Blog #3

For the AASHE and Sustainable Carolina websites, describe the specific program that you find most interesting in each one and explain why you find it interesting. Plus, write one question for Margaret Bounds, based on the Sustainable Carolina website.

After looking through pages on the AASHE website, I am amazed at how much they do and the partnerships that they are able to foster and maintain with such a diverse collection of organizations, from Campus Sustainability Day to the United Nations! However, I found the most interesting program that AASHE hosts and supports to be the Disciplinary Associations Network for Sustainability, or DANS. As a student very invested in an interdisciplinary education myself, I appreciate their three-fold action plan: to support sustainability within disciplines, across disciplines, and beyond the academy. This is a well-articulated version of the thought and decision process I went through in designing my interdisciplinary major. I feel that sustainability is a value that all disciplines can share at their core, and academics, and really all people, can use this as a way to unite and come together with unique perspectives rather than letting their different backgrounds divide them. I also love that there is a “beyond the academy” aspect, which includes engagement with policy-makers, NGOs, and sustainability literacy. These are exactly the venues in which I think sustainability advocates should be involved!

For the Sustainable Carolina website, I realized that I had never fully understood the scope of the programs that SC has and that I have benefitted from. I couldn’t pick just one, so the Campus Food Team and the Garden Team are the programs I find most interesting. I love the combination of research and action in the Food Team, and that it is linked to the Sustainable Carolina Community Garden for educational purposes. I also noticed that the Oxfam Hunger Banquet was featured on the page, which I had helped to organize last year as a member of Carolina Service Council. I think awareness events are important for our campus community. My interest in the Garden Team is related to the potential I see in gardens to serve as a tool with many purposes: community building and empowerment, education about growing food and nutrition, and more!

My question for Margaret Bounds is: In what ways have Healthy Carolina and Sustainable Carolina collaborated, other than the Farmer’s market?