Environmental Action Committee Launches “Big Red Goes Green”

By Ryan Manley, Hannah Park, Lily Rampe, and Lianna Yang

The Environmental Action Committee (EAC) announced its “Big Red Goes Green” initiative and the accompanying dorm competition focused on building habits of sustainability at an all-school assembly on October 18th. Seniors and EAC coheads Ophelia Bentley, Alia Bonanno, Alysha Lai, and Safira Schiowitz shared that, in the next year, they plan to incorporate environmentalism as one of the Academy’s “pillars.”

“The environmental pillar is the umbrella name for all the initiatives we are pushing forth,” Lai explained. “Initiatives include: a hydroponics garden with the dining hall, junk mail recycling with the local town, building the EAC website, cora balls, reintroduction of dorm environmental proctors (E-proctors) and more.”

To involve students in this collective venture, EAC and E-proctors will host a bracket-style competition between the dorms. Students can earn points by taking sustainable actions such as taking shorter showers or visiting the campus thrift store Exeter Exchange. At the end of the year, the dorm with most points per resident and day student affiliate will be honored at the Prize Assembly and earn a series of prizes, including $500 in the next year’s dorm funds.

EAC’s initiative also involves faculty and alumni members of the Climate Action Leadership Group. Bonanno elaborated on the support EAC has been receiving from the Academy: “The Environmental Stewardship Committee is working on a climate action plan, which is a more formalized approach to what we’re doing with the trustees. They’re actually going to get the money, the [resources] for the [environmentally-focused] curriculum, and for building all of the new dorms, which are going to be geothermal like New Hall.”

Science instructor and Sustainability Coordinator Andrew McTammany expanded on the faculty-run plan. “The committee felt strongly that we needed to articulate our vision for the school extending into the future: 2031, 2050, 2060, however far you look. [As a committee we began] thinking about [our plans and goals] more holistically,” he said. “The committee has developed a framework [...] One, our curriculum and educational experience. Two, our buildings and our energy usage and its contribution to climate change. And then finally, what our day to day operations are, food source and waste.”

Bentley spoke in-depth about the specific people she has been in contact with for the initiative, which the organizers have been working on since the end of the last school year. “Through conversations with CAL and Mr. McTammany, we started to get a first idea of a proposal, and essentially, we then started meeting with some of the trustees. We then met with Principal Rawson pretty frequently about finding the mechanics of how it works. We also met a lot with Dean Breen over the summer, who was really helpful, and we met with a few dorm heads.” Bentley said. “It was a lot of proposal creation, meeting with people at various positions in the school and in the school community. Then, taking feedback and retaking everything until we kind of had an overall proposal we were happy with.”

“There’s always been this collaborative nature between students and faculty in order to improve the school’s sustainability efforts. [...] I feel that the Exeter has always demonstrated a commitment to supporting student interest both in terms of faculty support, financial support, time, and opportunities,” McTammany said. He praised the “psychological perspective” the group of EAC focuses on. “This group of EAC, rather than just creating this program, they’re now trying to incentivize it [...] how to get people to really understand, appreciate, and engage with the environmental issues we face.”

The leaders emphasized the reliance that they have on E-proctors to ensure the success of the dorm competition. “Of course [the dorm competition] is going to be hard. It relies on the E-proctors to be accountable and to be responsible about collecting points and about reaching out to their dorms,” Bonanno said.

“We hope that people who sign up to be e-proctors have a commitment to the environment and therefore have a higher understanding of the fact that the core value here is about trying to further environmentalism versus getting a Nintendo switch for your dorm,” Bentley affirmed.

Bonanno is optimistic, however. “The only worry is really that people lose motivation,” she said. “We are hopeful that with our E-proctors, we’re going to be able to handle this. We have had a lot of positive feedback from faculty, too. We have Principal Rawson and support, so we’re really optimistic about how it’s going to go.”

The leaders have also instituted a photo proof system that they hope may further ensure the competition’s integrity. “It might be a bit rocky to begin with, but the idea is that the E-Proctors are simply receiving email or text messages with photos and then those photos are going into the drive [...] therefore, an E-proctor can’t really make up points because we’ll have the photo evidence of how many points they actually received,” Bentley explained, adding that they plan to have a “second wave of people, which is us co-heads, who are going to be able to look at [the photos] and ensure that the E-proctors are telling the truth.”

Even with these many systems in place to avoid fraud, it is still not perfect. Loopholes arise that require patching. “Photos of picking up trash can be fabricated, so I think we’re going to get rid of that in the bracket,” Upper and E-proctor Chris Serrao gave as an example.

Despite the efforts faculty and students have made towards the “Big Red Goes Green” initiatives, many expressed obliviousness and skepticism of the dorm competition, specifically its rules and the impacts it may have on the Exeter community. “I don’t know how the competition and point system thing is going to work,” Upper Sylvia Langer shared.

Upper Parker Seymore also described his confusion on the details of the plan. “What even is the dorm competition, do you just throw stuff out and you get points?”

Senior Gracie Keyt emphasized that their lack of knowledge was not due to a lack of care about the environment. “It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that we don’t actually know what’s going on,” she said. “I don’t even know what an E-Proctor is, let alone who the E-proctors in my dorm are.”

“Obviously recycling is going to help, but when you compare recycling to using fossil fuels, the little bit of recycling that we are doing is probably not going to help,” upper Alexander Luna said, raising concerns on the effectiveness of the dorm competition.

“I appreciate that they are trying to make it fun and motivate people to think more about being sustainable. However, I don’t think it’s going to change much,” Keyt agreed. “I think many of the issues, in terms of our contribution to climate change and lack of sustainability, are more of an administrative thing. It cannot be solved by us throwing things out and putting something in the recycling versus the trash.”

Students who held a clearer idea of the competition shared a more optimistic view. “I think there is a great amount of support on the Exeter campus for sustainability, [and this competition] is a great way to get students involved and excited about being sustainable,” prep Lilia Feecteau said. “I think we are definitely putting in the effort to go in the right direction. We are a very big school so what we contribute to environmentalism is very critical.”

Feecteau continued, describing how the Academy could improve sustainability on campus. “I think online books should be more widely available to limit paper use. There could be recommended serving sizes posted next to meals in the dining hall to limit food waste.”

Serrao felt that “the Academy could give students easier access to environmental statistics on campus, because sometimes it’s hard to know what kind of footprint you’re making.”

“Could the school easily share information on power consumption and water usage by dorm? Maybe that could be a more secure way to evaluate dorms in the competition, as you can’t forge those statistics,” Luna said.

Many students agreed that larger courses of action needed to be taken by the administration and expressed ideas on how the academy could have a more environmentally-friendly infrastructure moving forward.

“I think that solar panels could be used a lot more on campus. There are a lot of roofs here and a lot of open areas which could be used to generate cleaner energy,” Luna shared.

Lai offered ideas for imbedding sustainability into the architecture of the Academy. “There’s a lot of environmental architectural design which can be kept in mind when Exeter is building its new buildings (new dorms and renovations). For example, double panes windows for better insulation, or using wind to cool the dorms. I also saw this somewhere but tiles that collect energy when people step on them…that would be so cool for our paths!”

For McTammany, the passionate students he works with make up the best aspects of his job. “It’s been very rewarding to work with the group from the Environmental Action Committee, to take what was a kernel of an idea now to be a full school-wide event,” he said, continuing on to emphasize a message. “It’s not just enough to have an awareness that climate change is a thing or that there are environmental problems, but also to empower and embolden students to kind of think about ways that they affect [environmental, climate issues] and how the school affects that. And to be advocates for change, because we have resources and our best asset is the students. In just enabling them to make Exeter better, is the best thing that we can do.”

Serrao concluded with his hopes that their environmental initiative would have lasting effects in the school and beyond. “I think that it is most important that we educate the students who are only here for (at most) four years and empower them to take action wherever they go in the future. Not everyone is going into environmental science, but, if there are people educated about the issue, then, in whatever field they go into to work, for example, finance, they can push for greater prioritization on environmentalism and drastically alter the future of the world!”