English Instructor Jason BreMiller Named Sustainability Coordinator

English instructor Jason BreMiller will live a double life next year when it comes to teaching. This week the Academy appointed BreMiller as the new sustainability coordinator, a position he will undertake in addition to teaching English. He will begin his role in July, filling in the gap left by science instructor Elizabeth Stevens after she retired from the role last year.

Exeter hired its first sustainability coordinator back in 2003. At the time it was an intern position, and the role of the coordinator was to increase sustainability consciousness around campus.

“What he is most zealous about is getting other people outdoors and watching them soak up everything.”

At first the position kept close ties with facilities, but over the years the role has shifted toward campus-wide education. Recent coordinators have worked very closely with student groups and faculty, attempting to become a connecting link between the different environmental groups on campus and pointing them in a common direction.

The facilities aspect of the job was then appointed to a new position within facilities called the senior sustainability manager. The person holding this role typically works closely with the sustainability coordinator, forming the sustainability advisory committee. This group essentially focused on public policies, as well as coordinating different environmental events across campus. It has also served as a means to unite staff, faculty and students over environmental issues. Stevens served as the last sustainability coordinator and retired this position at the end of last year. After a year without a coordinator, BreMiller will now take her place, joining the current Senior Sustainability Manager Jill Robinson on the sustainability committee.

BreMiller was first presented with this opportunity after he shared some of his interests and ideas regarding outdoor programs to Dean of Faculty Ron Kim. BreMiller actively works as a qualified instructor for NOLS, a prestigious wilderness education school that offers a variety of courses from ten day trips to full terms abroad. While at Exeter, BreMiller has worked to offer students the opportunity to partake in some of these trips. His role in the program fits perfectly with his general interest in “experiential education and getting kids outside.”

BreMiller does an excellent job getting students involved in his programs—his enthusiasm shines through his vivid descriptions when he talks about nature and the beauty of the trips. Lower John Ragone, a participant of his NOLS hiking trip, was persuaded to attend a spring break Utah trip after talking with BreMiller.

“He can go on and on and on about everything he’s seen, heard, smelled and touched,” Ragone said. “What he is most zealous about is getting other people outdoors and watching them soak up everything. He was even in Utah (on last year’s trip) when he found out that his daughter was a girl and plans to take her out there to the exact same spot when she grows up.”

As BreMiller takes over his new role next year, he will continue to focus on fostering special relationships between students and nature. To reach this goal, he plans to work close with the current student-run environmental groups on campus. He hopes to “canvas the existing academic curriculum” in an effort to see what Exonians are already doing on campus related to sustainability and to see if there are further inroads for this type of work.

BreMiller believes the student body will act cooperatively. The students around campus seem very passionate about similar environmental topics to him.

“There is so much potential for our community in this regard,” he said. “We have extraordinary resources and an extraordinary campus. Our student body is poised to take this on. Their social consciousness is developing, and I think there is a real craving on part of the students to develop these programs.”

However, despite the large support already provided by students on campus, one of BreMiller’s biggest goals will be to increase awareness of the current environmental problems and create a genuine will in students to fight them. In addition to signing up for his “Literature and the Land” senior elective, Bremiller hopes students will start getting out more regularly to familiarize themselves with the natural world surrounding them. “I think that it is fruitless to talk about saving or conserving something unless you know it intimately and have first hand experience with it so there is an actual incentive to save something,” BreMiller said. “My approach is to help our community become more conscious of their relationship to place so it becomes the undergirding principal or incentive for them to help out.”

Senior Connor Bloom agreed with BreMiller. As an active member on the board of E-proctors and the co-head of multiple environmental clubs such as Environmental Action Community, Bloom takes sustainability very seriously. During his involvement he has researched ways to further improve campus clubs. He believes a “centralized person” has been the missing piece from these clubs over the last year and hopes BreMiller will take on the task to link different environmental clubs and projects together under a common objective. “We have had to start from ground-zero,” Bloom said. “We needed directions. An E-proctor’s job is to educate the campus, and in the past we have always had a strong direction for that. Without any sustainability coordinator to drive that last year, we struggled.”

With over 50 kids working in the program, guiding the E-proctors is one very important aspect of the job. According to Stevens, there is a real need for supervision and help in planning productive meetings.

“I think it is a really important job to keep the E-proctor program up and running,” she said. “But it is not an easy job to coordinate all of those kids. It is really important for the school to have a mature and organized adult in that position.”

Both Stevens and Bloom have no doubt that BreMiller will prove himself to be that type of adult. BreMiller upholds a strong reputation on campus as a kind and intelligent leader who maintains great relationships with both his students and faculty comrades.

“With a new sustainability coordinator finally arriving, I am very optimistic and hopeful for the future of Exeter sustainability,” Bloom said. “That is something I would not have said at the beginning of this fall.”