D.J. Waldie and going green at Antioch College

What stories do you tell about Los Angeles? "I think the stories we tell about the places in which we live have a shaping power over the future of those places," said D.J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, at Antioch College Los Angeles yesterday. "To nurture a sustainable Los Angeles and make us more native to our place, the first need is a healthy ecology of hope, an environment of stories."

D.J. Waldie was the keynote speaker for a half-day event at Antioch -- titled "Urban Sustainability and Social Justice: An Invited Community Dialogue" -- called to start this small Culver City college down a more enviro-friendly path. Sustainability's a big goal for Antioch's new president, Neal King (right), who's already signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment -- committing Antioch to performing an emissions inventory and, within 2 years, setting a target date and interim milestones for becoming climate neutral.

And D.J. Waldie's speech set the tone for the day:

Consider how you and I might gain what could be called a "moral imagination" -- the means to write ourselves into the story of the places we will make our home and their redemptive mix of tragedies and joys ... stories that will contain a share of failure and heroism....

A sustainable Los Angeles would be a city and a region that met current human needs and the needs of the environment in ways that are just, economically efficient, grounded in history, and based on the best available science without compromising either the welfare or the dreams of future generations.

[left: Jenny Price, writer and Friends of the LA River activist, with D.J. Waldie]

Post-speech, I took part in a panel discussing urban sustainability -- after which we broke out into small working groups to discuss how exactly Antioch could go green. Antioch being a commuter school, many of the solutions focused on transportation issues, with ideas ranging from encouraging carpooling (via neighbor match-up programs to parking privileges to shuttle services) to working with the Culver City Bus to run later buses for students with classes that end at 10 pm to providing good bike maps.

The event itself was enviro-friendly too, with fair trade, organic, shade grown coffee served only in reusable mugs, recycling bins galore, and no plastic water bottles in sight.

On a sidenote: Isn't President King like the most powerful-sounding title ever?

Speaking of colleges going green: UCLA too had a green event yesterday, launching its Leaders in Sustainability emphasis. I didn't make it though, because I went to Green Drinks instead. Anyone go?

De-car-ing: Carpooled with Jenny Price, both to and from Antioch. For Green Drinks, I took Flexcar.

Photos by Siel

Comments

[Travis Sanford]

Nice article. Antioch Los Angeles is a campus of Antioch University. Antioch College WAS a residential undergraduate liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Antioch College had long been a leader in social, economic and environmental activism. It is now closed due to incompetent, unethical and possibly illegal management by the Antioch University Board of Trustees and their administration.

It is a common error to conflate the College and the University as the 156 year history of the College and the academic and professional reputation of its faculty and alumni in so many fields of endeavor, would lead one to assume that some symbiosis exists between the two. However this assumption is in error. Though the University and the other campuses continue to appropriate the history and mission of the College, including listing alumni of the College as alumni of the University, no such symbiosis exists.

I am glad to let the University's campuses bask in the reflected glory of the College, I only wish the staff, students and administration of those campuses had desire and influence to protect and defend their mother from the pernicious control of her current caretakers.

Travis Sanford
Antioch College Class of 1994
Portland, Oregon

[Geoffrey Bland]

The university system as far as I know did nothing to help the college stay open. This article should be about why the Antioch university system did not support or work to try keep the college open. Why execatly did they not reach out and help is unknown. The university system and I can speak of McGregor in Yellow Springs. They wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with the college during my time there. In fact they went to great distances to seperate themselves from us, except for the name and of course money. Hooray Hoorah for Antioch L.A., but they would not be anything if it were not for a small school in Yellow Springs ,Ohio.
Oh yeah to the board, we have never seem such pitiful -misguided leadership and you know inside that you
should have never closed the college. All of that chaos over the last four years and for what? The students really scared you that much huh?
In Shock,
Geoffrey Bland
Antioch College Class of 2006
Flagstaff, Arizona

[Bill Tower]

I, too, am an alumnus of Antioch COLLEGE. I, too, am outraged at the opportunism and bad faith displayed by the Antioch UNIVERSITY's Board of Trustees in cheapening the Antioch "brand".

It's a very sad time for my alma mater...but, in the proud Antioch College tradition, I predict that Antioch (and Antiochians) will not go gentle. The struggle to save our college and its good name continues.