While a handful of students are working hard to revive the Student Environmental Association here on campus, it looks as if they still have a lot of work to do.
“I wasn’t even aware that we had an environmental club here at Fairfield,” said Julie Lohrius “03, “I don’t think I have even seen any flyers around campus for it.”
“I guess we would have one here since it is a popular issue to many people in society,” said Julia Ambrosi “03, “But I have never really heard about it here on campus. I don’t know anyone involved in the club.”
“I don’t think I would go to an environmental club meeting here,” said Joe Bologna ’02, “I recycle but that is about it when it comes to the environment.”
In the past two years, the S.E.A. has had only a handful of meetings due to the fact that students have just not been actively involved with this club here on campus. Dr. Lisa Newton, director of the Environmental Studies program at Fairfield and advisor of the S.E.A. said that in years past the club has had an extremely large following that was obvious at packed meetings that were held every week. Right now is just a downtime for the organization.
Many students who were questioned claim that they do recycle and care about the environment. They really are not interested enough to attend a meeting, however.
There are a number of students who do care enough about the environment to keep the club running. Three students in particular, Chris Karch, Julia Lundy, and Rob Keder, all sophomores here at Fairfield, are trying to spark the interest of students here on campus to attend meetings for the association.
“We have sent out e-mails and posted flyers around campus to try and recruit some new members for the club,” said Keder, “We are looking for a small number of dedicated people so we can re-organize the club and get it back to where is used to be.”
In a recent meeting that was held by the S.E.A. in the School of Nursing auditorium, there was a turnout of around 12 people. The meeting was highlighted by two guest speakers from the area, Larry Kaley and Adam Shopis, who talked about some of the issues here in Connecticut that involve the environment.
One of these issues is how six southern Connecticut power plants are polluting the air that residents breathe. The pollution emitted into the air by these “sooty six” plants is causing a rise in asthma cases around the area, critics said.
“Right now there seem to be very few people who are willing to make the sacrifice of helping us out and re-organizing the club,” said Lundy. “I am hoping that we can start small and by the time I am a senior, we will have a solid core of students who are willing to keep it alive.”
Other schools in Connecticut seem to have much more active environmental clubs. Schools such as Yale and Connecticut College have extremely informative web pages.
Connecticut College calls their club Students Against Violence to the Environment, also known as S.A.V.E. according to the web page. They provide a basic description of the club and how it began. It also mentions how in 1994 it helped form the Connecticut College Environmental Coalition, or the C.C.E.C., along with other Connecticut schools such as UConn, Wesleyan, Trinity, WCSU, Yale and Fairfield.
Yale University has the Yale Student Environmental Coalition. They seem to have a very active organization which is evident in their web page which has numerous links ranging from a calendar that describes upcoming events for the club, a list of all the members in the club, a contact list with names and e-mails of the board of directors as well as a description of projects the club is currently working on.
“I am working on the web page for our club at Fairfield,” said Chris Karch, “We had problems with the server recently so I am starting from scratch. Hopefully it will be finished soon.”
Anyone interested in the SEA can stop by their desk on the first floor of the Campus Center. Students can also e-mail Julia Lundy, Rob Keder or Chris Karch at their Pipeline accounts.
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