Vision for a Sustainable Peralta

Now is the time.

Colleges all over North America have been joining a growing Sustainable Campus movement, saving millions of dollars while protecting the environment, and leading the nation in large-scale facilities transformation.

As the catastrophic results of climate change, energy from oil, and over-development become more obvious by the week, many at Peralta have already been taking responsible leadership.

For more than 30 years, Peralta faculty, staff and students have been teaching and implementing environmental courses and projects.

• Interdisciplinary field classes have traveled all over California, around the nation, and on almost every continent.
• Peralta has hosted regional conferences on environmental topics including energy, ecological and watershed restoration, wildfires, and green building.
• Just in the last few years faculty have raised more than 2 million dollars in environmental grants.
• Peralta was a media host of the United Nations 2005 World Environment Day.
• Faculty and staff have served on local and statewide Boards and Committees which address issues from Environmental Justice to Waste Management, Water, and Sustainable Urban Planning.
• Faculty have written environmental books and been instrumental in creating wilderness preserves.
• The Peralta District is purchasing 100% recycled paper made from agricultural waste and is installing state of the art water conserving irrigation that turns off when there is adequate natural moisture.
• The District was one of the first in the nation to have environmental majors and a dedicated environmental center and our graduates are environmental managers and policy makers all over the United States.

A Comprehensive Goal

The Sustainable Peralta Initiative is an effort to transform completely our community college district into a model environmental education center that could then function as a regional training center for environmental sustainability.

Unlike traditional environmental studies programs, this initiative aims to affect not just those students who have already opted to take courses in environmental studies, but also to touch the lives of each and every student and employee in the District and then to reach into the local community and business sectors.

The Sustainable Peralta Initiative has six key elements:

1. Enhance existing courses in Environmental Policy and Environmental Sciences.
2. “Green Jobs” vocational programs in a variety of fields such as Environmental Controls Technology (HVAC), Carpentry and Building, Landscape Architecture and Horticulture, and Bio-Diesel Mechanics.
3. Model facilities and resource management, including recycling and waste management, energy reduction and generation projects, water conservation programs, environmentally preferred purchasing, and environmentally sustainable programs for remodeling, renovating and constructing our physical plant.
4. Curriculum infusion of environmental sustainability themes throughout ALL disciplines taught in our educational offerings- transfer courses, vocational training, and readiness classes.
5. On-campus activities and programs to raise environmental awareness, to change behavior, and to create a culture of sustainability that will permeate our communities and local businesses.
6. The development of key community and business partnerships through enhanced civic engagement projects and workforce training programs.

Community Colleges are Natural Leaders

Community Colleges are perfectly positioned to play a leading role in this change management.

We are on the forefront of American Democracy, embodying both the American ethos of equal opportunity for all AND the can-do spirit of American entrepreneurship. With our open-door policy, we accept the top 100% of applicants. We are the mixing ground for all races, ages and classes — from students struggling with basic readiness courses to PhD’s returning for re-tuning and re-tooling with continuing education, from journeymen in the building trades to suburban homemakers participating in life-long learning.

We touch every segment of society and are a microcosm of all of the changes and developments we will face in the coming decades. We can be the model of “best practices” in managing what Joanna Macy terms “The Great Turning.”

The California Community College system already has the physical, social and human infrastructure to provide both the needed outreach and the training to every sector of our population. Throughout the state there are 2.5 million community college students annually attending classes on 109 campuses and 60 off-campus learning centers, taught by 60,000 full and part-time professors and supported by 2000 administrators and 27,000 classified employees.

This is an incredible resource, if it can be tapped to help manage this change.

Peralta’s Place

The Peralta Community College District is the East Bay’s leading institution for undergraduate transfer education, job training, economic growth, and preparation for participation in civic life.

Each year we educate 25,000 students of all races, ages, and walks of life on our 4 campuses- Laney College, Berkeley City College (formerly Vista College), College of Alameda, and Merritt College. We have 1100 full and part-time faculty members, 500 support staff and grounds and maintenance workers, 52 educational administrators, and a budget of over $100 million. Voters approved a 2006 bond initiative providing $390 million building renovation, remodeling and classroom instructional equipment.

The Peralta Community College District has a long history in the field of environmental education. Starting at Merritt College in the early 1960s the District initiated interdisciplinary environmental studies courses. In the 1970s Vista College developed programs in alternative energy technology and global environmental policy. In the early 1980s, the work expanded at Merritt College with the development of the Environmental Center Self Reliant House demonstration classroom and laboratory. The environmental studies curriculum development, innovation and research within the District continue to this day with the David R. Brower/Ronald V. Dellums Institute for Sustainable Policy Studies on the Merritt College campus.

In addition, we already have in place a number of vocational training programs that have embraced “green jobs” training. Our Environmental Controls Technology program has been operating with an EPA grant to train workers for the latest and most energy efficient Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning technology. Our Carpentry program has been using a Green Building manual developed at Merritt’s Environmental Studies program. Our Horticulture Program has classes in perma-culture and natural building techniques; our Culinary Arts Program has units using organic and locally grown food.

Throughout the District there are countless other examples of projects, programs and courses that have dealt with environmental sustainability from our recycling and waste reduction efforts to the installation of sophisticated water-saving landscape irrigation equipment to the development of curriculum units dealing with issues of environmental sustainability.

In short, the Peralta Community College District is perfectly positioned to take a leading role in developing and implementing an environmental change model that can be emulated throughout the region and the rest of the state and nation.