News

College Will Focus on Energy as 2009-10 Academic Theme

Hartwick College will turn its attention to Energy and how the campus can come together to consider related issues as next year’s academic Theme.

In the coming academic year, the College community will engage in discussions, events, and lectures that center on the increasing relevance of energy policies, carbon footprints, greenhouse gas inventories, and how the decisions we make today about energy production, consumption, and conservation will affect the world of tomorrow.

“Energy is the dominant global force that encourages economic growth and exacerbates environmental degradation,” said Brian Hagenbuch, theme coordinator and Director of the Pine Lake Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Studies, in announcing this year’s theme. “We exist in a world where the prevailing political, economic, and social systems have been constructed around the availability of cheap, abundant energy. … A worldwide economic recession is prompting us to reexamine our ideas about consumption, and global warming is prodding us to question our relationship to the natural world.”

Throughout the year, the campus will explore patterns of energy use and apply lessons learned to enhance energy conservation on campus and in the regional community. The theme will focus on several goals, including:

• Educating the Hartwick community about fossil fuels, peak oil, and the merits of alternative energy sources
• Launching Hartwick Unplugged!, a campus-wide effort to reduce energy use and save money
• Enabling students, faculty, and staff to audit their energy consumption
• Connecting Hartwick’s carbon footprint to the effects of global climate change
• Promoting energy conservation and energy efficiency as mechanisms for reducing costs
• Involving the campus and regional community in efforts to reduce their ecological impact
• Addressing such local and regional energy topics as natural-gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale and the efficacy of wind and solar power

“The Energy academic theme will challenge the Hartwick community to come together to consider energy issues from local to international levels throughout the 2009-10 academic year,” Hagenbuch said.

Past academic themes have focused on Climate Change, Globalization, Food in Our Lives, and the Global Community. The 2008-09 academic theme, Balance, looked at ways to help students, faculty, and staff juggle their own needs while understanding how their way of life impacts the world around them.

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Hartwick College is a private liberal arts and sciences college of 1,480 students, located in Oneonta, NY in the northern foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Hartwick’s expansive Liberal Arts in Practice curriculum merges traditional liberal arts study, personalized teaching, and experiential learning approaches to emphasize Connecting the Classroom to the World. Add to that a wide range of off-campus internships, collaborative research, study-abroad opportunities, and a unique January Term, and Hartwick prepares students for the world ahead. Strong financial aid and scholarship programs keep a Hartwick education affordable.

Contact: Jennifer Moritz
E-mail: moritzj@hartwick.edu
Phone: 607-431-4038