Community Outreach
Sustainability Cafes
In December 2003, associate professor of biology and environmental studies Susan Allen-Gil was granted $900 from the Humanities and Sciences' Ithaca Fund for an on-going community education project she entitled "Building Sustainability" for the Spring and Fall semesters in 2004. As an outgrowth of the Ithaca College-EcoVillage teaching partnership that began in 2002, Susan proposed the development of a monthly faculty-student discussion group on sustainability that would meet during the lunch hour or late afternoon.
The primary objective of what soon became known as the “sustainability café” series is to fertilize the exchange of information and ideas regarding sustainability theory and practice among students, faculty, and staff at IC, and invested members of the local community, including EcoVillage. All sustainability cafes are free and open to the public and are widely advertised both on campus and in the local Ithaca community.
All “sustainability cafes” have featured “teachable edibles”, mostly organic and locally-grown season food products, served in a “zero waste” format. Many of the cafes have been catered by EcoVillage at Ithaca educator Elan Shapiro, and several others have been catered by Dining Services’ Catering operation, providing a learning opportunity for that staff on local sources for and preparation of seasonal and organic foods.
A number of Sustainability Cafes have been offered in conjunction with the Center for Faculty Excellence “Faculty Colloquium” series.
Sustainability Cafés have included a variety of internal and external speakers.
2007
Here is the poster for the complete Fall 2007 Sustainability Café series (PDF)
Sustainability Café: Living Downstream: Environmental Contamination and Human Health
Sandra Steingraber, Scholar in Residence, Ithaca College
December 10, 2007
Sustainability Café: Progressive Approaches to Recycling
Stephen Klemann, Casella Waste Systems/FCR Recycling
December 6, 2007
Sustainability Café: Perspective from the Burgeoning Solar Electric Industry
Rob Garrity, Sales and Project Management, altPower
November 26, 2007
Sustainability Café: Northeast Climate Change and the Future For Our Farms, Gardens, and Natural Landscape
David Wolfe, Professor of Plant Ecology, Department of Horticulture, Cornell University
November 12, 2007
Sustainability Café: Revising the Forest Paradigm: Good and Bad Forest Edges
John Confer, Scholar in Residence
November 5, 2007
Sustainability Café: Weaving the Fabric of Sustainable Community
Gay Nicholson, program coordinator, Sustainable Tompkins
October 29, 2007
Sustainability Café: Sustainability in Campus Dining at IC
Jeff Scott, director of Dining Services
October 24, 2007
Sustainability Café: Where Have We Been, Where Are We Going?
Rick Otis '75, Deputy Associate Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
October 22, 2007
Sustainability Café: Career Planning in the Environmental Field, and Trends Affecting Environmental Careers
Bob Goldman, Director, Global Environmental Programs, Arcadis
October 15, 2007
Sustainability Café: EcoCities: What are They?
Joan Bokaer, co-founder of EcoVillage and EcoCity Action Group
October 11, 2007
Sustainability Café: Save a Forest, Plant Yourself: Toward Sustainable Burial
Mary Woodsen and Joel Rabinowitz, Greensprings Natural Cemetery Association
October 8, 2007
Sustainability Café: Sustainability Solutions
Tina Nilsen-Hodges and Elan Shapiro, EcoVillage at Ithaca educators
September 24, 2007
Sustainability Café: Putting Forest Science into Forest Practice
Peter Smallidge, NYS Extension Forester and Director, Arnot Teaching and Research Forest, Cornell University
September 17, 2007
Sustainability Café: Wind Power at Ithaca College
John Confer and Beth Clark
April 25, 2007
Sustainability Café: Phytoremediation: Pipe Dream or Nascent Technology?
Beth Ahner, Cornell University
April 12, 2007
Sustainability Café: Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey: An Assessment of the Emergence of the Leopold Conservation Vision
Carl Leopold and Julianne Lutz Newton (’88)
April 5, 2007
Sustainability Café: Update from the 2006 U.N. Convention on Climate Change
Garry Thomas, department of Anthropology (retired), and Sean Vormwald, Alumni Relations
March 7, 2007
Sustainability Café: Saving the Cloud Forest: 18 Years of Sustainability at Maquipucuna
Rodrigo Ontaneda, president, Fundacion Maquipucuna, Ecuador
February 20, 2007
Sustainability Café: Sustainability Begins at Home: Using Energy in our Houses and Vehicles
Beth Parks, Colgate University Department of Physics
February 7, 2007
Sustainability Café: Sustainability and Bottom of the Pyramid Initiatives
Mark Milstein, Cornell Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise
February 6, 2007
2006
Sustainability Café: How You Can Influence Your Local Government To Become More Sustainable
Steve Nicholson, chair, Tompkins County Environmental Management Council
November 9, 2006
Sustainability Café: Sustainability in Dining Services
Jeff Scott, Director of Ithaca College Dining Services
October 25, 2006
Sustainability Cafe: Wind Power
Dr. Bill Makofske, Ramapo College of New Jersey
April 27, 2006
Sustainability Café: “A Conversation with Mark Hertsgaard”
Mark Hertsgaard, Author of “Earth Odyssey”
April 17, 2006
2005
Sustainability Cafe: "Seeing Things Whole: Toxics in the Ground and Other Lessons from History"
John Finn, Licensed Professional Engineer with the RETEC Group
November 8, 2005
Sustainability Café: “Sustainability in Campus Dining Services”
Jeff Scott, Director of Ithaca College Dining Services
October 26, 2005
Sustainability Café: “Earth Café 2050”
Michael Smith, Department of History, and Students from the Ithaca College Environmental Society
September 20, 2005
Sustainability Café: “The 'S' Word: Is Sustainability a Dirty Word?”
Michael Smith, Department of History
February 10, 2005
2004
Sustainability Café: “Layperson’s Guide to Fuel Cell Technology”
Cornelius B. Neil Murphy, Jr., President of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
November 16, 2004
Sustainability Café: “Wind Energy at Ithaca College and Ecovillage at Ithaca”
Beth Ellen Clark Joseph, Department of Physics, and Francis Vanek, EcoVillage Resident
November 11, 2004
Sustainability Café: “Integral Sustainability: What It Means in Theory, and What It Means for You”
Carl Frankel, Author of “Out of the Labyrinth”
November 4, 2004
Sustainability Café: “Design as Inquiry: The Problem of Ecology and Sustainability”
Richard Buchanan, Carnegie Mellon
October 21, 2004
Sustainability Café: “IC Natural Stewardship Task Group Report”
Jason Hamilton, Department of Biology, and Rick Couture, Director of Facilities
September 30, 2004
Sustainability Café: "Making Ithaca College a Model of Sustainability."
Betsy Taylor, President of the Center for a New American Dream
September 16, 2004
Sustainability Café: “Building Materials and Environmental Health -- from Children's Playgrounds to the Corner Office.”
Sandra Steingraber, Author of “Living Downstream”
September 14, 2004
Sustainability Cafe: "Sustainability and Organizational Planning"
Gordon Rowland, Department of Organizational Communication, Learning, and Design
April 22, 2004
Sustainability Café: "The Invention of the Environment in France: Two Case-Studies"
Florian Charvolin, Department of Sociology
April 20, 2004
Sustainability Cafe: "An Overview of Current Research in Organizations and the Natural Environment"
Mark Cordano and David Saiia, Department of Business Administration
April 1, 2004
Sustainability Cafe: "Teaching Radical Simplicity"
Jim Merkel, Author of Radical Simplicity and Global Living Project Founder
March 1, 2004
Sustainability Cafe: “Cornucopianism: The Next Industrial Revolution and Sustainability”
Michael Smith, Department of History, and Shaianne Osterreich, Department of Economics
February 19, 2004
