Walking the Talk
“The initial catalyst was we needed
more beds … simple as that.”
But when Northland College in Ashland,
Wisconsin, determined its “simple” need for more dormitory space, explains
the college’s director of student development, meeting that need meant
honoring the college’s environmental principles.
“The college has adopted a goal to
become the leading environmental liberal arts college,” says Tom Wojciechowski.
The college claims a 25-year-old environmental mission.
 Three
and a half years of meetings and $4.1 million later, the college opened
its Environmental Living and Learning Center this past fall and took its
sustainable living concepts from classroom to dorm room.
“We have to live the way we’re learning,”
confirms Wojciechowski.
As with any “sustainability” project,
the first decision came not in how and what to build, but whether to build
at all.
“One of the philosophical questions
was: ‘Should the college grow?’” Wojciechowski recalls. “To me, the strongest
answer is if we are teaching people how to live softly … that’s greater
than any negative impact of that growth.”
Wojciechowski acknowledges that the
resulting two-story, 32,374-square-foot structure isn’t fully “sustainable.”
But it probably comes the closest of any dormitory in the country.
“(It’s) one of the most environmentally
advanced residence halls in the world,” William Mansfield III, former deputy
executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, is quoted
in a Northland brochure.
“Green” materials such as a countertop
composed of soybean hulls and
recycled newspapers helped create
a “sustainable” dormitory for
Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin.
LAKE SUPERIOR MAGAZINE
The building features construction
materials and furnishings that met as many “green” criteria as possible,
Wojciechowski says. Furniture of recycled plastic, bathroom countertops
of soybean hulls and old newspaper and attic insulation of recycled newspaper
kept sustainable manufacturing in mind.
Cedar shakes on the exterior walls
were harvested in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula rather than requiring long-distance
transportation and even the wainscoting uses wood derived from certified
sustainable forests.
Some “green” features are surprising.
The linoleum flooring may seem shades of the ’50s, but isn’t “your mother’s
vinyl flooring,” Wojciechowski assures. Linoleum is made primarily of organic
materials, linseed oil (from flax) and wood powder. “It’s durable, long-lasting,
naturally anti-bacterial … and renewable because of the sources and it’s
biodegradable.”
Hundreds of choices were weighed and
not everything might be considered the most “green.”
The siding, for instance, is brick.
Brick needs a great deal of energy in its production, but it has a 100-
to 200-year life span. “It really is a green material from that perspective,”
Wojciechowski says.
Helping to meet the building’s energy
needs is a system of “green” generation: a 120-foot, 20 kilowatt wind tower,
three free-standing photovoltaic (solar) arrays and 14 solar panels. The
building should achieve energy and water efficiency at a rate 50 percent
greater than a typical building.
Two apartments use a composting toilet,
along with a conventional toilet that meets the legal code.
 The
dorm can house 114 students in three wings that offer double rooms, suites
or apartments, as well as common areas and two greenhouses.
The “sustainability” experiment doesn’t
end with the building, but includes the residents’ lifestyles. Retraining
helps keep the human element on track. In the laundry, for example, a load
in cold water costs 50 cents, but hot water boosts the price to a buck.
The Environmental Living
and Learning
Center on the Northland College campus
lets students walk the talk when it
comes to sustainable living practices.
NORTHLAND COLLEGE
Wojciechowski also created a sustainability
course mainly for the dorm’s students but open to others. One side lesson
from this first course offering, says its instructor, was modification
of the usual us-and-them mentality of students towards business enterprises.
Students discover that sometimes the
“them” is “us,” he says. “Everything we do has some impact. We have to
be aware of that and make some choices.”
Students also found that sound environmental
practices now concern many industries. “Some of the very prominent leaders
in the field are from industry,” acknowledges Wojciechowski. “Name a plant
and it seems like there’s someone there who cares about this.”
Some of those leaders are Northland
graduates, who land jobs in fields ranging from the “green” building industry
to Ford Motor Company.
What students ultimately discover
is that “sustainability” means weighing all of the needs.
“One of the things we’re finding,”
Wojciechowski says, “is that a lot of the problems we’re facing need holistic
approaches.”
‘For me, the only possibility of
protecting our planet was to organize on a local level.’ - Mary Rehwald
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