Feb. 4, 2008

Snow Days

By G. Rendell

In a recent post, Oronte Churm comments on Hinterland University’s reluctance to cancel classes due to weather. My own campus gets serious winter, and I’ve long noted that senior administration seems to assume that all faculty, staff and students live within walking (slogging?) distance of campus — we hardly ever close.

From a sustainability perspective, however, that might be a good thing. The folks with the longest drives — the greatest vulnerability to bad weather — are precisely the folks whose commuting behavior creates the most emissions. Rather than enabling long commutes, maybe schools should look into enabling/facilitating people’s decisions to locate near campus.

Commuting behavior contributes something like 20% of emissions at an average university; encouraging people to reside where walking, biking or taking public transit to campus is a viable option can only cut down that number.

Comments

That sounds like a good thing in principle, but as with many good ideas the devil is in the details. For example, my university is tuition-driven, but in an affluent area, and the only way for me to live closer to it would be to get a salary increase that I recognize the university cannot afford.

Sue Donna Moss, IT Manager at Small Private Mid-Atlantic University, at 10:35 am EST on February 5, 2008

Options ...

Sometimes physical proximity isn’t possible. But what about public transit? Are there neighborhoods on bus lines which are affordable to mid-level staff? All staff? Buses (not to mention subways, if your city has them) run safely through a lot of lousy weather. And if it’s too sleety/snowy for the buses to be running, then your campus probably SHOULD close down.

G, Rendell, at 9:10 am EST on February 7, 2008

Snow days

A fine sentiment, except when one takes into consideration those institutions that are located smack in areas with exorbitantly high-cost real estate. To consider “encouraging” a typically paid staff member (or adjunct faculty member!) to “live closer” for ecological reasons is uninformed. A different tack is to develop an online ride-sharing application and widely publicize it. That not only cuts down emissions, but is also viable economically.

T. McElwaine, at 8:45 pm EST on February 7, 2008

Options, or not

Affluent areas often have poor access to public transportation, both because they don’t need it, all having cars, and because it limits access to their neighborhoods for unfashionably poor people. My university, for example, is served by a single infrequent bus line.

But there’s another strike against public transportation, and that’s the much longer time it takes. When a trip that takes thirty minutes by car takes more than an hour by public transit, is a commuter really supposed to forgo time with his or her family?

Sue Donna Moss, at 12:25 pm EST on February 12, 2008