Professors Herron and Sheppard want UMKC to start thinking about sustainability.

Professors call for sustainable campus

By: Dan Stroud

Posted: 10/22/07

Two UMKC professors, who are working to make the university's urban campus a part of the sustainable campus movement that is sprouting across the nation, spread more of their message last week.

Speaking on Oct. 17 to a group of environmentally concerned students, Professors James Sheppard, Ph.D., and John Herron, Ph.D., offered insight about a book they are writing about the environmental history of Kansas City.

The professors then shared their plans to co-teach an interdisciplinary class dealing with the environment and its sustainability on campus. The course would be offered beginning in fall 2008.

Sheppard, an environmental ethicist and an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy, and Herron, an assistant professor in the Department of History with specialties in Environmental History, 19th century history and the American west, offered some of their ideas but were quick to solicit feedback from the students as well.

"We want to have a conversation … about nature and the way it is perceived today in our society," Sheppard said. "When we think of nature, we think of Yellowstone Park … not necessarily about Kansas City."

In particular, the issue of sustainability on the UMKC campus was an issue. Herron opened this part of the discussion, asking students for their ideas about just what sustainability meant to each of them. The time the two men spent pulling teeth to get an answer seemed to suggest the relevance of their current projects.

"We want to be able to talk in concrete terms about just what sustainability is," Herron said. "Often in political dialogue, sustainability is couched in terms of development. By definition it is 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to also meet those needs.'"

The two went on to talk about what they hoped the course would achieve, including an integration of green design on the campus as it begins its future transformation. Mention was made of the currently proposed L.E.E.D. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified student union as a possible positive beginning.

Sheppard discussed three areas the nation has failed to act upon: leadership, coordination of action and an inability to match values with actions.

"We're talking about action that crosses political boundaries," Sheppard said. "We hope in this course to help move UMKC into a leadership role in this [sustainability] movement."

dstroud@unews.com