a public blog, post from which some faculty choose to incorporate into their lesson plans.
Website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sustainability/un-conference-delegation

Data for this credit was reported by representatives from the Office of Sustainability and informed by publicly accessible materials on the College website.