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The Mixed Political Blessing of Campus Sustainability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2010

Sheryl D. Breen
Sheryl D. Breen
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, Morris
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Abstract

The rise of sustainability rhetoric, curriculum, infrastructure, and marketing on college campuses is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, college presidents are pledging to eliminate their campuses' global warming emissions; colleges and universities are building wind turbines, composters, and green buildings; and sustainability coordinators are the latest surge in new staff hires. However, the greening of college campuses has a less welcome side as well, and examination of the campus sustainability movement suggests an unsettling lack of theoretical and ideological analysis. In this article, I praise what is being done well, identify the political analysis that has been avoided, and provide arguments for what has yet to be addressed. I argue that the trend toward campus sustainability, while praiseworthy in some significant ways, has left some troubling theoretical assumptions largely undisturbed.

Type
Features
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 685 - 690
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

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