Is EMU serious about tackling the climate crisis? How much has EMU realistically achieved, and does the institution have practical plans for future efforts? Is a natural gas microgrid a step forward or backward for sustainability efforts? 

Over the past few years, a fracture has grown between students and administration over questions both simple and complex related to climate policy. At the Climate Town Hall last week, students and administration agreed that dialogue between the two bodies is essential in creating common understanding on sustainability efforts moving forward. For now, though, “students are in a different place” than administration, said senior Emma Yoder, co-president of Earthkeepers. 

President Susan Shultz Huxman appeared alongside Yoder and Professor Doug Graber-Neufeld last Monday on a panel designed to highlight perspectives from students, faculty, and administration on climate-related issues. Dr. Huxman called the event a “wonderful reminder” that students here are engaged in national and international issues and are “wanting to make a difference on our own [carbon] footprint.” 

Graber-Neufeld agreed that the Town Hall was a “step in the [right] direction.” 

“The conversation has kind of dropped off the map.” Graber-Neufeld continued, “and it feels like this is raising the conversation a bit more to where it should be on campus.” 

A former teacher of 30 years, Dr. Huxman thought the panel was “a real educational mission.” To her, education around climate and sustainability issues will be at the center of EMU’s future sustainability efforts at EMU after the school’s recent amendments to the university’s mission statement and strategic plans. 

“The impetus of all this has to be that we give greater priority to education around sustainability,” Dr. Huxman said. “We have a new vision statement that says we have to open up new pathways of achievement that show how our graduates are unifying leaders oriented to peace and justice.” 

Explaining the amendment to the mission statement, Dr. Huxman continued: “I want [sustainability] to be an academic issue for us. We’re known internationally as the center for justice and peacebuilding. We’re known locally [for] producing good nurses and teachers and accountants. But it would be great if we could be known as a place where major tenants, both social and scientific, of environmental activism are part and parcel of the program. I have high hopes, and they are educational hopes.”

Meanwhile, students have pressed for answers on how EMU plans to achieve the climate goals it put forward in the 2015 Climate Action Plan. One major issue raised at the Climate Town Hall was the recent installation of a natural gas microgrid, an issue one student described as “self-defeating.” Yoder bluntly called the microgrid “not sustainable.” Regardless of how the administration has tried to explain its decision, it’s “still a natural gas generator,” Yoder continued. 

In an interview, Dr. Huxman described the microgrid as EMU’s “primary big, institutional investment as it relates to environmental sustainability.” 

EMU committed to this installation after consulting with Siemens Technology, who advised investing in the three generators to save considerable money on energy and water. Dr. Huxman says the microgrid is currently saving EMU $100k in energy costs. 

The project came at a period when EMU needed to focus on financial help. Since 2018, after staff cuts and reorganization, there have been increasing margins, with 2019’s 3.5% margin “our best performing year in maybe 6-7 years.” 

Funds saved by the natural gas generator have been put toward retrofitting buildings on campus with LEDs and other energy saving changes. 

Graber-Neufeld explained that at a national level, natural gas has controversially been hailed as a transition between fossil fuels and renewable resources. Natural gas has lower carbon emissions when burned; however, any methane leakage effectively cancels much of the carbon savings, and natural gas as a sustainable solution, while “somewhat helpful,” is being moved away from, Graber-Neufeld said. His interpretation of the microgrid is that “it freed up funds because it was a financial sustainability project.”

Students concerned about environmentalism at EMU are unsatisfied with the installation of three natural gas generators being classified as a sustainability project. While the installation may have made more funds available for sustainability projects, students broadly feel the financial benefits are not worth the environmental costs. “Financial sustainability is not the same thing as environmental sustainability,” Yoder said. 

Sophomore Anna Paetkau said she felt “angry” after the Town Hall. “There are a lot more sustainable systems that we could have put in that would save us a lot of money in the long run that would have allowed us to make all the adjustments… and not be using greenhouse gas generators.” 

Another disconnect between students and administration is the fact that EMU never hired a new Sustainability Coordinator after its old one left in 2016. 

“That was a position that was here before my time,” Dr. Huxman explained. “What I do know is that that person left the position, and in 2017 we started making some cutbacks in staff and faculty ranks. That was not a position that was refilled.” 

“Might such a position come back?” Dr. Huxman continued, “If it did, it would be part of a larger package, sort of like how Doug Graber-Neufeld is the director of the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions, but that’s not his full-time job… If the position were to come back, it would probably be part of a faculty load.” 

Senior Emerson Brubaker, who organized the Town Hall, said hiring a Sustainability Coordinator “is literally step one to show there is an administrative dedication to sustainability on EMU’s campus.” “Every institution, not just schools, if you have an institution you should have someone who is facilitating their relationship to the environment.” 

Brubaker went on: “Instead, EMU is like, ‘Let’s see if we can scrape the money together to make this a position,’ and it’s like, well, you didn’t do that for all these other positions that are so obviously necessary. I don’t understand how a sustainability coordinator isn’t one of those positions that is so obviously necessary.”