future of cities syllabus 2016

Foresight Prep @ Oberlin College

The Future of Cities Oberlin College | Foresight Design Initiative June 19 to July 2, 2016 Table of Contents COURSE SYLLABUS

Course Description ...................................................................................................................................... 2 Outcomes .................................................................................................................................................... 3 Expectations ................................................................................................................................................ 4 Program Faculty Bios .................................................................................................................................. 4 Speakers & Field Trips. ............................................................................................................................... 6 Projects ...................................................................................................................................................... 10

Detailed Course Schedule ........................................................................................................................... 11 “Big Ideas” Project Brief ................................................................................................................................. 31 SUSTAINABILITY & URBANISM RESOURCES Northeast Ohio: A History ............................................................................................................................... 41 Sustainable Urbanism Glossary ..................................................................................................................... 44 Sustainability 101 Glossary ............................................................................................................................ 50 Future of Cities Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 57 A Brief History of the Modern Environmental Movement in America ............................................................. 65 Environmental Youth Membership Organizations .......................................................................................... 69 Environmental Organizations with Youth Focus ............................................................................................. 71 Inter/National Environmental Organizations ................................................................................................... 73 Sustainability Related Websites ..................................................................................................................... 77 Media Sources—Podcasts & Blogs & DVDs .................................................................................................. 79 COLLEGE AND CAREER SKILLS RESOURCES Interview Etiquette: Tips for Success ............................................................................................................. 81 Tools for Successful Group Work and Collaboration ..................................................................................... 82 Hot to Survive a Critique ................................................................................................................................ 91 COURSE READINGS Movements Without Leaders, Bill McKibben .................................................................................................. 95 Fundi: The Enduring Legacy of Ella Baker, Stephen Preskill ....................................................................... 102 The Tyranny of Structurelessness, Jo Freeman .......................................................................................... 111 STUDENT LIFE & EMERGENCY RESOURCES Oberlin Social and Recreational Options ..................................................................................................... 122 Community Guidelines ................................................................................................................................. 124 RATA Contact Information ........................................................................................................................... 125 Oberlin Campus Map ................................................................................................................................... 126 Downtown Oberlin Map ................................................................................................................................ 127

2016 Foresight Prep @ Oberlin: The Future of Cities

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Foresight Prep @ Oberlin College:

The Future of Cities Course Syllabus

June 19 to July 2, 2016 Lead Instructor: Lyndon Valicenti Program Director: Peter Nicholson Program Manager: Tim Jones-Yelvington Teaching Assistant: Max Herzog Residential Assistants: Skyler Davis, Rachel Young About Foresight Prep Foresight Prep @ Oberlin is an experiential learning, leadership development, and college and career preparatory program that prepares a forthcoming generation of leaders—highly-motivated high school students concerned with issues of sustainability and equity—with the insights and skills required to succeed in fields that are being shaped by complex and rapidly-evolving problems. It is founded on five principles:

Insight Into Sustainability. The program defines sustainability through a “triple bottom line” approach that balances the creation and maintenance of environmental, social and economic value. Students begin to understand issues and approaches systemically, including their interdependencies and root causes, and synthesize this information to form their own perspective about how to most effectively address complex challenges.

Leadership. The program builds students’ capacity to affect positive social change by identifying and cultivating their leadership skills and potential. This process is facilitated by a holistic curriculum that recognizes the uniquely collaborative and innovative leadership that sustainability challenges require.


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Diversity. The program seeks to cultivate more representative, equitable and inclusive future leadership, and expose students to a diversity of perspectives and concerns.

College and Career Preparation. The program facilitates students’ personal and professional development in preparation for the next steps in their journey. Experiential learning opportunities are prioritized over passive instruction. Hands-on projects develop skills for primary and secondary research and analysis, while classroom discussions help students reflect upon paths for achieving social impact and personal fulfillment.

Ongoing Mentorship. A two-week experience can only provide an introduction to complex topics. Program alumni become part of an ongoing network connecting them with other like-minded high school students, college mentors and established sustainability leaders, to support their future engagement.

About the Seminar: The Future of Cities Today, more than half the world’s population lives in cities. By 2050, it is projected that nearly 70% of people will be urban dwellers (UN, 2011). To put this global urban migration into context, that is the equivalent of adding over 1 million people to cities every week until 2050. With this exponential urban growth comes an urgency to better understand and plan for the systems that define our cities. A city is much like a dynamic ecosystem—when it operates efficiently and effectively, the result is a healthy, thriving metropolis. However, today, under unbalanced systems and poor planning, cities are disproportionately driving climate change, wealth disparities, social injustice, loss of farmland and forests, and increasing water demand. Cities, at their best, represent hubs of innovation, sources of economic growth, confluences of bright minds and skilled workers, and the promise of a higher quality of life. The success of cities in the 21st Century will be dependent on our ability to ensure they are efficient, resilient, and intelligent. Through an urban planning lens, students will explore the complex interplay between the built, natural, and social systems of cities, using Cleveland as their primary case study. They will better understand the role of policy, technology, industry, economy and equity in shaping contemporary Cleveland. As their final project, students will be challenged to draw on best practices and innovative urban interventions from around the world, and reimagine a thriving, resilient and sustainable metropolis for the 21st Century. Outcomes Students will:

Begin reflecting critically on their own leadership potential and future engagement; Increase their awareness of a broad range of sustainability and urban challenges; Develop the perspective required to understand the systemic nature of complex issues; Better understand the impact of sustainability-related issues on diverse communities;


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Acquire concrete skills to contribute to undergraduate and career success; Be introduced to strategies for influencing change.

Longer-term, the intention is for participants to deepen their engagement with both their own leadership development and sustainability issues, and to forge successful futures as sustainability-oriented change-makers. Expectations In order to ensure an optimal learning environment, students should arrive to each session on time and fully prepared for the day’s activities. They will be held accountable for the commitments made previously in their Student Learning Agreements including:

Attendance and active participation in all Foresight Prep @ Oberlin classroom sessions, field trips and activities, a minimum of 6-8 hours daily, and perhaps sometimes a bit more based upon field trip schedules, extracurricular events, and project deadlines;

Practicing personal wellness and self care (e.g. exercise, sufficient sleep); Contributing fully to group discussion and project work; Staying open to constructive criticism, and acknowledging one’s own limitations and

potential areas for growth; Completing assigned readings and meeting project deadlines as required; Promptly and fully communicating any issues that arise to Foresight Prep @ Oberlin

staff, and to group members as relevant; Seeking help/support for any challenges that arise that may affect one’s participation; Holding oneself accountable for achieving personal goals.

In accordance with these expectations, Foresight Prep @ Oberlin staff commit to uphold the following:

Opportunities for experiential learning, networking with established professionals, and personal development;

Facilitation of a respectful and inclusive space conducive to exploration, learning and growth;

Clear communication with students regarding expectations, including feedback to inform project goals;

Respect for students’ own assets, skills, and leadership potential; Openness to constructive feedback.

Program Faculty Bios Lyndon Valicenti, Lead Instructor Lyndon Valicenti brings over 10 years of experience in scientific study, policy analysis, and planning around sustainable ecological and urban systems. She has conducted scientific research on vulnerable ecosystems in the Arctic and Antarctic; contributed to debates on international


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climate change policy; developed and implemented engagement programs to support city-scale climate action; and has informed ecological thinking in urban planning across China and the Middle East. Lyndon has a solid record of leading thoughtful, science-based planning, policy making, and research, as well as convening coalitions to advance strategic agendas to protect our most essential resources. Lyndon is Adjunct Faculty of Sustainability Leadership and Change Management at University of Chicago’s Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies. She holds a Masters in Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University and a Bachelors of Science in Aquatic Ecology from University of California, Santa Barbara. She also holds a certificate in Sustainable Urban and Environmental Design from Archeworks. Peter Nicholson, Program Director Peter Nicholson is Executive Director of the Foresight Design Initiative, a unique nonprofit organization he established in 2002, and Principal of the organization's consulting practice. Since early 2012, he has also led Foresight Bright, LLC, a for-profit innovation firm he established to serve private sector clients. Through these positions, Peter leads a multifaceted career focused on challenging the status quo and the pursuit of greater social, environmental and economic sustainability. Peter consults on and undertakes sustainable transformation projects for a diversity of clients, including government agencies, institutional nonprofits, and diverse businesses. Considered an engaging presenter and master facilitator, he is in regular demand as a guest speaker and moderator. Peter is dedicated to the education of the next generation of sustainability-minded leaders and has created and taught programs for participants ranging from high school students to corporate executives. Peter began his study of Sustainability and Design at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and holds a bachelors degree from Oberlin College. Tim Jones-Yelvington, Program Manager Tim Jones-Yelvington possesses a range of facilitation, research, communications and program development and assessment skills. He worked for five years as program staff at Crossroads Fund, a public foundation supporting grassroots community organizing and social justice activists groups in the Chicago area, including a number of youth-led campaigns. His position included managing a portfolio of grantees and helping to coordinate a community-led grantmaking process. He worked closely with the staff and leaders of small, new and emerging organizations to navigate their organizational growth, and contributed to fundraising and communications efforts. He recently completed a Masters of Education in Youth Development at University of Illinois at Chicago. His culminating field experience took place in the After School and Expanded Learning Team at American Institutes for Research, the nation's largest social science research and evaluation organization, where he acquired a wealth of resources for promoting youth program quality.


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Max Herzog, Residential Director and Teaching Assistant Max Herzog is a recent graduate of Oberlin College where he double majored in Political Science and Environmental Studies. He has extensive scientific research experience from his four summers as a Lab assistant at Washington University in St. Louis, but has focused more on education and community development in his college coursework. His academic goals include personal philosophical development and preparation for a meaningful and impactful career in Northeast Ohio. His extracurricular interests can be generally described as music, music, music, and exercising (sort of). He also enjoys camping, skiing, and SCUBA. At Oberlin he participated in Ultimate Frisbee and WOBC, the college radio station. This is Max’s third summer with Foresight Prep. Skyler Davis, Residential Assistant Sky is a rising junior at Oberlin College double majoring in Environmental Studies and Economics. Her career goals include corporate social responsibility, and helping companies and communities to become more sustainable. Her academic interests include researching the impact of global economies on different communities' environmental issues, as well as environmental policy and justice. Skyler enjoys playing on the Women's Ultimate Preying Mantis team, Slam Poetry, analyzing lyrics of music, and collecting records on records on records. Rachel Young, Residential Assistant Rachel is well versed in the fields of education and Japanese language, art, and culture. During her time as a student at Oberlin College (’15) where she received her BA in East Asian studies, Rachel focused on cinema and politics, and studied abroad in Japan for a full year. She has an interest in a wide range of art mediums, and one of her favorites is Japanese Woodblock print art. Since graduating, she has moved from her hometown of Bowling Green, KY to Meadville, PA where she is currently working as a substitute teacher for grades K-12. Rachel loves working with young minds, and is passionate about empowering youth to create change. Speakers & Field Trips (Alphabetical) Jessica Bonanno, Director of Strategy, Development & Operations, Democracy Collaborative/Evergreen Cooperatives The Democracy Collaborative works to promote strategies and innovations in community development that facilitate ownership and stewardship over capital, democracy in the workplace, the stabilization of community and local economies, equitable and inclusive growth and environmental, social and institutional sustainability. They were key strategists behind the Evergreen Cooperatives. Launched in 2008 by a working group of Cleveland-based institutions (including the Cleveland Foundation, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University, and the municipal government), the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative is working to create living wage jobs in six low-income neighborhoods in an area known as Greater University Circle (GUC), through the establishment of employee-owned, for-profit businesses, which include a laundry, an energy company that develops and installs solar panels for


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institutional clients, and a growers’ cooperative that operates a hydroponic greenhouse. Modeled after Spain's Mondragon Corporation, a world leader in the movement for worker-owned cooperatives, the Evergreen Co-ops pursue community wealth strategies aimed at improving the ability of communities and individuals to increase asset ownership, anchor jobs locally, strengthen the municipal tax base, prevent financial resources from “leaking out” of the area, and ensure local economic stability. As Director of Strategy Development and Operations, Jessica Bonanno contributes to internal organizational development, serves as a consultant and project lead, and provides business development support to the Evergreen Cooperatives. Her primary areas of expertise include impact investing, organizational design, and business development, with a special emphasis on start-ups, social ventures, and small to medium sized enterprises. Her early career was spent as a micro-entrepreneur, teacher, and the leader of multiple mission-driven community organizations. After becoming aware of cooperative business ownership models and the broader social enterprise movement, she returned to earn her M.B.A. at The University of Notre Dame, as an M.B.A. Fellow and Forte Foundation Fellow. During this time, Jessica concentrated in investments and social business models and served as an Associate in an early-stage investment office, an Equity Analyst for the university’s endowment, and a Consultant to several domestic and international impact organizations, including Catholic Relief Services, The Irish Angels, and The Valley Alliance for Worker Cooperatives. Kim Foreman, Executive Director, Environmental Health Watch Environmental Health Watch (EWH) began in 1980 as a group of concerned community members volunteering time to develop and distribute educational resources about environmental health issues in low-income neighborhoods across Cleveland. EHW has consistently spearheaded the Environmental Justice movement in Northeast Ohio. Working on issue areas from lead abatement to food access, EHW has developed a portfolio of services designed to intervene at all levels on behalf of the communities most affected by environmental toxicities and climate change. Their activities range from direct services and technical consulting to research and policy development. EHW also functions as a connector and organizer for EJ groups across the region. Ms. Foreman utilizes her nearly two decades of experience in environmental justice work to maintain EHW’s focus on the disproportionate impacts of environmental issues on low income communities of color, while remaining a key point person for its on-the-ground projects. As EHW’s executive director, Ms. Foreman is often the main representative of the EJ perspective at many decision-making tables, and is sometimes seen as the driving force behind the movement in Cleveland. Arathi Gowda, Associate Director, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Ms. Gowda is an associate director at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the largest and most influential architecture, interior design, engineering, and urban planning firms in the world. Her main role at this organization is as a team leader for SOM Chicago’s elite Performative Design Group, charged with researching new technologies and recommending


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integrated environmental design solutions. In addition, she is involved with the Chicago chapter of the Green Building Council, the organization responsible for the LEED certification system. Ms. Gowda also brings her architectural background to bear as an educator committed to training the next generation of practitioners. She fills this role as both the current elected Dean of Sustainable Initiatives at Foundation University and as a Part Time Professor for the Illinois Institute of Technology, where she currently teaches Architecture Studio as part of the Urban Cloud series for 5th year and graduate students. Matt Gray, Director, Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, City of Cleveland Mr. Gray is a key member of one of the smallest but most important departments in Cleveland City Government. Working under the direct supervision of the mayor, the Office of Sustainability plans, finances, and executes a variety of sustainability initiatives ranging from internal efficiency improvements to large community outreach programs. Their broad mandate and small budget often necessitate that the department focus on diplomacy and alliance-building, working towards deep cultural change. The central organizing principle of the Office’s current efforts is the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 plan. This initiative is centered on nine subsequent “Celebration Years” which each focus on a specific area of sustainability (beginning in 2011 with the “Year of Energy Efficiency”). During each year, a community-wide summit is held which brings together as many as 500 diverse participants to discuss the “celebrated” focus issue. Using the Appreciative Inquiry framework developed at Case Western Reserve University and IDEO’s Rapid Prototyping technique, these summits have consistently produced diverse working groups to tackle sustainability-related problems. Dave Karpinski, Vice President, Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) Mr. Karpinski is a key member of a small management team spearheading the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo), which aims to launch Project Icebreaker, North America’s first freshwater wind-power facility, seven miles offshore from downtown Cleveland. Created in August 2009, LEEDCo was established by the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force, then developed and launched by a partnership between NorTech Energy Enterprise, the Cleveland Foundation, City of Cleveland, and Cuyahoga and Lorain Counties. Working with a team of local actors across government, academia, and manufacturing, as well as Scandinavian technical experts, LEEDCo and its guiding partners hope to leverage this initial project to develop the political and manufacturing infrastructure necessary to enable additional future offshore wind projects on Lake Erie, and to catalyze a scaled industrial solution to energy sustainability in Northeast Ohio, while building a regional wind industry to drive economic growth and job recovery. Mr. Karpinski contributes over 20 years of management and engineering experience in the rubber, steel, and plastics industries, as well as over five years in the nonprofit energy sector.

Erick Rodriguez, Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow, Burten, Bell, Carr Development Inc. Burten, Bell, Carr Development, Incorporated (BBC) is a non-profit neighborhood development organization founded in 1990 that serves most of Cleveland's Ward 5. Its mission is to enhance


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the quality of life for residents by leveraging partnerships with residents, community groups, government, corporations and institutions to cultivate housing, retail, employment, and recreation opportunities. With programs ranging from service programs at local urban farms and health education for community members to financial support and government compliance enforcement, Burten, Bell, Carr runs the gamut of social services for the historically marginalized communities it serves. As an Enterprise Rose Architectural fellow, Erick is working with Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization (DSCDO) and Burten, Bell, Carr (BBC) Development, Inc. to enhance coordination and collaboration across Cleveland neighborhoods with a broad group of community stakeholders. The City of Cleveland, BBC and DSCDO are contributing to an international dialogue about the development and implementation of EcoDistricts, and Erick is crafting a comprehensive set of strategies that will serve as a useful tool, for both city leaders and community members, to recognize ways their neighborhoods can come together to appropriate sustainability as an essential part of their community. Jim Rokakis, Director, Thriving Communities Institute Mr. Rokakis served for a decade as Cuyahoga County Treasurer, where he helped pass a bill that streamlined the foreclosure process for abandoned properties, and was the driving force behind the bill that allowed for the creation of the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation, also known as the Cuyahoga County Land Bank. Prior to his role as County Treasurer, he served for 19 years in the Cleveland City Council, having ben elected as its youngest member at age 22. His tenure saw several successes in reversing neighborhood blight, redeveloping Downtown Cleveland, creating the Cleveland Housing Court and serving as chairman on the influential Finance Committee for his last seven years on Council. He has been recognized by local and national organizations for his efforts in strengthening neighborhoods and communities. In 2007 he received the NeighborWorks America Local Government Service Award, the Leadership in Social Justice Award from Greater Cleveland Community Shares and was named the County Leader of the Year by American City and County Magazine. He earned his undergraduate degree at Oberlin College, and his Juris Doctorate degree from Cleveland-Marshall School of Law. Terry Schwartz, Director, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative Ms. Schwartz is the Director of Kent State University’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC), an organization that combines client-based consulting and graduate-level teaching to impact urban design decisions and land use policy in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. CUDC is widely considered a thought leader in the urban design and planning spaces throughout the region and frequently provides strategic guidance to the Thriving Communities Institute (a policy innovation and advocacy center spearheading the growth of land banks across Ohio), Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (Cleveland's transportation and environmental planning entity), Cleveland Neighborhood Progress (the coordinating body for Cleveland’s network of Community Development Corporations), and the Mayor’s Office. One of Terry’s current projects is an initiative funded by the Kresge Foundation. CUDC is consulting with Cleveland Neighborhood Progress (CNP), the administrator of a grant aimed at cultivating neighborhood-level climate resiliency. CUDC helped CNP allocate the grant money


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to four Community Development Corporations (CDCs) that support low-income communities of color. Now Terry is assisting these CDCs in implementing a process of community engagement and co-design to develop local solutions aimed at reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the public health impacts of climate change. Louise Yeung, Senior Project Manager, New York City Economic Development Corporation Ms. Yeung currently leads the resilience planning for multi-million dollar development projects across New York City. Her work helps ensure that these infrastructure projects will remain strong and protected in the face of climate change impacts, from sea level rise to more extreme heat and storm events. Prior to working for the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Louise worked at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. There she led the regional resilience planning work to guide sensible, long-term, community planning and infrastructure investments in the face of climate change. Her career has been dedicated to ensuring that our cities remain vibrant, safe, and healthy places to live for centuries to come. Projects “Big Ideas”—Transformative Plans for the City of Cleveland “Big Ideas” will be the seminar’s ongoing and culminating final project. With the program’s guest speakers and field trips serving as informants, students will gather and record information and insights from a range of sustainability and urban leaders. This is considered an “impact research” project, meaning that rather than just generating knowledge, the research is intended to inform action—in this case, the creation of forward-looking plans to ensure a sustainable, resilient, and vibrant future for the city of Cleveland. In the project’s initial stage, students will be assigned to one of five teams focused on gathering insights from a single group of stakeholders, such as individuals concerned primarily with infrastructure, economic development or climate change, amongst others. After analyzing their findings, students will bring their newfound expertise to a new group, with whom they will create an innovative plan for future of Cleveland. The online platform Podio will be used to manage the research process. See “Big Ideas Project Brief” for a detailed breakdown of the research process, and project parameters. Collective Leadership Presentations While some approaches to leadership rely upon the familiar image of the charismatic, solitary leader, others present shared and radically democratic forms of leadership that may enable the transformative social change processes sustainability challenges require. For this assignment, students will break into three groups, each of whom will be assigned to read and facilitate a short classroom conversation about one of three articles. A more detailed assignment will be circulated through Podio.


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6/19 Sunday: Oberlin Campus 12:00-2:00 Residence hall check-in.

Includes lunch; Students arriving by air will be transported from Hopkins Airport to campus

in groups, with logistics coordinated through email. 3:00-5:30 Group Activity: Get to Know Oberlin & Each Other Designed and facilitated by Skyler Davis and Rachel Young

Includes campus tour; Includes pre-curriculum presentations by students unable to present during

final Google Hangout.

Objective: For students to get oriented to campus and begin building community.

5:30-5:45 Walk to Stevenson Dining Hall

5:45-7:00 Dinner 7:30-9:00 Evening Discussion and social activities

Objectives: Familiarize students with housing rules and procedures; Establish collective agreements for the living space; Review Monday schedule; Relax, unwind, socialize, and prepare for the first day of the course.


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6/20 Monday: Oberlin Campus 7:30-7:45 Walk to Stevenson Dining Hall 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:40 Walk to Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies (AJLC) Room 201 8:50-10:00 Lecture/Discussion: Elements of a “Sustainable City” Objectives:

Explore the principles and indicators of sustainable cities; Establish the importance of cities in the 21st Century; Review the history of urban planning and the forces of change on the

horizon; Understand the interacting systems built to leverage our essential

resources, starting with the energy system. 10:00-10:10 Feed the Machine 10:10-11:10 Activity/Discussion: City as Complex Adaptive System Objectives:

Introduce the concept of systems thinking; Explore cities as ecological systems; Understand the interacting systems that make up cities.

11:10-11:20 Feed the Machine 11:20-12:30 Lecture/Discussion: Leadership as a Concept Students should arrive for this session prepared with an example of a leader who

has personally inspired them. Students will engage in an activity that positions them as leadership theorists/researchers, forcing them to inorganically consolidate their individual lists of leadership qualities into a single group construct.

Objectives:

Understand that leadership is a concept and construct; Shift from understanding leadership as character traits to leadership as a

social change process;


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Establish initial understanding of the concepts of “transactional” and “transformational” leadership;

Accept a working definition of leadership for the program; Develop a framework for future exploration of sustainability-specific

leadership processes. 12:45-1:30 Lunch 1:30-2:00 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session

Objectives: Understand the structure, goals, interim deadlines, and final assignment

deliverables for the Research Project; Define “transformative” within the context of change-oriented efforts; Distinguish “impact research” from other forms; Acquaint students with their research teams.

2:00-3:00 Guest Speaker (Skype): Arathi Gowda, Director of Performative Design Studio, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Objectives: Hear from an urban design leader who is helping make cities around the

world more sustainable; Better understand urban infrastructural systems.

3:00-3:30 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session cnt. 3:30-4:30 Tour/Talk: Seeley G. Mudd Center (Oberlin College Library)

Objectives: Become acquainted with collegiate research approaches and expectations; Gain familiarity with some of the specialized resources available on

campus.

4:30-5:45 Free Time 5:45-7:00 Dinner


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7:30-8:30 Evening Discussion (Kahn Hall): Understanding Northeast Ohio

Objectives: Establish where forthcoming field trip sites are located, relative to the

broader region; Understand what is unique about this region, and the challenges and

opportunities it presents for pursuing transformation toward urban sustainability.

10:00 Check-In


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6/21 Tuesday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:50-10:00 Activity/Discussion: Stakeholder Engagement Objectives:

Understand concept of social complexity; Recognize the need to engage stakeholders in change-making; Explore the best practices and methods for aligning stakeholders and

building consensus; Identify key stakeholders in urban planning.

10:00-10:10 Feed the Machine 10:10-11:30 Activity/Discussion: Stakeholder Engagement (continued) 11:30-11:40 Feed the Machine 11:40-12:30 Activity/Discussion: Stakeholder Engagement (continued) 12:45-1:30 Lunch 2:00-3:30 Workshop: Power, Privilege and Oppression, facilitated by the Oberlin Multicultural Resource Center Objectives:

Begin connecting students’ personal identities and experiences with the seminar’s broader exploration of the impact of sustainability challenges on diverse communities;

Develop students’ consciousness of power dynamics within the group; Create protocol for building safer, inclusive space during seminar.

3:30-3:40 Feed the Machine 3:40-4:40 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session

Objectives: Review interview intentions, etiquette, and process;


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Complete preliminary research on, and prepare questions for, Wednesday, 6/22’s field trips.

4:30-5:45 Free Time 5:45-7:00 Dinner

7:30-8:30 Evening Discussion: Privilege, Power and Oppression Debriefing

Objectives: Address lingering questions and concerns from the afternoon’s workshop; Understand the workshop’s implications for the Foresight Prep

community, including individuals’ identities and experiences, and building an inclusive group.

10:00 Check-in


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6/22 Wednesday: Cleveland Field Trip 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:45 Board bus 8:50-9:50 Drive to Westerly Wastewater Treatment Plant 10:00-11:30 Tour of Westerly Wastewater Treatment Plant 11:30-11:45 Break, and drive to Edgewater Park 11:45-12:30 Lunch in Edgewater Park 12:30-1:00 Drive to Thriving Communities Institute 1:00-2:00 Meeting with Jim Rokakis, Director, Thriving Communities Institute 2:00-3:00 Explore Ohio City:

View Ohio City Farm; Explore West Side Market; Visit Mitchell’s Ice Cream

3:00-4:00 Drive to Oberlin 4:00-5:45 Free Time 5:45-7:00 Dinner 7:30-9:00 Community Meeting: Tips for Effective Collaboration 10:00 Check-in


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6/23 Thursday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:40-9:30 Debrief, Wednesday field trips

Objectives: Address lingering questions from previous day’s field trips; Highlight relevant insights (strategies used, leadership qualities, future

drivers, challenges, etc.); Begin to identify key systemic challenges in Cleveland.

9:30-10:30 Lecture/Discussion: Sustainable City Case Studies & Unintended Consequences

Objectives:

Explore case studies that provide best-in-class examples of transformative sustainable urbanism from around the world;

Examine the unintended consequences of our planning decisions; Reveal the importance of taking a systems approach to planning.

10:30-10:40 Feed the Machine 10:40-12:00 Activity/Discussion: Unintended Consequences In groups, students will examine examples of planning decisions with unintended

negative consequences, and share these with the full group. Question:

How might we have avoided the unintended consequences of the past? 12:00-12:10 Feed the Machine 12:10-12:30 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session

Objectives: Review and record Wednesday notes; Complete preliminary research on, and prepare questions for, Friday,

6/24’s field trips. 12:45-1:30 Lunch


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1:40-3:30 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session Objectives:

Discuss key challenges facing Cleveland; Determine Final Project challenges and groups.

3:30-3:40 Feed the Machine 3:40-4:00 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session Objectives:

Revisit definition of “transformative”; Describe assignment for weekend work sessions.

4:00-4:45 Guest (Skype) Speaker: Louise Yeung, Senior Project Manager, New York City

Economic Development Corporation Objective: Hear from an urban planner who is helping make New York City more

resilient to climate change. 4:45-5:45 Free Time 5:45-7:00 Dinner 7:30-9:00 Group activity: Sustainability Comedy Night 10:00 Check-in


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6/24 Friday: Cleveland Field Trips 7:15-7:45 Breakfast 7:45 Board bus in front of Stevenson 7:50-8:50 Drive to Sustainable Cleveland Center 9:00-10:00 Meeting with Dave Karpinski, Vice President, LEEDCo 10:00-11:00 Meeting with Matt Gray, Director, City of Cleveland Office of Sustainability 11:00-11:15 Break 11:30-12:30 Lunch, Tower City Center 12:30-1:00 Drive to Hannah Building, Cleveland 1:00-2:20 Meeting with Jessica Bonnano, The Democracy Collaborative 2:20-2:30 Break, reboard bus 2:30-3:00 Drive to CornUcopia Place 3:00-4:30 Tour and discussion with Erick Rodriguez, Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow, Burten, Bell, Carr Development Corporation 4:30-5:30 Drive to Oberlin College 5:45-7:00 Dinner 10:00 Check-in


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6/25 Saturday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 11:30-12:30 Working Session on Big Ideas

Each student will be prepared to share one transformative idea to address a key issue in Cleveland. Students will share 2 minute pitches of their big ideas, starting with a clear articulation of the problem they seek to address.

12:45-1:30 Lunch 2:00-5:30 Social/Recreational Activities (TBD)

RATAs will plan and facilitate outings—e.g. the Allen Memorial Art Museum, walk in the Oberlin Arboretum, etc.

5:45-7:00 Dinner 7:30-10:00 Full Group Social Activity 11:00 Check-in 6/26 Sunday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 11:30-12:30 Working Session on Big Ideas

Students will work in groups to refine their big ideas (or combination of big ideas).

12:45-1:30 Lunch 2:00-5:30 Social/Recreational Activities 5:45-7:00 Dinner 7:00-10:00 Free Time 10:00 Check-in


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6/27 Monday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:40-9:30 Debrief, Friday field trips

Objectives: Address lingering questions from Friday’s field trips; Highlight relevant insights (strategies used, leadership qualities, future

drivers, challenges, etc.). 8:50-10:20 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session

Objectives:

Review and record notes from Friday’s field trips; Complete preliminary research for field trips on Tuesday, 6/28.

10:20-10:30 Feed the Machine 10:30-11:20 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session

Objective:

With Multi-Stakeholder teams, set guiding principles/objectives, and develop “big ideas” concept.

11:20-11:30 Feed the Machine 11:30-12:30 Continue “Big Ideas” Project Research Session 12:45-1:30 Lunch 2:00-3:00 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session

Objective: Begin to develop an implementation plan.

3:00-4:00 Guest Lecture: Presentation Tips, Peter Nicholson 4:00-5:45 Free Time

5:45-7:00 Dinner


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10:00-11:00 Evening Activity: Oberlin College Observatory

10:00 Check-in


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6/28 Tuesday: Cleveland Field Trips 7:15 Board bus 7:15-8:15 Drive to Kent State University Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative 8:30-9:30 Meeting with Terry Schwarz, Director, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative 9:30-10:00 Drive to Environmental Health Watch 10:00-11:30 Presentation by Kim Foreman, Executive Director, Environmental Health Watch 11:30-12:30 Lunch 12:30-2:00 Neighborhood tour with Kim Foreman 2:00-3:00 Drive to Oberlin 3:00-5:45 Free Time 5:45-7:00 Dinner 10:00 Check-in


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6/29 Wednesday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:50-9:50 Debrief, Tuesday field trips

Objectives: Address lingering questions from previous day’s field trips; Highlight relevant insights (strategies used, leadership qualities, future

drivers, challenges, etc.).

9:50-10:00 Feed the Machine 10:00-11:20 Presentations and Discussion: Collective Leadership In three groups, students will present their respective readings on collective

leadership to their peers (previously assigned). Time will be afforded after each for brief questions/discussion, with a synthesizing reflection at the conclusion of all three presentations.

Questions:

What forms of leadership are described in each article? How do they differ from “traditional” notions of leadership?

Are the leadership models described in each article viable for confronting complex, sustainability-related challenges? Are they more viable in certain situations than others?

Do these models resonate with students, i.e. can they see themselves using or participating in them in their own future change-making efforts?

Objectives:

Develop a more complex perspective on leadership and leadership processes;

Reflect upon the viability of cooperative and non-hierarchical leadership models.

11:20-11:30 Feed the Machine 11:30-12:30 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session Objective:

Continue to flesh out implementation plans.


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12:45-1:30 Lunch 1:30-4:30 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session Objective:

Each Multi-Stakeholder team will have 15 minutes to present their initial concept and will be offered a full group critique, receiving 15 minutes of feedback.

4:30-5:45 Free Time 5:45-7:00 Dinner 10:00 Check-in


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6/30 Thursday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:50-9:50 Lecture/Discussion: Potential Education and Career Paths Question:

What should students consider in order to ensure an impactful and fulfilling college education and future career?

9:50-10:00 Feed the Machine 10:00-11:00 Final Presentations Dress Rehearsal, AJLC 201 11:00-12:00 Guest Speaker: Oberlin College Admissions, How to be a Strong College

Applicant AJLC 201 12:00-12:10 Feed the Machine 12:10-12:45 Final presentations dress rehearsal cnt. 12:45-1:30 Lunch 1:30-4:00 “Big Ideas” Project Research Session

With Multi-Stakeholder teams, students will refine final plan and presentation—faculty will check in.

4:00-5:45 Free time 5:45-7:00 Dinner 10:00 Check-in


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7/1 Friday: Oberlin Campus 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 8:50-10:00 Final presentation preparation 10:00-11:30 Final presentations: “Big Ideas”

Students will present their finished plans before an audience of Foresight Prep faculty and peers, and a panel of advisors from the Oberlin College community.

11:30-11:45 Feed the Machine 11:45-12:30 Lecture/Discussion: Leadership Self-Assessment Students will participate in a reflective free-write, followed by conversation. Questions:

Do students identify as leaders? Why or why not? What leadership approaches or processes do they find themselves most

attracted to? Anticipate using in the future? What personal assets do students have to contribute as leaders? Based

upon these assets, what types of leaders do they see themselves being or becoming?

What goals do students have as leaders – either for personal development, or for creating change? Have these changed as a result of their experiences during Foresight Prep?

Objective:

Identify students’ own leadership goals and potential. 12:45-1:30 Lunch 2:00-4:00 Program debriefing and evaluation, Next Steps and “Ask Me Anything” Objectives:

Discuss students’ experiences during the seminar, toward the goal of continuous program improvement;

Complete written student evaluations; Identify mechanisms for building and maintaining an alumni network,

beyond the summer;


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Identify areas of interest for students’ further learning and growth, and potential concrete actions for instigating or connecting with change efforts in students’ own communities;

Includes “AMA” with program staff. 4:00-5:45 Free Time 5:45-7:00 Dinner 7:30-9:00 Closing Ceremony and Awards Presentation

Students will randomly draw the name of one peer, for whom they will create a personalized, creative award.

9:00-10:00 Painting the Rock 11:00 Check-in


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7/2 Saturday 7:45-8:30 Breakfast 10:00-11:00 Residence Hall Checkout, Kahn Lobby 10:00-TBD Students depart for airport


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Project Brief: “Big Ideas” Project Title “Big Ideas”—Plans for Sustainable Urban Transformation in Cleveland Deadline(s) Propose & Distill Key Conceptual Ideas: Saturday, June 25 Field Notes: Wednesday, June 29 Final Plan Prepared: Thursday, June 30 Final Plan Presentation: Friday, July 1 Staff Coordinators Lyndon, Max, Tim Deliverables Field Notes (notes from all field trips/guest speakers) Transformative Idea Proposal (from each student) Conceptual Idea for Group Critique (from each multi-stakeholder team) Presentation of Final Plan (from each multi-stakeholder team) Audience Peers/Foresight Prep faculty Panel of advisors Goals Develop a strong definition/understanding of the various interrelated systems and challenges that face cities today. Imagine transformative ideas to help ensure the sustainability and resiliency of the city of Cleveland at the regional, city, and/or community scales. Understand useful processes and tactics for aligning multiple stakeholders’ perspectives and building consensus. Practice integrating feedback generated in a design charrette. Teams Structure Students will be assigned to two different groups during project execution: Research Pairs (Star Team) will generate questions for field trips and guest speakers, and add notes to the Field Notes following each trip/speaker. Each research pair is assigned to one of five stakeholder typologies (see Stakeholder Group Descriptions). Each pair will also be assigned as the lead facilitators for 2-3 speakers/trips (see Research Process).


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Multi-Stakeholder Teams will include individuals from multiple research pairs. Each multi-stakeholder team will work together to define the problem to be addressed, develop guiding principles to inform the planning process, and refine and present the final plans. There will be three multi-stakeholder teams, each focused on one transformative idea/plan. Research Process The seminar’s field trips and guest speakers will serve as the project’s informants, i.e. the source of data from which conclusions will be drawn. This is considered an “impact research” project, meaning that rather than just generating knowledge, the research is intended to inform action—in this case, insights from a range of sustainability leaders will contribute to the design and refinement for students’ own transformative urban plans.

Preliminary Research Prior to each field trip day, or in-class guest speaker, students will break into their research teams to conduct preliminary research on the forthcoming speakers/trips. During preliminary research, students will:

Generally/quickly familiarize themselves with the speakers and their businesses or organizations—who they are; who they work for; what kind of work they do; what strategies do they leverage to make change; etc. (see Speaker Briefs).

Discuss the kind of information they are most interested in gaining from each speaker, given their background and work. What is exciting about their work? What insights do they want to hear?

Consider the speaker/organization through the lens of their research team’s assigned stakeholder perspective. For instance—what might Matt Gray at the City of Cleveland have to tell us about climate mitigation, ecosystem services, and environmental justice issues?

o Note: Some speakers/trips will be more relevant to specific research teams’ assigned stakeholder groups than are others. Students should still consider the speaker’s relationship to their team’s area of focus, and come up with some questions.

Write down 2-3 potential questions for each speaker/trip, based upon their team’s assigned stakeholder group. Each group will swap their draft interview questions with another group to read through and edit. Students will keep the edited version of questions in a notebook that they will bring and use during the trip/speaker.

While in an ideal world, students would find all their own research materials, because of our tight time-frame, faculty will be providing some of these via Podio. At the conclusion of each Preliminary Research session, the full class will briefly reconvene to discuss the next day’s speakers/trips, and share some of the findings of their preliminary research.


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Interviews During field trips and speakers, students will be responsible for facilitating the discussion. Each research team will be assigned as lead facilitators for 2-3 speakers/trips (facilitation schedule will be circulated in person). First, they will handle introductions, including a brief description of the goals for the conversation. Some speakers will have prepared a 10-minute introduction to their work. Other speakers will include a tour of their site either before or after the interview. Following these introductions or tours, the lead facilitators will ask three questions common to each speaker (see Facilitation Sheet), then moderate questions from their peers. At this point, students from each research team will have the opportunity to ask the questions they generated during their preliminary research. All students should take notes (lead facilitators should make sure they have one committed note-taker, as they may be otherwise busy moderating the discussion). Some small changes or adaptations may be made to this interview format for specific speakers—this will be discussed during Preliminary Research sessions. Debrief/Review/Record Notes The day after each field trip or guest speaker, time will be set aside first for a brief, full class debriefing/discussion. Then students will break into their research teams to review and record their notes from the interview into the Field Notes. The Field Notes will be kept on Podio—there will be an entry for each speaker/trip that will include a space where each research team will enter a summary of their findings from the interview, related to their team’s assigned stakeholder group. The complete Field Notes, including all five teams’ conclusions, will be available to all students as a resource to support the development of their final plans. Planning Process On Saturday of the first week, each student will be prepared to share one transformative idea to address a key issue/problem/challenge in Cleveland. Each idea must be accompanied by a clear articulation of the problem it is trying to address, and should be informed by the research conducted during week one. Students will then form multi-stakeholder teams to understand the different perspectives of the stakeholders represented around the table. They will begin by mapping the key stakeholders and articulating their interests and concerns, answering the question: How would the five stakeholder typologies from their research teams respond to, or be affected by, the proposed plan idea? Out of this stakeholder analysis, each team will define 6-10 guiding principles/objectives that will guide the planning process and, if upheld, ensure its success. After initial concepts are drafted, each team will share these with the full group for constructive feedback through a typical urban design critique format that will be provided by faculty. With input from the larger group, the teams will spend Thursday refining their plans and practicing their final presentation. On the final Friday, each multi-stakeholder team will present their plan to a panel of advisors. These advisors should be considered a group of diverse stakeholders whom each team is trying to get


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buy in from on their respective proposals. Final presentations will include the following elements:

Clear statement of the problem to be addressed; Stakeholder map; Table of stakeholder influence, interests, and concerns; Feedback from critique and how it was addressed; 6-10 guiding principles/objectives; Final plan diagrams/visualizations (e.g. maps, renderings, conceptual schematics, etc.); Implementation proposal.


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Research Teams—Stakeholder Typologies Physical Infrastructure As a stakeholder focused on physical infrastructure, you are primarily concerned with how the built environment can be designed, adapted, and retrofitted to be more sustainable. Given the scale of change needed to create a more sustainable region, you see physical infrastructure (pipes, roads, buildings, etc.) as our most important leverage point. Priority Issues & Opportunities

Infrastructure resilience Smart, 21st Century infrastructure Urban sprawl Energy intensive built infrastructure (inefficient buildings) Transportation systems Stormwater management

Drivers of Change

Funding: federal grants that prioritize sustainable and equitable transportation and housing development (e.g. U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grants), State Revolving Loan Funds for infrastructure improvements

Policy: state-established Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standards (EEPS) and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (RPS), potential for Green Infrastructure Portfolio Standard (GIPS), zoning and building code changes

Urban/Regional Planning: long-term regional planning efforts (e.g. Vibrant NEO), land banking programs, promotion of high density mixed-use neighborhoods, local climate action plans (e.g. Sustainable Cleveland 2019)

Technology & Infrastructure: smart city movement, smart grid technology, green infrastructure best management practices (BMPS), shared use mobility systems

Example Professions: Urban Planners & Civil and Environmental Engineers:

More Information: Becoming an Urban Planner, American Planning Association: https://www.planning.org/ncpm/pdf/UrbanPlannerExcerpt.pdf How to Become a Civil Engineer, Civil Engineering Careers: http://www.civilengineeringcareers.org/how-to-become-a-civil-engineer Careers: Environmental Engineers, Big Future: https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/careers/architecture-engineeringand-drafting-environmental-engineers


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Natural Resources As a stakeholder focused on natural resources, you are primarily concerned with the health of the natural environment, from rivers to prairies to migratory birds. You will examine the effects humans have on the quality of land, water, and air in an urban context. The degradation of these resources not only impact human health but also threatens the biodiversity and stability of land and aquatic ecosystems. You advocate for the protection and restoration of natural areas as critical habitat for wildlife, and point to the ecosystem services they contribute to maintain and improve quality of life across the city. Priority Issues & Opportunities

Land use change Habitat loss Wetland degradation Agricultural runoff Brownfields and industrial contamination Air Pollution

Drivers of Change

Funding: federal grants for conservation, restoration, clean up, and research (e.g. Great Lakes Restoration Initiative)

Policy: U.S. EPA’s proposed Carbon Pollution Standards for Existing Power Plants (Clean Power Plan), U.S. EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Program (consent decrees)

Technology & Infrastructure: constructed wetlands as a wastewater treatment alternative; green infrastructure best management practices (BMPs)

Research: environmental economics quantifies the value of ecosystem services, citizen science

Example Professions: Ecologists & Land Conservationists More Information: Learn About Ecology, University of California, Santa Barbara: http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecology/ecologyascareer.html How to Become a Conservation Scientist or Forester, US Department of Labor: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/conservation-scientists.htm#tab-4


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Economic Development As a stakeholder focused on economic development, you are primarily concerned with economic growth as the necessary foundation for improving the health and sustainability of the city. You want to reduce any barriers to attracting and retaining businesses to the city. At the same time, you recognize that the health of the environment and the economy are inextricably linked and are interested in seeing more businesses in the city and region make strides to be more sustainable. Emerging business models that capitalize on waste as an untapped resource intrigue you. You are also quick to examine the economic feasibility of different initiatives, such as renewable energy technology. Priority Issues & Opportunities

Cost/Benefit analysis of alternative energy, energy efficiency, and other sustainability initiatives

Resource recovery as potential business strategy Creating a network of industries that model sustainable water use along Lake Erie Creating incentives and high quality of life to attract and retain businesses to the region;

see Cleveland Plus Campaign http://www.clevelandplusbusiness.com/Why%20Cleveland%20Plus.aspx

Some Drivers of Change

Funding: federal and state subsidies for renewable energy companies and installations Policy: potential federal climate change policy (cap and trade, carbon tax, etc.), U.S.

EPA’s proposed Carbon Pollution Standards for Existing Power Plants (Clean Power Plan), Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Great Lakes Compact

Business Trends: corporate efforts to improve their sustainability (e.g. energy efficiency, sustainability coordinator/teams, life cycle analysis, etc.), public-private partnerships to support local infrastructure improvements

Example Professions: Business Leaders, Politicians & Community Development Organization Leaders More Information: The Big Picture: Careers in Community Development, Net impact: https://netimpact.org/careers/community-development/big-picture


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Climate Change As a stakeholder focused on climate change, you are primarily interested in devising strategies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainability is impossible to achieve without mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change, and you see addressing issues of energy, water, and land as crucial to the achievement of this goal. While you see the relevance of other issues, you still believe that the impending climate crisis should be the most prioritized problem. You should ask questions about how the Cleveland metropolitan region can respond to the enormous threat posed by climate change and how various sustainability initiatives fit into larger, global problems. Priority Issues & Opportunities

Projected climate change impacts, many of which are already being experienced Value of ecosystems services in mitigating and adapting to climate change Fossil fuel reliance and existing energy infrastructure (centralized grid) Urban sprawl Lack of public urgency or concern Climate justice

Drivers of Change

Funding: federal and state subsidies for energy efficiency and for renewable energy companies and installations

Policy: international climate policy (e.g. U.S.-China Climate Agreement), potential federal climate change policy (cap and trade, carbon tax, etc.), U.S. EPA’s proposed Carbon Pollution Standards for Existing Power Plants (Clean Power Plan), state-established Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standards (EEPS) and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (RPS), U.S. EPA’s water and energy efficiency standards

Urban/Regional Planning: local climate action plans (e.g. Sustainable Cleveland 2019), transit-oriented development

Technology & Infrastructure: smart grid technology, renewable energy generation, electric vehicle infrastructure, shared use mobility systems

Advocacy: Peoples Climate March Example Professions: Politicians, Policymakers & Climate Scientists More Information: On-The-Ground Training for Climate Change Researchers, Science: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2009_11_27/caredit.a0900147 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report – Summary for Policymakers: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf


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Environmental Justice As a stakeholder focused on environmental justice, you are primarily concerned with the social component of sustainability. Social justice is your forte; you examine how pollution, environmental degradation, and climate change disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities. You should consider how race, class, and gender play into environmental issues and ask questions about who has access to and who is impacted by sustainability initiatives. You also recognize that fundamental to building a more resilient community is reducing social vulnerability (inequity, unemployment, etc.). Priority Issues & Opportunities

Disproportionate impacts of climate change on low-income communities, due to social vulnerability, exposure, and other conditions

Equal access to open space (e.g. public parks, natural areas, etc.) and other essential resources such as affordable energy and water

Disproportionate health impacts for low-income communities located near industrial areas

Lack of diversity at decision-making table on sustainability issues Drivers of Change

Funding: federal and state funding for marginalized or vulnerable communities (e.g. U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grants, National Disaster Resilience Competition)

Urban/Regional Planning: zoning and housing codes (e.g. integrating urban agriculture), land banking programs

Advocacy: community organizing, citizen science (when average people train themselves to monitor their community’s water/air quality)

Example Professions Community Organizers, EJ Organization Leaders & Local Politicians More Information: Community Organizer’s Guide, Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC) http://www.abilitymaine.org/rosc/cog.html


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Facilitation Sheet (For use by the Research Team assigned as lead facilitators for a field trip or guest speaker).

1. Begin with introductions, and laying out the goals of the conversation.

2. If the speaker has prepared a 10-15 minute introduction to their work, introduce this introduction.

3. After the speaker’s introduction, ask the three questions that we will be asking all our

interview subjects. Feel free to rephrase in your own words:

What do you think is most needed to realize a more sustainable and resilient Cleveland (or cities, in general)? (customize for speaker)

Looking into the future, what forces of change do you see driving your work? What is the most innovative idea(s) that you have heard recently that could lead to

positive transformation related to the issues you work on?


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Northeast Ohio: A History by Emily Kuhn and Keenen Willis, Oberlin College students Introduction Sustainability is the continual integration of multiple values that make up a triple bottom line: economic, social, and environmental. Throughout the history of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, these three components are continually intertwined and affect each other. Geographical Background In Cleveland and the surrounding area of Northeast Ohio, geography and geology have played an important role in the history of essential resources. The area first formed around 14,000 years ago when a large glacier came through the region and carved out the land we know today, depositing large amounts of sentiment that made the soil rich in nutrients and good for farming. The glacier also carved out Lake Erie, an incredibly important natural resource that has been instrumental in the development of Northern Ohio (Central, Ohio History). Many types of minerals and rocks such as shale, sandstone and coal were formed in the region over thousands of years, providing sources for energy and construction (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 2).

Colonialism Due to the vast wooded areas and abundant wildlife, American Indians inhabited the region for thousands of years, cultivating corn and squash among other crops (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 2). They lived on the land without creating a large impact on the ecosystem, using only the natural resources that they needed (Beach, 1997). Beginning in the 1600s, Europeans and later American colonizers forced the Native Americans off of their lands in the region. The colonists would clear-cut forests and kill vast amounts of wildlife in order to protect their crops. For example, an early Ohio law mandated 100 squirrel scalps from each man of military age every year (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 5). The settlement of Europeans and Americans in the region was a key force in shaping how the environment would be treated in future years. Industrialization As the region progressed into the 1800s, industrialization gradually began to take hold. In 1825, the opening of the Erie Canal helped to connect Cuyahoga County with the east coast, attracting many industries like steel and manufacturing. The canals themselves required dams and locks to control water levels, causing some aquatic ecosystems to dry out while other nonaquatic ones were flooded. Steamboats that traveled along these canals would often throw their spent coal in various bodies of water, degrading water quality. With the advent of the railroads in the mid and late 1800s, Northeast Ohio became further bonded to the east coast, causing the region to industrialize even more rapidly. Industries such as steel and manufacturing contributed to water and air pollution and converted natural land area such as woodlands and wetlands for industrial purposes. As Cleveland became more industrialized, it started to rely heavily on fossil fuels for


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energy. By 1900, 90% of the city’s factories relied on coal (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 8). Even though industrialization did create many new jobs and possibilities for people, it also created an unsustainable economy since industries and individuals became dependent on non-renewable resources. While this period in the region’s history was arguably the most environmentally destructive, there was already a small but growing awareness to conserve resources. For example, in 1917 William Stinchcomb, an engineer and entrepreneur, persuaded the city government to use his plan of a continuous parkway that connected various lands around creeks and rivers in the region with the city’s existing park system. He also pushed for the formation of the Cleveland Metropolitan Park District and created a board to oversee the future expansion of the region’s parks (Cleveland MetroParks). Post-industrialism & Environmental Injustice In 1920, Cleveland was the country’s fifth largest city and Shaker Heights, one of Cleveland’s eastern suburbs, had the highest per capita income in the nation. However, by the 1960s, Northeast Ohio experienced a severe economic decline, as labor costs and prices caused many industries to leave the region for cheaper locations. Due to the job decline, many white people and those who could afford to move fled the city for the suburbs, while minority and low-income groups could only afford to stay in the city center (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 14). Though many industries had moved out, the legacy of pollution they left in the region was still apparent and affected these minority and low-income groups. By the mid 1900s, there were 350 documented brownfields, or areas of vacant industrially contaminated land, in Cleveland. Chemicals and other harmful materials could easily leak out of these areas and harm the residents who lived near them. In addition, residents of Cleveland still had to live with a high level of water and air pollution from the few remaining industries (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 9). Although industrialization was one of the first forces with an adverse effect on the sustainability of Northeast Ohio, deindustrialization also had a negative effect on the relationship between Cleveland citizens and essential resources. Modern Environmental Problems Because so many people were moving out of the city to new suburbs, more asphalt was laid for roads and parking lots to accommodate this “white flight.” Since asphalt is mostly impermeable to water, a problem arose when there was heavy rain, since the runoff could not be absorbed into the ground and instead was transported to bodies of water, carrying pollutants with it. Similarly, in the agricultural areas of the counties, water containing pesticides and fertilizers ran off into larger aquatic systems (Beach, 1997). In Cleveland, between 1968 and 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught on fire at least ten times because of pollution. The 1969 fire became a pivotal moment in the area’s environmental history as citizens of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio realized the severe degree of the region’s environmental degradation. The fire spurred not only a regional but also a national and international environmental awareness (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 12).


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Sustainability Movements From the 1980s onwards, Northeast Ohio began to focus on economic revitalization, environmental rehabilitation, and social justice. Citizens concerned about the state of natural resources formed numerous grassroots organizations. Many people set up recycling drives in order to prevent the waste of metals and plastics. Non-profit environmental organizations also began to form, such as The Cleveland Waterfront Coalition, which still works on developing access to the city’s neglected waterfront so citizens can enjoy Lake Erie as an aesthetic and ecological resource (Beach, 1997). These grassroots groups and organizations have been working with the city government as well. Reimagining Cleveland, founded in 1988, is a public nonprofit partnership that focuses on promoting urban agriculture, restoring soil on brownfield sites, developing renewable energy, and decreasing stormwater runoff (Fleisher & Jeffers, 2011, p. 18). These are but a few of many projects that aim to remedy the centuries of environmental degradation and resource depletion. Conclusion Knowing the history of Northeast Ohio is helpful in understanding and going about solving the current environmental, economic, and social problems in Cleveland. Many of the challenges faced by Cleveland, and cities around the world, are best addressed by integrating economic, social, and environmental values. As we look into the future, we should use the triple-bottom line to examine how the Cleveland metropolitan region can become a truly sustainable, resilient, healthy and vibrant place to live, work, and play for generations to come. Bibliography Beach, D. (1997, July 16). Environmentalism-The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Retrieved

January 6, 2015, from The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=E5

Central, Ohio History. (n.d.). Ice Age Ohio. Retrieved Jaunary 6, 2015, from Ohio History

Central. Cleveland MetroParks. (n.d.). History. Retrieved January 6, 2015, from Cleveland Metroparks:

http://www.clevelandmetroparks.com/Main/History.aspx Fleisher, J. S., & Jeffers, A. (2011, June). Social and Environmental History of Northeast Ohio:

An Introduction for the Sustainability Case Studies. Retrieved January 6, 2015, from Baldwin Wallace University Sustainability: http://bw.edu/academics/sustainability/neo-case-studies/cases/Introduction_Chapter_final.pdf


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Sustainable Urbanism Glossary Adaptation In urban planning and design, a set of strategies deployed to increase the resilience of the built environment, ecological systems, and human communities of a city to the challenges posed by extreme weather events and limited resource availability that result from climate change. Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) A strategy for sustainable development that focuses on empowering community members to take ownership of their own development process by helping them identify and leverage their existing, but often unrecognized, assets rather than focusing remedying their needs with external resources. Big Data Extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally using powerful processing units to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. In Urban Planning and Design, often deployed as a tool to observe behaviour patterns that inform design choices and serve as metrics to evaluate the success of planning projects. Bioswale Landscape elements designed to remove silt and pollution from surface runoff water. They consist of a swaled drainage course with gently sloped sides (less than six percent) and filled with vegetation, compost and/or riprap. Climate Resilience The capacity for a socio-ecological system to absorb stresses and maintain function in the face of external stresses imposed upon it by climate change and adapt, reorganize, and evolve into more desirable configurations that improve the sustainability of the system, leaving it better prepared for future climate change impacts. Combined Sewer A wastewater collection and transportation system that runs wastewater and surface runoff (i.e. stormwater) in adjacent open pipes. Under normal conditions, this system transports wastewater to a sewage treatment plant and surface runoff to a nearby body of water after minimal treatment. This type of sewer design is no longer used in building new communities because of the high risk of Combined Sewer Overflow (see below) but is in older cities like Cleveland.


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Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) An environmental health disaster that occurs when heavy storm events create a water load that exceeds the sewer capacity of a combined sewer system. During such events, wastewater mixes with surface runoff and is released directly into the watershed untreated, causing serious health risks. Community Based Organization (CBO) A public or private nonprofit (including a church or religious entity) that is representative of a community or a significant segment of a community, and is engaged in meeting local human, educational, environmental, or public safety needs. Community Development A broad term given to the practices of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of communities, typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local economic, institutional, and social systems and sometimes including local ecological systems. Community Development Corporation A type of nonprofit, community-based organizations that focuses on revitalizing the areas in which they are located, typically low-income, underserved neighborhoods that have experienced significant disinvestment. Constructed Wetland An artificial wetland created for the purpose of treating anthropogenic discharge such as municipal or industrial wastewater, or stormwater runoff. Environmental Justice (EJ) The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EJ practitioners focus on combatting the disproportionate impacts of environmental toxicity and climate change on marginalized communities. Grassroots Movement A social or political movement that utilizes collective action from the local level to effect change at the local, regional, national, or international level. Grassroots movements are associated with bottom-up, rather than top-down decision making, and are sometimes considered more natural or spontaneous than more traditional power structures. Green Architecture An approach to building that minimizes harmful effects on human health and the environment. The "green" architect or designer attempts to safeguard air, water, and earth by choosing eco-friendly building materials and construction practices.


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Green Infrastructure A natural approach to water management that focus on protecting, restoring, or mimicking the natural water cycle rather than developing infrastructure-based treatment or storage mechanisms. Often posited as the antithesis of “Grey Infrastructure” (described below). Green Jobs Employment in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development, administrative, and service activities that contribute to preserving or restoring environmental quality. This includes jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption; de-carbonize the economy; and minimize or avoid generation of waste and pollution. Green Space An area of grass, trees, or other vegetation set apart for recreational or aesthetic purposes in an otherwise urban environment. Grey Infrastructure An engineered approach to water management that focus on developing infrastructure-based treatment or storage mechanisms rather than protecting, restoring, or mimicking the natural water cycle. Often posited as the antithesis of “Green Infrastructure” (described above). Land Conservation A land use policy aimed on preserving or restoring the native ecological systems. Historically focused on protecting endangered species or ecosystems from human development through targeted sale or easement of specific locations, but currently tending more towards an emphasis on integrating many land parcels into a comprehensive network that maintains connected swaths of natural areas through urban and suburban landscapes. LEED certification Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices. To receive LEED certification, building projects satisfy prerequisites and earn points to achieve different levels of certification. New Urbanism New urbanism is an urban design movement, created in reaction to the expansion of suburban development and car culture in Post-WWII United States, that promotes sustainable social practices by creating community-centered, walkable neighborhoods which contain a wide range of land use and employment types. Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) A not-for-profit organization that is independent from states and international governmental organizations. They are usually funded by donations, grants, or membership fees but some avoid


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formal funding altogether and are run primarily by volunteers. NGOs are highly diverse groups of organizations engaged in a wide range of activities, and take different forms in different parts of the world. Nonprofit Organization (NPO) A type of organization that does not earn profits for its owners or shareholders. All of the money earned by or donated to a nonprofit organization is used in pursuing the organization's mission. Nonprofit organizations are often dedicated to furthering a particular social cause. Participatory Budgeting (PB) A process of democratic deliberation and decision-making in which citizens weigh in on how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget. Participatory budgeting allows citizens to identify, discuss and prioritize public spending projects, giving them the power to make real decisions about how money is spent. PB has the potential to provide much-needed social inclusion in the decision making of the allocation of resources in communities with low socioeconomic statuses. Permeable Pavement A range of materials that allow for the movement of stormwater through the surface of pavement. In addition to reducing surface water runoff, permeable pavement often traps suspended solids and filters pollutants from the water. Placemaking A multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces that capitalizes on a community's assets, inspiration, and potential, with the intention of creating public spaces that promote people's health, well being and civic engagement. Planning Agency A governmental or nongovernmental entity involved in urban or regional planning. Privatization The transfer of ownership and control of property or businesses from a government entity to a privately owned entity. Public-Private Partnership (PPP) A government service or private business venture that is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies. PPP involves a contract between a public sector authority and a private party, in which the private party provides a public service or project and assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the project. Rain Barrel A water tank used to collect and store rainwater runoff, typically from rooftops via rain gutters.


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Rain Garden A planted depression or a hole that allows rainwater runoff from impervious urban areas, like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas, to be absorbed into the soil. Usually planted with native vegetation that is evolved to thrive during periods of inundation and to absorb water quickly deep into the ground. Smart City An urban development vision to integrate multiple information and communication technology (ICT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage a city’s assets, including local departments information systems, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, and other community services. The goal of building a smart city is to improve quality of life by using technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents’ needs. Stakeholder A person, group or organization that has interest or concern in an organization’s actions. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives, and policies. Some examples of key stakeholders are employees, government, owners, suppliers, unions, and the community in which the organization and its work are located. Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) A mixed-use residential and commercial area designed to maximize access to public transport, and often incorporates features to encourage transit ridership. A TOD neighborhood typically has a center with a transit node (train station, metro station, tram stop, or bus stop), surrounded by relatively high-density development. Urbanism Urbanism refers to both the material aspects of urban living and the cultural aspects of city life. This can include the rural–urban movement of populations or their degree of concentration in urban areas. It can also describe the characteristic modes of social interaction of inhabitants of towns and cities. Urbanism, as a field of study, constitutes the core interest of disciplines such as urban planning and urban sociology. Urban Design The process of designing and shaping cities, towns and villages. In contrast to architecture, which focuses on the design of individual buildings, urban design deals with the larger scale of groups of buildings, streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, with the goal of making urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable. Urban Forest Ecosystems of trees and other vegetation in and around urban communities. The urban forest is a critical part of the green infrastructure that provides these communities with important


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environmental, economic and social benefits such as clean air and water and relief from the Urban Heat Island Effect (described below). Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI) An urban area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to an increase in hard, heat-absorbing surfaces and the removal of vegetation by human development. Urban Planning A technical and political process concerned with shaping the use of land, protection and use of the environment, public welfare, and the design of the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks.


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Sustainability 101 Glossary1

The journey toward sustainability is at times technical – one which can require some definitions for added clarity and to ensure a common understanding. Below is a list of terms we come across regularly or use ourselves when defining, discussing and working toward sustainability. Appreciative Inquiry A philosophy of organizational assessment and change that seeks examples of success to emulate and organizational or personal strengths to build upon, rather than focusing upon fixing negative or ineffective organizational processes. BALLE Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. http://www.livingeconomies.org Bio-based Product A product (other than food or feed) that is produced from renewable, agricultural (plant, animal and marine), or forestry materials. Biodegradable A product or material capable of decomposing in nature within a reasonably short period of time. Biodiversity the variability among organisms on Earth and within an ecosystem. Maintaining biodiversity is necessary to preserve the health and survival of an ecosystem. Biomass Living or recently-dead organic material that can be used as an energy source, excludes organic material that has been transformed by geological processes (such as coal or petroleum). Biomimicry A design discipline that studies nature’s elements, processes and designs and uses these ideas to imitate or design new solutions to human problems sustainably. Carbon Footprint The total amount of greenhouse gases emitted directly or indirectly through an activity, or from a product, company or person, typically expressed in equivalent tons of either carbon or carbon dioxide. 1 Source: Interface, Inc. 2008. Sustainability 101 Glossary. Retrieved on June 29, 2011 from (no longer active): http://www.interfaceglobal.com/getdoc/e07d40fd-962e-4ca0-8c5d-5f2fd1c58e63/Glossary.aspx.


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Carbon Neutral This term effectively means net zero carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Achieving carbon neutrality means measuring the carbon emissions for an identified product, service or company, then balancing those emissions with carbon reductions or carbon offsets to reach net zero carbon emissions. Carbon Sequestration The uptake and storage of carbon. Trees can be used for carbon sequestration because they absorb carbon dioxide, release the oxygen and store the carbon. Clean Tech A fairly amorphous term referring to a sector that includes products, services, and processes designed to provide superior performance at lower costs, greatly reduce or eliminate negative ecological impact, and improve the productive and responsible use of natural resources. It’s often associated with renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. http://cleantechnetwork.com Climate Change Refers to a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period. Climate change is a change in the “average weather” that a given region experiences. When we speak of climate change on a global scale, we are referring to changes in the climate of the Earth as a whole, including temperature increases (global warming) or decreases, and shifts in wind. Closed-loop recycling The process of utilizing a recycled product in the manufacturing of a similar product or the remanufacturing of the same product. Cradle-to-cradle A design philosophy put forth by architect William McDonough that considers the life-cycle of a material or product. Cradle-to-Cradle design models human industry on nature's processes, in which materials are viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy metabolisms. CSR Corporate Social Responsibility. http://www.ethicalcorp.com/ Deforestation the conversion of forested land to other non-forested uses by the removal and destruction of trees and habitat. Deforestation is cited as one of the major contributors to global warming.


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Dematerialization The reduction of mass in a product that does not diminish quality or intended service for the consumer. Design for the Environment (DfE) A philosophy applied to the design process that advocates the reduction of environmental and human health impacts through materials selection and design strategies. EcoMetrics Interface’s quantification of the company’s environmental performance over time. Ecometrics measures materials and energy inputs and outputs for use in benchmarking and monitoring environmental progress. Ecosystem A place having unique physical features, encompassing air, water, and land, and habitats supporting plant and animal life, including humans. Emission Reduction Credit (ERC)/Carbon Offset An emission reduction credit represents avoided or reduced emissions often measured in tons. ERCs are generated from projects or activities that reduce or avoid emissions. A carbon offset refers to a specific type of ERC that represents an activity that avoids or reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. Energy Efficiency Using less energy to fulfill the same function or purpose; usually attributed to a technological fix rather than a change in behavior, examples include better insulation to reduce heating / cooling demand, compact fluorescent bulbs to replace incandescent, or proper tire inflation to improve gas mileage. Environmentally Preferable Products (EPP) Products or services that “have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose.” This comparison may consider raw materials acquisition, production, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, reuse, operation, maintenance or disposal of the product or service. EPP Certification Process by which products or services are certified as Environmentally Preferred Products (EPPs). The certification addresses all stages of the product’s/service’s life-cycle, incorporates key environmental and human health issues relevant to the category, and undergoes outside stakeholder review.


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Fossil Fuel Any petroleum-based fuel source such as gasoline, natural gas, fuel oil, etc. Global Warming This refers to a specific type of climate change, an increased warming of the Earth’s atmosphere caused by the buildup of man-made gases that trap the sun’s heat, causing changes in weather patterns and other effects on a global scale. These effects include global sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns and frequency, habitat loss and droughts. Greenhouse Gases (GHG) These gases are so named because they contribute to the greenhouse effect due to high concentrations of these gases remaining in the atmosphere. The GHGs of most concern include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxides (N2O). Greenhouse Effect The trapping of heat within the Earth’s atmosphere by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere and act as a blanket keeping heat in. Greenwashing The process by which a company publicly and misleadingly exaggerates or embellishes the environmental attributes of itself or its products, while participating in environmentally- or socially-irresponsible practices. Green Building A comprehensive process of design and construction that employs techniques to minimize adverse environmental impacts and reduce the energy consumption of a building, while contributing to the health and productivity of its occupants; common metrics for evaluating green buildings include the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification and Australia’s Green Star program. Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) refers to the contents of interior air that could affect the health and comfort of occupants. Acceptable IAQ is air in which there are no known concentrations of harmful contaminants Industrial Ecology An interdisciplinary field that focuses on the sustainable combination of environment, economy, and technology. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) A science-based tool for comparing the environmental performance of two or more scenarios. LCA quantifies the potential environmental impacts of products or systems throughout their life cycles, and can highlight a product’s impact areas to target strategic improvements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_cycle_assessment


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LEED™ (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) A green building rating system encouraging and accelerating global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of environmental tools and performance criteria. http://www.usgbc.org Natural Capital The flow of ecosystem goods and services that interact with the human economic system. The idea of natural capital expands economic models to include natural resources that have value to humanity but no inherent price. Photovoltaic Cells (PV Cells) Also called Solar Cells, they convert sunlight directly into electricity. PV cells are made of semiconducting materials similar to those used in computer chips. When sunlight is absorbed by these materials, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. Post-Consumer Recycled Content Material that is recovered after its intended use as a consumer product, then reused as a component of another product. Examples of post-consumer waste that are recycled include carpet tiles (for new yarn and tile backing), aluminum cans, PET soda bottles, and office paper. Post-Industrial Recycled Content Also known as Pre-Consumer Recycled Content, it is waste material from manufacturing processes that is reused as a component of another product. Post-industrial recycled content comes from material that would have otherwise been waste, and has undergone some physical recycling process. Examples of post-industrial waste that are recycled include yarn extrusion waste, metal scrap, and fiber in paper manufacturing. PLA: Polylactic Acid PLA is polylactic acid, a biopolymer made from renewable resources. It is thermoplastic and can be used to make fibers, packaging and other products as an alternative to petroleum based plastics. It is derived from bacterial fermentation of agricultural by-products such as corn, sugar, or wheat. PLA is not only made from renewable resources, but is also biodegradable. PLA is currently manufactured by Cargill, PURAC, Hycail, and several other companies. QUEST (Quality Utilizing Employee Suggestions and Teamwork) Interface’s initiative designed to eliminate measurable waste by establishing focused and innovative teams throughout the world to identify, measure, and then eliminate waste streams.


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Recycling The series of activities, including collection, separation, and processing, by which materials are recovered from the waste stream for use as raw materials in the manufacture of new products. Recyclable A designation for products or materials that are capable of being recovered from, or otherwise diverted from waste streams into an established recycling program. Recycled Content Refers to the amount of recycled materials in a product – typically expressed as a percentage. ReEntry Program Interface's reclamation program through which carpet is taken back at the end of its useful life. Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), Green Tags, green energy certificates, or tradable renewable certificates These commodities represent the technology and environmental attributes of electricity generated from renewable resources. Renewable Resources A resource that can be replenished at a rate equal to or greater than its rate of depletion. Examples of renewable resources include corn, trees, and soy-based products. Repurposing Cleaning or refurbishing that allows a product to be reused again in its current form, thereby extending its useful life. SRI Socially Responsible Investing. http://www.socialinvest.org/ Stakeholder An individual or group potentially affected by the activities of a company or organization; in sustainable business models the term includes financial shareholders as well as those affected by environmental or social factors such as suppliers, consumers, employees, the local community, and the natural environment. Standards Governmental or privately-created lists of criteria used to regulate or evaluate the products or behavior or corporations. Standards can play a critical role in stimulating the market and giving companies information to create better products or change corporate behavior. An example is the LEED green building rating system for buildings..


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Sustainability The aspiration to ensure that meeting the needs of the present does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, the most widely accepted definition comes from "Our Common Future," Report of World Commission on Environment and Development, commonly called the The Brundtland Report). Triple Bottom Line Broken down in several ways—People, Planet, Profit; or Ecology, Economy, Equity; or Social, Environmental, Economic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Compounds that evaporate from many housekeeping, maintenance and building products made with organic chemicals. In sufficient quantities, VOCs can cause irritation and some are suspected of causing or exacerbating acute and chronic diseases. Waste-to-Energy The burning of waste in a controlled-environment incinerator to generate steam, heat, or electricity.


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Future of Cities Bibliography (Resources for Further Reading) General Sustainable Cities

NextCity Blog https://nextcity.org/

Citylab Blog http://www.citylab.com/

Citiscope Blog http://citiscope.org/

Metropolis Magazine: POV (Point of View) Blog http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/

Sustainable Cities Collective Blog http://www.sustainablecitiescollective.com/

C40 Cities http://www.c40.org/cities

Sustainia Exploring the Sustainable Society of Tomorrow http://www.sustainia.me/

ICLEI STAR Community Rating System Sustainability Tools for Assessing & Rating Communities http://www.starcommunities.org/

US Green Building Council Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED)-Neighborhood Development Certification Program Reference Guide, Changemaking Toolkit http://www.usgbc.org/guide/nd

United Nations Habitat Program The New Urban Agenda https://www.habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda


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Trust for Public Land Climate Smart Cities https://www.tpl.org/services/climate-smart-cities

General Urban and Regional Planning

American Planning Association What is Planning? Academic Article (Conceptual) https://www.planning.org/aboutplanning/whatisplanning.htm

Planetizen What is Planning? Academic Article (Conceptual) http://www.planetizen.com/node/65931

University of Michigan Planning History Timeline: A Selected Chronology of Events http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdcamp/up540/timeline12.html

Congress for New Urbanism Charter, Founding Document https://www.cnu.org/charter

US Environmental Protection Agency Green Infrastructure for Climate Resiliency Resources, Changemaking Toolkit http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/greeninfrastructure/climate_res.cfm

US Environmental Protection Agency Water Resources, Policy Dashboard and News site http://water.epa.gov/

US Environmental Protection Agency Land & Cleanup Resources, Educational Website http://www2.epa.gov/learn-issues/learn-about-land-and-cleanup

US Environmental Protection Agency This is Smart Growth https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-04/documents/this-is-smart-growth.pdf


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US Department of Energy Science & Innovation Resources, Policy Dashboard and News Site http://www.energy.gov/science-innovation

Northeast Ohio Planning Resources

Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, City of Cleveland Sustainable Cleveland 2019, Comprehensive Regional Plan

Climate Action Plan: http://www.sustainablecleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/CAP-Summary2013-Web-Final.pdf

2014 Progress Update: http://www.sustainablecleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/SC_2014-08_progressUpdate_FINAL.pdf

Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) Vibrant NEO 2040, Comprehensive Regional Plan

Vision: http://vibrantneo.org/vibrantneo-2040/initiative-goals/ Guidebook (Executive Summary):

http://origin.library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1108848433370-251/VibrantNEOGuidebook11x17_Final.pdf

Full Document: http://vibrantneo.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Vibrant-NEO-Final-Report_3-31-14_lowres_ALL.pdf

GreenCityBlueLake Transition: Electricity Generation Report, Sectoral Regional Plan http://www.gcbl.org/files/resources/electricityfinal2.pdf

Team NEO Regional Economic Development Efforts, Policy Dashboard and News Site http://www.teamneo.org/

GreenCityBlueLake Lakefront Aerial Tour, Geographic or Demographic Resource http://www.gcbl.org/research/aerial-tour-of-the-lakefront

Ecological Indicators (publication) Can the Genuine Progress Indicator better inform sustainable regional progress?—A case study for Northeast Ohio, Academic Article (Primary Research) http://genuineprogress.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/GPI-Ohio.pdf

GreenCityBlueLake Citizens’ Bioregional Plan for Northeast Ohio, Comprehensive Regional Plan http://www.gcbl.org/files/resources/bioregionalplan1998.pdf


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EcoCity Cleveland Ohio Smart Growth Agenda, Academic Article (Primary Research) and Sectoral Regional Plan http://www.gcbl.org/files/resources/ecocityjournalv5n101112fall1998.pdf

Cleveland City Planning Commission Sustainability Efforts, Educational Website http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/cwp/sus_assts.php

Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) Database of NEO Community Plans and Planning Initiatives, Database https://cse.google.com/cse/home?cx=002779940851358847834:eidjhrowoua

Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) Conditions and Trends Platform, Geographic or Demographic Resource and Sustainability Metrics Dashboard http://cat.neoscc.org/letter-to-the-region/

GreenCityBlueLake The Smart Growth Challenge in Ohio, Academic Article (Primary Research) http://www.gcbl.org/files/resources/ohiosmartgrowth0210.pdf

General Background on Northeast Ohio

Baldwin Wallace University Social and Environmental History of Northeast Ohio: An Introduction for the Sustainability Case Studies, Academic Article (Historical) https://www.bw.edu/academics/sustainability/neo-case-studies/cases/Introduction_Chapter_final.pdf

Foresight Design Initiative The Context of Cleveland: A Social, Environmental, and Economic History of Northeast Ohio, [unpublished] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lWmY4u6l1EwRdnHL0w1ZZkVJ2LyYk38sDMTv91Wkthc/edit

Case Western Reserve University The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History’s Environmentalism Entry, http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=E5


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Land Use in Northeast Ohio

Cleveland City Planning Commission Recent (Last seven years) Zoning Code Updates, Policy Dashboard http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/zoning/cpc.php

Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition Land Use & Planning, Policy Dashboard and News Site http://cccfoodpolicy.org/working-group/land-use-planning

Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) NEO General Zoning Map, Geographic or Demographic Resource http://vibrantneo.org/vibrantneo-2040/tools-and-resources/toolkit/neo-general-zoning-map/

Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) Vibrant NEO’s Current Land Use Map (2011), Geographic or Demographic Resource http://vibrantneo.org/vibrantneo-2040/tools-and-resources/toolkit/neo-land-use-map/

GreenCityBlueLake Promoting Regional Land-Use Planning in Northeast Ohio, Academic Article (Primary Research) http://lakeerie.ohio.gov/Portals/0/Closed%20Grants/small%20grants/SG%20369-09%20Final%20Report.pdf

Energy in Northeast Ohio

Climate Central Future Trends in Energy Production, Educational Website http://www.climatecentral.org/news/worlds-power-mix-change-2040-19158

Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, City of Cleveland Sustainable Cleveland 2019’s Advanced & Renewable Energy Report: Powering Northeast Ohio, Sectoral Regional Plan http://www.sustainablecleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SC2019-Renewable-Primer-2013.pdf

Water in Northeast Ohio

Great Lakes Brewing Co. Cuyahoga River Burning Anniversary Piece, Press Release https://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/node/983


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National Science Foundation

Algal Blooms in Lake Erie Video, Educational Website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLrfD225zaY

Other Regional Change-Making Tools

Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) Toolkit and Best Practices Sheet, Changemaking Toolkit https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XZ7-p-6jXuiRFuiHrImMCSO9mtdS1EdSbEVva3mpHaA/edit

Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) NEO Atlas, Geographic or Demographic Resource http://cat.neoscc.org/neosccs-northeast-ohio-atlas/

GreenCityBlueLake Building the Livable Urban Edge: Best practices for urban waterfronts, a study by the BLUE Project, Academic Article (Primary Research) http://www.gcbl.org/files/resources/bestpracticesforurbanwaterfronts.pdf

GreenCityBlueLake Climate Toolkit for Local Communities, Changemaking Toolkit http://www.gcbl.org/files/resources/gcblcommunityclimatechangetoolkit.pdf

Great Lakes Region Resources

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Towards a Great Lakes Century Vision, Educational Website http://thegreatlakescenturyblog.som.com/recognizing-a-global-resource

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Organization Homepage http://greatlakesrestoration.us/

U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment for the Midwest Region, Educational Website http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/regions/midwest


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Union of Concerned Scientists Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region Report, Academic Article (Primary Research) http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/global_warming/greatlakes_final.pdf

Climate Change

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions Climate Change 101 resources, Educational Website and Changemaking Toolkit http://www.c2es.org/publications/climate-change-101

The Royal Society 1-minute Introduction to Climate Change Video, Educational Website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4e5UPu1co0

Environmental Justice United States Environmental Protection Agency

Definition of Environmental Justice https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit

17 Principles of Environmental Justice http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2007/10/17-principles-environmental-justice TED Talks

Greening the Ghetto; Majora Carter, Educational Website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ-cZRmHfs4

Majora Carter The Connection Between Race, Class, Environment and Health, Educational Website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JJNZmLytX8

Rebecca Bratspies Embracing Environmental Justice to Green Our Cities

http://www.thenatureofcities.com/2012/10/14/embracing-environmental-justice-to-green-our-cities/


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Department of Health & Human Services Enviro-Health Links - Environmental Justice https://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/environmentaljustice.html United States Environmental Protection Agency

EJSCREEN: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen

Brentin Mock How environmental justice fared in 2014 - and the outlook for 2015

http://grist.org/politics/how-environmental-justice-fared-in-2014-and-the-outlook-for-2015/

United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries Toxic Waste and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007 https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/toxic-wastes-and-race-at-twenty-1987-2007.pdf

Book References

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs Century of the City, The Rockefeller Foundation The Guide to Greening Cities, Sadhu Johnston, Steven Nicholas, and Julia Parzen City Building: Nine Planning Principles for the Twenty-First Century, John Lund Kriken,

Philip Enquist, and Richard Rapaport Design with Nature, Ian McHarg Sustainable Urbanism, Doug Farr Ecological Urbanism, ed. Mohsen Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty Cities for People, Jan Gehl Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley Start Up City, Gabe Klein Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice, Julian Agyeman Planetizen’s Top 20 Urban Planning Books of All Time:

http://www.planetizen.com/books/20


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A Brief History of the Modern Environmental Movement in America2 What is the green movement? The green movement as we think of it today has evolved considerably since the early days. Since there are some popular assumptions about environmental history that are incorrect, if you have an interest in green issues this article will serve as a helpful guide to the origins and evolution of “green”. To understand the modern green movement, we have to trace its origins back to the beginning. Let’s get started: While many people associate the beginning of the green movement with Rachel Carson’s breakthrough book Silent Spring and the legislative fervor of the 1970s, environmentalism is in fact rooted in the intellectual thought of the 1830s and 1840s. In fact, the “environmental movement” is a significant thread in the fabric of American philosophical thought – first developed by the Transcendentalists (most famously Henry David Thoreau) but tangibly expanded upon during the era of American pragmatism in the latter half of the 19th century. Environmentalism isn’t a trend, or a cult, or a form of hysteria. It is rooted in American philosophy and, being at once innovative and practical, idealistic and active, one could easily define modern environmentalism as quintessentially American. Environmentalism in America today is defined as: “Environmentalists advocate the sustainable management of resources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policy and individual behavior. In its recognition of humanity as a participant in (not enemy of) ecosystems, the movement is centered on ecology, health, and human rights.” But how did we get from Thoreau and Teddy Roosevelt to “treehugging” and finally, the eco-friendly consumer-driven developments of today? 1. Roots of Environmentalism Rachel Carson (1907-1964) certainly helped foster a reawakening of environmentalism, but it was Henry David Thoreau, in his book Maine Woods, who called for the conservation of and respect for nature and the federal preservation of virgin forests. George Perkins Marsh was another key figure during the first half of the 19th century who championed preserving the natural environment. Leading intellectuals of the antebellum era called into question the standard Puritan pastoral ethic – the belief that cultivating and using the

2 Source: WebEcoist. 2008. A Brief History of the Modern Green Movement in America. WebEcoist. Retrieved on June 29, 2011from http://webecoist.com/2008/08/17/a-brief-history-of-the-modern-green-movement/.


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land was inherently moral and leaving the land alone to be “wild” was wasteful and uncivilized (this belief developed in large part because of the violent cultural clash between early Americans and Native Americans – something we tend to forget about in modern times). To this day there are ingrained negative associations between preserving wild lands and pantheistic or pagan values. This tension flares up in popular discourse from time to time (“environmental wackos”, “treehuggers”, and so forth). The classic American conflict between secular rationalism and Puritan morality is certainly not exclusive to our management of natural resources! 2. The Pragmatist Era Though Transcendentalism was famously reverent of nature, it was the thrust of can-do American Pragmatism (widely viewed to be America’s original contribution to philosophical thought) that doubtless inspired a series of steps to conserve nature. Beginning in the 1860s, the United States government saw fit to create parks and set aside wild lands for public good. Yosemite was claimed in 1864 (John Muir moved there in 1869). It was made our first national park in 1872. The Audubon Society was founded in 1872 and Sequoia and General Grant parks were established. The only setback during this era was the Mining Act of 1890, which is controversial to this day. The Forest Reserve Act finished the era of pragmatism with federal impetus. John Muir was elected president of the new Sierra Club in 1892. 3. Conservation and Teddy Roosevelt Though the federal government had begun taking actions to preserve lands, it was Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir – a bit of an unlikely pair – who publicized and popularized conservation. Teddy’s visit to Yosemite in 1903 gained national publicity. By 1916 the National Park Service had been established with leadership by Stephen Mather. But just as swiftly, the World Wars – sandwiching the traumatic Great Depression – forced environmental concerns to the background of public thought. While the Sierra Club continued to grow rapidly and became instrumental in establishing many parks during these years, environmentalism as we know it today was not a concern for most Americans – or, consequently, the federal government. It would take disasters and threats to bring environmental issues out of the organizations and ivory towers and into the mainstream again. In future posts, you can expect these events to be explored in greater detail. Your questions are welcome. 4. Conservation and Catastrophe After WWII, environmental efforts continued to be focused on conservation of land rather than more personal issues like food safety or consumer products. That soon changed. The 1948 disaster at Donora (called the “death fog”) prompted national outcry; also during this time David Brower became Executive Director of the Sierra Club (1952). 5. Things Get “Personal” The technological and industrial developments of the Cold War era and a series of surprising events (most notably Donora) fueled a new environmental concern that went beyond saving


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forests and establishing parks. Carson’s bestseller set off a furor with its expose of toxins in consumer products and philosophical claim that controlling nature is both arrogant and morally bankrupt. The Sierra Club prevented the damming of the Grand Canyon and an oil spill at Santa Barbara caused public outrage. The Wilderness Act was passed in 1964 to limit the construction of dams and other structures on important lands and landmarks. During these years the Environmental Protection Agency was founded. The late 1960s and 1970s saw the rise, then, of the modern green movement. 6. Activism and Codification The 1970s saw numerous steps to clean up the environment: the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the founding of Earth Day, the banning of DDT, the Water Pollution Control Act, and the Endangered Species Act (which the Supreme Court upheld in 1977. Disasters at Love Canal in 1978 and Three Mile Island in 1979 terrified the public with the visible consequences of toxic waste, pollution, and contamination. The 1980s were plagued with oil spills (the Exxon Valdez in 1989, among others), and while there was continued significant backlash from industry against environmental strictures, the various Acts were not overturned. 7. “Treehuggers” and That Infamous Owl The 1990s saw the offshoot of radical environmentalism in the face of corporate mistreatment of the land – and groups like PETA, Earth First and ELF got plenty of media attention. As conservative radio hosts went on tirades about minnows and the spotted owl and the merits of clear cutting, passionate young activists famously chained themselves to or took up residence in trees – earning the nickname “treehuggers“. These actions gained notoriety, but unfortunately also had the effect of politicizing and emotionally charging key environmental issues. Environmental protection was alternately depicted as being religious, cult-like, anti-society, anti-property ownership and anti-capitalist. Criminal stunts from fringe environmental groups did nothing to dampen the image of environmentalism as extreme. Vegetarianism experienced a popular resurgence with ground-breaking books like Diet for a New America (Robbins) but it also became the brunt of many a late-night comedian’s routine. The concept of climate change was ridiculed by many as an overreaction from misguided “environmentalist wackos”. 8. The “New” Environmentalism Sobering international events, catastrophic weather, visible climate change, 9/11 and war, gas shortages and scientific consensus legitimized environmental concerns during the early years of the new century. Al Gore’s blockbuster film An Inconvenient Truth seared the climate crisis into the popular consciousness. Suddenly, the problems were obvious everywhere you looked: our food was chemically treated and genetically modified, our water was contaminated with toxic chemicals, our resources were running out, our wasteful habits were filling landfills, New Orleans was virtually destroyed, and gas prices were soaring – to name but a few key issues that have spurred millions to “go green”.


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This post merely reviews the environmental movement as it relates to the United States. Consider: American leaders have yet to sign the Kyoto Protocol or earmark serious funding to green-collar jobs and sustainable technologies and energy. But American citizens have taken it upon themselves join a global movement, to learn more despite the gridlock in Washington; to conserve, to drive the development of eco-friendly consumption, to buy hybrids or use mass transit, even to telecommute. More and more people now recycle, compost, “go organic”, grow gardens and understand the connection between saving money, improving health and helping the environment. More people are interested in technology and efficient living than ever before. And more and more people are becoming curious about the natural world in all its majesty and strangeness. The great opportunity is that every individual can be a part of the green revolution in some way. Everyone can learn and take a positive step in a greener direction. No one’s perfect, but together we can solve the problems we face. Welcome to the “new” green movement. Consider this your crash course in environmentalism. In future articles you will learn more about each stage of the green movement, as well as learn about both international and American contributions, challenges and solutions. Our mission is to provide interesting, educational, practical green information and ideas and we welcome everyone.


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Next Steps Environmental Youth Membership Organizations NOTE: In addition to the following campaigns and organizations, local cultural institutions (e.g. museums, zoos, botanic gardens, etc) often have youth-focused programs that emphasize environmental and/or sustainability topics. In Chicago, examples of these include The Shedd Stewards program at the Shedd Aquarium and The Earth Team, an initiative of the Friends of the Park organization. A small bit of research time could provide some engaging opportunities in your own community! Kids vs. Global Warming http://www.imatteryouth.org/home.html Description: Founded by 15-year-old, Alec Loorz, Kids vs. Global Warming is an educational nonprofit organization that holds presentations for people K-college age to expose the dangers of climate change and empower them to take action against it. Through these presentations, along with petitions, animation videos, and community activism, Kids vs. Global Warming is inspiring a generation of kids well-versed on the science of climate change to take action against this globe-threatening phenomenon. Greenpeace USA: Greenpeace Student Network http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/ Description: If you are interested in activism, consider Greenpeace and become a part of one of the world’s largest environmental organizations. By joining the Greenpeace Student Network, members who are 14 years or older will be able to work with hundreds of other students in the U.S. in one of their environmental campaigns and get assigned volunteer opportunities specialized to your local area. Inconvenient Youth http://www.inconvenientyouth.org/ Description: Inconvenient Youth is an online forum for teenagers to discuss their ideas and actions for combating climate change. The purpose of this group is to inspire youth to create their own ideas around green living and activism, and to implement the ideas and actions of their peers into their own hometowns. EarthTeam http://www.earthteam.net/ Description: Working primarily through school-based settings in the Bay Area, EarthTeam empowers teens to become lifelong environmental stewards through experiential education, skills development, and the building of community connections. Students implement action projects that provide active learning about environmental science, engage in peer-to-peer education activities, and share their school-based service-learning projects with other students.


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Energy Action Coalition http://www.energyactioncoalition.org/ Description: Energy Action Coalition is a coalition of 30 youth-led social and environmental justice organizations working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement. Working with hundreds of campus and youth groups, dozens of youth networks, and hundreds of thousands of young people, Energy Action Coalition and its partners have worked to build local victories into a broader movement with coordination on state, regional, and national levels in the United States and Canada. Sierra Student Coalition http://ssc.org/ Description: SSC is a broad network of high school and college-aged youth from across the country working to protect the environment. The SSC is the youth-led chapter of the Sierra Club, the nation's oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. Student Environmental Action Coalition http://www.seac.org/ Description: SEAC is a student and youth run national network of progressive organizations and individuals whose aim is to uproot environmental injustices through action and education. They define the environment to include the physical, economic, political, and cultural conditions in which we live. By challenging power structures that threaten these conditions, students in SEAC work to create progressive social change on both the local and global levels. SustainUS http://www.sustainus.org/ Description: SustainUS works to empower young people to advance sustainable development through education, research and advocacy at the policy-making level and at the grassroots, recognizing the interdependence of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Their programs include sending youth delegations to U.N. conferences, a fellowship for young leaders, a scientific research competition, and a summer action project focused on shale fields in Pennsylvania.


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Environmental Organizations with Youth Focus Alliance for Climate Education http://www.acespace.org/ Description: Alliance for Climate Education is an educational nonprofit with Climate Action Teams dispersed throughout several cities in America. This group offers free presentations to high schools to teach them about climate change and empower students to become involved in activism. Some of the main issues this group focuses on include green buildings, transportation, and waste reduction issues. They are training tomorrow’s climate change leaders to speak out against climate change with bold and educated voices. Climate Classroom http://www.climateclassroom.org/teens/about.cfm Description: Climate Classroom is an environmental education program put together by the National Wildlife Foundation in order to educate teens about the causes and solutions to climate change. Climate Classroom equips community leaders with the skills to deliver Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth presentation in classrooms throughout America, and has since expanded to create training programs outside of the classroom environment as well. Caretakers of the Environment International/USA http://www.caretakers4allusa.org/Caretakers_USA/Home.html Description: Caretakers for the Environment is a non-profit environmental organization that reaches out to high school students and teachers to empower them with knowledge and skills for environmental leadership. This organization helps to facilitate community action as well as national and international cooperation for environmental problem solving. Caretakers of the Environment International/USA was founded in 1989 in the Netherlands and has since spread to more than 69 countries and has an office in Illinois. Members keep in touch through the CEI magazine, The Global Forum for Environmental Education, as well as with letters and computer networking. Some of their current projects include establishing Caretaker groups in secondary schools throughout the U.S., engaging students in Seeds of Biodiversity, and continuing to host annual national environmental conferences at which students from all 50 states and territories are represented. Environmental Education Association of Illinois (EEAI) http://www.eeai.net/ Description: The Environmental Education Association of Illinois is a growing network of educators and affiliates that seeks to maintain and develop quality environmental education throughout Illinois by providing and supporting professional development services to formal and informal educators. By hosting events and curriculum such as Project Flying WILD, Growing UP WILD, Prairie School Project and the Midwest Environmental Education Consortium, the EEAI has set a higher bar for environmental education in the professional world. The EEAI is an affiliate of the North American Association for Environmental Education, the world’s largest


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association of environmental educators. The EEAI maintains their network through their membership program available to students and professionals alike and also holds annual conferences every Spring to discuss current environmental topics. Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative (EJCC) http://www.ejcc.org/ Description: The mission of the Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative (EJCC) is to educate and to activate the people of North America toward the creation and implementation of just climate policies in both domestic and international contexts. EJCC membership is a diverse, consensus-based group of U.S. environmental justice, climate justice, religious, policy, and advocacy groups that represent hundreds of communities across the country. Green For All http://greenforall.org/ Description: Green For All is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through a clean energy economy. They work in collaboration with businesses, government, labor and grassroots communities to increase quality job opportunities in the green industry, while holding the most vulnerable populations at the center of their agenda. Their youth engagement efforts include a leadership development program targeting students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Green Schools Alliance (GSA) http://www.greenschoolsalliance.org/ Description: the GSA is a global Peer-to-Peer Network of schools represented by Sustainability Coordinators -- faculty, staff and students -- working together to solve climate and conservation challenges. GSA Member Schools collaborate locally and virtually to share and implement sustainable best practices, and promote connections between schools, communities, and the environments that sustain them. Indigenous Environmental Network http://www.ienearth.org Description: Established in 1990 within the United States, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN’s builds the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health, and to build economically sustainable communities. They maintain an informational clearinghouse, organize campaigns, develop initiatives to impact policy, and provide support and youth to Indigenous communities and youth throughout primarily North America – and in recent years – globally.


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Inter/National Environmental Organizations American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) http://asbcouncil.org/Description: ASBC is the leading business advocacy group working to implement public policies that build a sustainable economy. Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) Description: By connecting leaders, spreading solutions, and attracting investment toward local economies, BALLE advances the Localist Movement to create real prosperity for all. Within a generation, they envision a global system of human-scale, interconnected local economies that function in harmony with local ecosystems to meet the basic needs of all people, support just and democratic societies, and foster joyful community life. Above all, they show that community-based businesses can go beyond traditional measures of success. http://www.livingeconomies.org/ Businesses for Social Responsibility (BSR) Description: BSR works with its global network of nearly 300 member companies to build a just and sustainable world. From its offices in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, BSR develops sustainable business strategies and solutions through consulting, research, and cross-sector collaboration. http://www.bsr.orgCarbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Description: An organization in the UK which works with shareholders and corporations to disclose the greenhouse gas emissions of major corporations. https://www.cdp.net/en-US/Pages/HomePage.aspx Carbon Trust https://www.carbontrust.com/ Description: An independent, expert partner of leading organizations around the world, helping them contribute to and benefit from a more sustainable future through carbon reduction, resource efficiency strategies and commercializing low carbon technologies. Ceres http://www.ceres.org/ Description: Ceres is an advocate for sustainability leadership. Ceres mobilizes a powerful network of investors, companies and public interest groups to accelerate and expand the adoption of sustainable business practices and solutions to build a healthy global economy.


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Conservation International http://www.conservation.org/ Description: Building upon a foundation of science, partnership and field work, CI find global solutions to global problems. Its goal is to protect nature as a source of food, fresh water, livelihoods and a stable climate through conservation, fostering effective governance, and promoting sustainable production. Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) http://www.edf.org/ Description: Environmental Defense Fund preserves the natural systems on which all life depends by creating solutions that also carry economic benefits. Guided by science, they design and transform markets to bring lasting solutions to the most serious environmental problems. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) http://www.epa.gov Description: The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment through developing and enforcing regulations, giving grants to environmental programs, non-profits, educational institutions, and others, study environmental issues, sponsor partnerships with businesses, nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments, teach people about the environment, and publish information. Friends of the Earth http://www.foe.org/ Description: Friends of the Earth is a progressive advocacy of network with members who are fighting to defend the environment and create a healthier and more just world. Members act as a grassroots support base that mobilizes to promote public policies that reflect the values of the organization. Through advocacy campaigns and policy analysis, this organization hopes to change the perception of the public, media, and policy-makers on today’s biggest environmental issues threatening our planet. Some of their current campaigns focus on climate change, food production, and marine life protection. Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) https://www.globalreporting.org Description: An international independent organization that helps businesses, governments and other organizations understand and communicate the impact of business on critical sustainability issues such as climate change, human rights, corruption and many others. Greenpeace http://www.greenpeace.org Description: An independent global campaigning organization that acts to change attitudes and behavior, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by: Catalyzing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change.


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GreenBlue http://greenblue.org/ Description: An environmental nonprofit dedicated to the sustainable use of materials in society. They bring together a diversity of stakeholders to encourage innovation and best practices to promote the creation of a more sustainable materials economy. Natural Resources Defense Council: NRDC Activist Network http://www.nrdc.org/ Description: The NRDC Activist Network allows members to sign up and receive up to date information about pressing environmental issues in their area. After filling out a registration form, members may be asked to engage in call-ins or letter-writing to a local governing official or the EPA to show their support for a current environmental cause. Rainforest Action Network http://www.ran.org/ Description: Campaigns for the forests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through education, grassroots organizing and non-violent direct action. Rainforest Alliance http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/ Description: The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. They work with forward-thinking farmers, foresters and tourism entrepreneurs to conserve natural resources and ensure the long-term economic health of forest communities. In order for a farm or forestry enterprise to achieve Rainforest Alliance certification, or for a tourism business to be verified, it must meet rigorous standards designed to protect ecosystems, safeguard the well-being of local communities and improve productivity. Social Venture Network (SVN) http://svn.org/ Description: SVN is a community of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs working together to create transformational innovation, growth and impact. Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) http://www.sasb.org/ Description: An independent 501(c)3 non-profit. SASB’s mission is to develop and disseminate sustainability accounting standards that help public corporations disclose material, decision-useful information to investors.


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World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) http://www.wbcsd.org/home.aspx Description: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development is a CEO-led, global advocacy association of some 200 international companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainable development. World Resources Institute http://www.wri.org Description: The World Resources Institute is a non-governmental global research organization which seeks to create equity and prosperity through sustainable natural resource management. It spans to over 50 countries. They work with world leaders to turn big ideas into reality to sustain natural resources with a foundation of economic opportunity and human well-being. The WRI focuses on six main topics including: climate, energy, food, forests, water, cities, and transport. World Wildlife Federation (WWF) http://www.worldwildlife.org/home-full.html Description: WWF’s mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth. WWF works in partnership with others to protect and restore species and their habitats, strengthen local communities’ ability to conserve the natural resources they depend upon, transform the markets and policies to reduce the impact of the production and consumption of commodities, and mobilize hundreds of millions of people to support conservation. WorldWatch Institute http://www.worldwatch.org/ Description: Founded in 1974 by Lester Brown as an independent research institute devoted to global environmental concerns, the Worldwatch Institute works to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world that meets human needs. The Institute’s top mission objectives are universal access to renewable energy and nutritious food, expansion of environmentally sound jobs and development, transformation of cultures from consumerism to sustainability, and an early end to population growth through healthy and intentional childbearing. 350.org http://www.350.org/ Description: Led by well-known author and educator, Bill McKibben, 350.org is a global grassroots movement dedicated to ending climate change. Thousands of volunteer organizers from over 188 countries are grassroot organizing and leading public actions to send a message to policy makers and people everywhere that they want to lower carbon dioxide emissions to 350ppm instead of the current 390 (+) ppm. In 2009, 350.org organized 5,200 simultaneous rallies in 181 countries to send the message of 350 and have been a growing movement since. Sign up at their website to learn about how you can organize a campaign in your area and become a part of one of the world’s largest growing grassroots action network.


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Sustainability RelatedWebsites

CSR Wire Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire, a source of corporate social responsibility and sustainability news, reports and information posted by member companies and organizations. Is not filtered and/or edited by journalists. http://www.csrwire.com Environmental Leader A self-espoused “daily trade publication,” Environmental Leader aims to keep corporate executives (and perhaps the rest of us) fully informed about environmental and sustainability news as well as the latest on corporate environmental initiatives. They offer a (free) daily e-newsletter. http://www.environmentalleader.com/ GreenBiz Includes GreenBiz.com, GreenerBuildings.com, Climatebiz.com, GreenerComputing.com http://www.greenbiz.com Grist / WorldChanging / E_Magazine Each has a slightly different angle on the same general sector. All have regular email newsletters to which one can subscribe: http://www.grist.orghttp://www.worldchanging.com/http://www.emagazine.com/Guardian Sustainable Business The Guardian UK’s site provides global sustainability news and multimedia related to business, operations, and energy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-businessNew York Times—Energy & Environment Section (online) One of the better sites for sustainability information, this site includes stories and blog postings on a wide range of topics that often provide unique angles and informed perspectives. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/energy-environment/index.html Planetizen Urban planning news, feature articles, op-eds and information related to planning, design and development. http://www.planetizen.com/


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Sustainable Life Media Includes Eco-Advantage Strategies, Sustainable Brand Weekly, Sustainable Business News, Climate Management Weekly, Greener IT Weekly, Greener Design Update, Sustainable Sourcing Update http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com The Living Principles Website dedicated to celebrating the use of design thinking to create positive change. The site provides articles and other resources to enable sustainable action. http://www.livingprinciples.org/ Treehugger A leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. A one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information. http://www.treehugger.com/ Triple Pundit A media company for the business community that cultivates awareness and understanding of the triple bottom line. Provides expert editorial coverage and discussions on sustainable business. http://www.triplepundit.com/ Yale Environment 360 Published by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, this site contains reports, opinion essays and news and analysis items on a range of sustainability-related topics. A more substantive site with a large archive of past articles. http://e360.yale.edu/ Waste & Recycling News Published by Crain’s Waste & Recycling News started life (as Waste News) as a trade publication for the waste hauling industry. It has since changed it name, expanded its definition of “waste” and quietly become one of the leading sources for a range of sustainability-related business news. Unlike several other sustainability-related publications, I rarely if ever question the journalistic integrity of this publication (i.e. there is a healthy separation between editorial and advertisers.) http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com


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Media Sources—Podcasts & Blogs & DVDs PODCASTS Bioneers Radio Series Bioneers brings bold innovators with breakthrough solutions to the airwaves with its annual radio series (now in its eighth year). Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature airs in more than 250 cities in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Ireland and is free to all stations, distributed by WFMT Radio Network. http://www.bioneers.org/bioneers-radio-series/Ceres Sustainability Podcast The Ceres sustainability podcast is an ongoing conversation with investors, corporations, policy makers and public interest groups about how they are adapting business strategies and financial markets to address the risks and opportunities of climate change and other sustainability issues. http://www.ceres.org/resources/podcasts Poptech TED (Technology, Entertainment & Design Conference) Similar to TED, Poptech is a self-described innovation network that aims to “accelerate the positive impact of world changing people, projects, and ideas.” These talks are the result of the Poptech conference, held annually in Maine. http://www.poptech.org/popcasts TED (Technology, Entertainment & Design Conference) Inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers, including several sustainability leaders! http://www.ted.com DVD—Coming Home, E.F. Schumacher & the Reinvention of the Local Economy A movie that captures both the pivotal work of the late E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful and subsequent endeavors of the E.F. Schumacher Society and the creation of a local economy in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. http://vimeo.com/19523798


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BLOGS Climate Desk A journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate. http://www.theclimatedesk.org Foresight Design Initiative BlogTransformation design in Chicago. http://www.foresightdesign.org/blog Inspired Economist Discussing the people, ideas, and companies that redefine capitalism and inspire positive change. http://inspiredeconomist.com/ Joel Makower Joel Makower speaks on business, the environment and the bottom line. He helps companies align environmental responsibility with having a successful business. http://www.makower.com/ New York Times - “Dot Earth”; Climate Change and Sustainability Reporter Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet's limits. This blog offers analysis of current sustainability related stories, and offers a venue for dialog between readers and an opportunity for people to post questions about often-contentious issues. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/ National Public Radio – Climate Connections A partnership between the National Public Radio and National Geographic, this site offers audio and video news stories about how government, policy, art, business and various social organizations are trying to create a more sustainable world. Stories are collected from all of the NPR affiliates and the Nation Geographic network. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9657621


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Interview Etiquette: Tips for Success

1. Research your interviewee before the interview! Find out as much as you can about where they are coming from (i.e. the community in which they do most of their work, their career path, current and past projects) to increase your understanding of their context and thus what they might know about. You don’t want to ask questions that you can easily find the answer to online.

2. Know what you want to get out of the interview before you start and come up with questions that are tailored to this central focus.

3. Begin the interview by laying out expectations (i.e. how long the interview will be) and

explaining what your goal is/why you are talking to them.

4. Ask simple, easily understandable questions.

5. Prioritize your questions. Ask about topics you are most interested in first to make sure that you get the information you need and ask follow up questions if time allows.

6. Be flexible. If your interviewee says something you weren’t planning on discussing that

interests you, ask them about it. It can help to come up with core questions that you know you want to ask, then brainstorm potential follow-up questions to ask if you want more detail about one aspect of their response.

7. Be conscious of your interviewee’s time - ask them how much time they have to talk to

you, and stick to what they say. Tell them periodically how many questions are left and check in about how much more time they have.

8. Respond to your interviewee’s answers and don’t be shy about telling them a response is

helpful/thorough/etc. If you are doing a phone interview, remember that your interviewee can’t see your facial expressions or body language.

9. Take notes. If you are working with other people, it is helpful to assign a lead interviewer

and lead note-taker. If working alone, either record the interview or take notes yourself.

10. Look for details; get names, dates, places, and specific events.

11. Thank the interviewee for their time at the end, and send a thank you follow-up email.


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Tools for Successful Group Work and Collaboration

1. Running an Effective Task Group: The Five C’s 2. Worksheet: Roles People Play in Groups 3. How to Run Effective Meetings 4. Group Facilitation Skills


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How To Survive A Critique: A Guide To Giving And Receiving Feedback AIGA.org Article by Karen Cheng March 4, 2013 Design is a complex endeavor—one resistant to simple metrics or measures. In design education, instructors rely heavily on a subjective form of review known as “critique.” As a design student, learning how to give and receive feedback effectively is an essential skill that extends beyond the classroom. Here are some suggestions for students and critics on participating in an effective critique. How to get the most from your critique: Receiving feedback Be ready with your work Generally speaking, instructors and students often think poorly of those who are unprepared for critique. There are exceptions—professors who think, “Great! Now I can leave class early!”—but they aren’t the faculty members you want to cultivate as mentors. Even if you don’t have any work to show, it’s still best to come to the critique, share feedback and participate by looking closely and listening carefully (also known as “learning from others”). If you are unprepared, it’s best to acknowledge that fact to the instructor, but do this in a straightforward manner, without making elaborate excuses. You should apologize, express that you feel badly about the situation and assure the group that it won’t happen again. Try not to cry or freak out; this tends to kill the mood for the rest of the class. Be ready to say something about your work Some design projects are self-explanatory, and in this case, your instructor and classmates can immediately respond to your work, without preamble. However, if complete silence falls over the class, it usually means one of two things: no one can figure out what they are looking at or the work is truly dreadful. In these instances, consider jumping in and explaining what you had in mind when you made the work. Keep it brief: The more you talk, the less time there is for feedback. Using your rationale as a starting point, the group can then discuss whether or not your basic concept is compelling. If the concept is viable, participants should try to offer suggestions that might improve the design execution. If the concept simply isn’t worthwhile, the critique usually concludes quickly. There’s no point in “polishing the turd.” Invite constructive criticism The fact is that most students are pretty nice—too nice—during critique. Some hesitate to give any negative feedback at all. If that’s the case, you or your instructor can encourage participation


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by openly inviting constructive criticism: “What do you think is the least successful part of my design—and why? Where do you think I can make improvements?” Listen: Keep an open mind and avoid being defensive It can be painful to hear critical or even negative comments about your work, but the most important thing you can do during the critique is listen. You want to be aware of all the different reactions people have to your work, both good and bad. Most importantly, you want to understand why people respond the way they do. This information will enable you to adjust and revise your design with the goal of making it more successful. Avoid getting defensive. You don’t have to justify your work—arguing makes you seem unwilling to accept input. Try to stay calm. If anger management is a problem, plan in advance. If necessary, make a voodoo doll that you can stab when you get home! Don’t take it personally If you have a particularly bad critique during which you receive overwhelmingly negative feedback—the critics tear up, tear down or otherwise crush your work—try not to take it personally. There are always some mean-spirited individuals, but usually instructors and fellow students are just trying to help. In an ideal world, those offering criticism are respectful and focus objectively and rationally on both the flaws and merits of your design solution. However, this is not always the reality in the classroom. Take notes, or have someone take notes for you Get in the habit of recording the feedback that you receive. Instructors like to see you write down their suggestions (Tip: clients like this, too). Critiques move quickly, and it’s easy to forget ideas and references to other designers or related design projects after the event. Be positive and polite Even if you feel totally crushed, thank your colleagues and the instructor. Phrases like, “Thanks, I’ll think about all this,” or “I appreciate the input,” encourage people to keep helping you in the future. After the critique, decide what revisions to make Not all the suggestions you receive will be useful. Some input may actually be in direct conflict. For example, one person told you to make an element larger, but another person said to make the same part smaller. Now what? What matters is analyzing why people make conflicting suggestions. Often, a problem has multiple solutions. After the critique, it’s up to you to decide how to address the issues that were identified. To do this, you need to think critically about the objectives of your design—what


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exactly the design needs to accomplish—and determine how specific changes can move you toward a more effective solution. For the student-critic: How to offer constructive feedback Avoid creating a climate of fear Certain students respond well to intense, combative and competitive situations, but they are in the minority. Studies find that most students prefer environments that they define as “supportive.” Furthermore, teacher behaviors such as humor, affinity-seeking (“a positive attitude toward another person”) and self-disclosure (“sharing personal feelings and information with others”) have been found to reduce defensiveness, hostility and anxiety in students. Psychologists theorize that students can better direct their attention toward specific tasks—like improving their design work—when they are not preoccupied with “fight or flight” responses, which are triggered by threats to their egos. Use the “hamburger method” Try beginning with a positive, constructive comment on something that works well in the design that is being critiqued. Next, get to the meat, which is, of course, the constructive criticism—what could be improved. Finally, end with another positive acknowledgement. Many “old-school” faculty members dismiss this method as superficial candy-coating—known more colloquially as the “shit sandwich.” But candy-coating isn’t such a bad idea. It makes it possible for students to absorb negative feedback. As long as the hamburger’s “buns” are comprised of genuine, accurate observations, students benefit from receiving feedback that addresses both what is and isn’t working in their designs. Focus on “why” In a productive critique, critics must explain why they do or do not accept the solution being offered by the designer. The entire raison d’être for critique is our desire to analyze and debate the success of a design. In the analysis, participants need to determine what components are essential and how those components work together toward success or failure. If the design is flawed, does the error lie within the individual components themselves or in the way they have been combined? A detailed analysis of “why” is essential in enabling the designer to improve his or her work. Simple statements of affinity, whether positive or negative, are insufficient. Make actionable suggestions Many design students, especially novices, love direct suggestions. That way, they can simply point back to the critic and claim, “It was your idea!” when the result is awful. Of course, there are ways to deflect. Some instructors say, “Well, if that’s what you got out of what I said…” However, such a strategy doesn’t build rapport for future critiques.


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Perhaps the best solution is to first point out the problem, then offer several possible solutions, hedging your feedback with phrases such as “it might not work in this case” or “this is just one idea.” In this way, the critic provides specific examples to consider without assuming total responsibility for failure. Respond to the work—and to the person A good critic responds to both the work and the person who made it. The best instructors recognize that some students are fragile and need support and encouragement to do their best. Other students are bold and require blunt, strongly worded feedback to get them to shift their perspective. Still others are indifferent or preoccupied with other aspects of their lives that are not design-orientated (What’s for lunch?). For instructors, running a successful critique requires managing these issues and the variety of personalities, motivations, backgrounds and cultures of the participants.

19 Aug 2013 5:50 PM

Movements without leaders: What to make of change on anoverheating planetBy Bill McKibben

Cross-posted from TomDispatch

350.orgMcKibben speaks to the crowd at theWalk for Our Grandchildren fromCamp David to D.C.

The history we grow up with shapes our sense of reality — it’s hard to shake. If you were young during thefight against Nazism, war seems a different, more virtuous animal than if you came of age during Vietnam. I was born in 1960, and so the first great political character of my life was Martin Luther King, Jr. I had ashadowy, child’s sense of him when he was still alive, and then a mythic one as his legend grew; after all,he had a national holiday. As a result, I think, I imagined that he set the template for how great movementsworked. They had a leader, capital L.

As time went on, I learned enough about the civil rights movement to know it was much more than Dr.King. There were other great figures, from Ella Baker and Medgar Evers to Bob Moses, Fannie LouHamer, and Malcolm X, and there were tens of thousands more whom history doesn’t remember but whodeserve great credit. And yet one’s early sense is hard to dislodge: The civil rights movement had his faceon it; Gandhi carried the fight against empire; Susan B. Anthony, the battle for suffrage.

Which is why it’s a little disconcerting to look around and realize that most of the movements of themoment — even highly successful ones like the fight for gay marriage or immigrants’ rights — don’t reallyhave easily discernible leaders. I know that there are highly capable people who have worked overtime fordecades to make these movements succeed, and that they are well known to those within the struggle, butthere aren’t particular people that the public at large identifies as the face of the fight. The world haschanged in this way, and for the better.

It’s true, too, in the battle where I’ve spent most of my life: The fight to slow climate change and hence givethe planet some margin for survival. We actually had a charismatic leader in Al Gore, but he was almost theexception that proved the rule. For one thing, a politician makes a problematic leader for a grassrootsmovement because boldness is hard when you still envision higher office; for another, even as he won theNobel Prize for his remarkable work in spreading climate science, the other side used every trick and every


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dollar at their disposal to bring him down. He remains a vital figure in the rest of the world (partly becausethere he is perceived less as a politician than as a prophet), but at home his power to shape the fight hasbeen diminished.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the movement is diminished. In fact, it’s never been stronger. In the lastfew years, it has blocked the construction of dozens of coal-fired power plants, fought the oil industry to adraw on the Keystone pipeline, convinced a wide swath of American institutions to divest themselves oftheir fossil fuel stocks, and challenged practices like mountaintop-removal coal mining and fracking fornatural gas. It may not be winning the way gay marriage has won, but the movement itself continues togrow quickly, and it’s starting to claim some victories.

That’s not despite its lack of clearly identifiable leaders, I think. It’s because of it.

A movement for a new planet

We live in a different world from that of the civil rights movement. Save perhaps for the spectacle ofpresidential elections, there’s no way for individual human beings to draw the same kind of focused andsustained attention they did back then. At the moment, you could make the three evening newscasts and thecover of Time (not Newsweek, alas) and still not connect with most people. Our focus is fragmented andsegmented, which may be a boon or a problem, but mostly it’s just a fact. Our attention is dispersed.

When we started 350.org five years ago, we dimly recognized this new planetary architecture. Instead oftrying to draw everyone to a central place — the Mall in Washington, D.C. — for a protest, we staged 24hours of rallies around the planet: 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, what CNN called “the mostwidespread of day of political action in the planet’s history.” And we’ve gone on to do more of the same —about 20,000 demonstrations in every country but North Korea.

Part of me, though, continued to imagine that a real movement looked like the ones I’d grown up watching— or maybe some part of me wanted the glory of being a leader. In any event, I’ve spent the last few yearsin constant motion around the country and the Earth. I’d come to think of myself as a “leader,” and indeedmy forthcoming book, Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist, reflects on that growing senseof identity.

However, in recent months — and it’s the curse of an author that sometimes you change your mind afteryour book is in type — I’ve come to like the idea of capital-L leaders less and less. It seems to me to missthe particular promise of this moment: that we could conceive of, and pursue, movements in new ways.

For environmentalists, we have a useful analogy close at hand. We’re struggling to replace a brittle, top-heavy energy system, where a few huge power plants provide our electricity, with a dispersed andlightweight grid, where 10 million solar arrays on 10 million rooftops are linked together. The engineers callthis “distributed generation,” and it comes with a myriad of benefits. It’s not as prone to catastrophic failure,for one. And it can make use of dispersed energy, instead of relying on a few pools of concentrated fuel.The same principle, it seems to me, applies to movements.

In the last few weeks, for instance, 350.org helped support a nationwide series of rallies called SummerHeat. We didn’t organize them ourselves. We knew great environmental justice groups all over the country,and we knew we could highlight their work, while making links between, say, standing up to a toxicChevron refinery in Richmond, Calif., and standing up to the challenge of climate change.

From the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, where a tar-sands pipeline is proposed, to theColumbia River at Vancouver, Wash., where a big oil port is planned; from Utah’s Colorado Plateau,where the first U.S. tar-sands mine has been proposed, to the coal-fired power plant at Brayton Point on the


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Massachusetts coast and the fracking wells of rural Ohio, Summer Heat demonstrated the local depth andglobal reach of this emerging fossil fuel resistance. I’ve had the pleasure of going to talk at all these placesand more besides, but I wasn’t crucial to any of them. I was, at best, a pollinator, not a queen bee.

Or consider a slightly older fight. In 2012, the Boston Globe magazine put a picture of me on its coverunder the headline: “The Man Who Crushed the Keystone Pipeline.” I’ve got an all-too-healthy ego, buteven I knew that it was over the top. I’d played a role in the fight, writing the letter that asked people tocome to Washington to resist the pipeline, but it was effective because I’d gotten a dozen friends to sign itwith me. And I’d been one of 1,253 people who went to jail in what was the largest civil disobedienceaction in this country in years. It was their combined witness that got the ball rolling. And once it wasrolling, the Keystone campaign became the exact model for the sort of loosely linked, well-distributedpower system I’ve been describing.

The big environmental groups played key roles, supplying lots of data and information, while keeping trackof straying members of Congress. Among them were the Natural Resources Defense Council, Friends ofthe Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and the National Wildlife Federation, none spending timelooking for credit, all pitching in. The Sierra Club played a crucial role in pulling together the biggestclimate rally yet, last February’s convergence on the Mall in Washington.

Organizations and individuals on the ground were no less crucial: The indigenous groups in Alberta andelsewhere that started the fight against the pipeline which was to bring Canadian tar sands to the U.S. GulfCoast graciously welcomed the rest of us, without complaining about how late we were. Then there werethe ranchers and farmers of Nebraska, who roused a whole stadium of football fans at a Cornhuskers gameto boo a pipeline commercial; the scientists who wrote letters, the religious leaders who conducted prayervigils. And don’t forget the bloggers who helped make sense of it all for us. One upstart website even wona Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the struggle.

Non-experts quickly educated themselves on the subject, becoming specialists in the corruption of the StateDepartment process that was to okay the building of that pipeline or in the chemical composition of thebitumen that would flow through it. CREDO (half an activist organization, half a cell phone company), aswell as Rainforest Action Network and The Other 98%, signed up 75,000 people pledged to civildisobedience if the pipeline were to get presidential approval.

And then there was the Hip Hop Caucus, whose head Lennox Yearwood has roused one big crowd afteranother, and the labor unions — nurses and transit workers, for instance — who have had the courage tostand up to the pipeline workers’ union which would benefit from the small number of jobs to be created ifKeystone were built. Then there are groups of Kids Against KXL, and even a recent grandparents’ marchfrom Camp David to the White House. Some of the most effective resistance has come from groups likeRising Tide and the Tarsands Blockade in Texas, which have organized epic tree-sitting protests to slowconstruction of the southern portion of the pipeline.

The Indigenous Environmental Network has been every bit as effective in demonstrating to banks the follyof investing in Albertan tar sands production. First Nations people and British Columbians have evenblocked a proposed pipeline that would take those same tar sands to the Pacific Ocean for shipping to Asia,just as inspired activists have kept the particularly carbon-dirty oil out of the European Union.

We don’t know if we’ll win the northern half of the Keystone fight or not, although President Obama’srecent pledge to decide whether it should be built — his is the ultimate decision — based on how muchcarbon dioxide it could put into the atmosphere means that he has no good-faith way of approving it.However, it’s already clear that this kind of full-spectrum resistance has the ability to take on the hugebundles of cash that are the energy industry’s sole argument.


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What the elders said

This sprawling campaign exemplifies the only kind of movement that will ever be able to stand up to the

power of the energy giants, the richest industry the planet has ever known. In fact, any movement that

hopes to head off the worst future depredations of climate change will have to get much, much larger,

incorporating among other obvious allies those in the human rights and social justice arenas.

The cause couldn’t be more compelling. There’s never been a clearer threat to survival, or to justice, than

the rapid rise in the planet’s temperature caused by and for the profit of a microscopic percentage of its

citizens. Conversely, there can be no real answer to our climate woes that doesn’t address the insane

inequalities and concentrations of power that are helping to drive us toward this disaster.

That’s why it’s such good news when people like Naomi Klein and Desmond Tutu join the climate

struggle. When they take part, it becomes ever clearer that what’s underway is not, in the end, an

environmental battle at all, but an all-encompassing fight over power, hunger, and the future of humanity on

this planet.

Expansion by geography is similarly a must for this movement. Recently, in Istanbul, 350.org and its allies

trained 500 young people from 135 countries as climate-change organizers, and each of them is now

organizing conferences and campaigns in their home countries.

This sort of planet-wide expansion suggests that the value of particular national leaders is going to be

limited at best. That doesn’t mean, of course, that some people won’t have more purchase than others in

such a movement. Sometimes such standing comes from living in the communities most immediately and

directly affected by climate change or fossil fuel depredation. When, for instance, the big climate rally

finally did happen on the Mall this winter, the 50,000 in attendance may have been most affected by the

words of Crystal Lameman, a young member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation whose traditional territory

has been poisoned by tar sands mining.

Sometimes it comes from charisma: Van Jones may be the most articulate and engaging environmental

advocate ever. Sometimes it comes from getting things right for a long time: Jim Hansen, the greatest

climate scientist, gets respect even from those who disagree with him about, say, nuclear power. Sometimes

it comes from organizing ability: Jane Kleeb who did such work in the hard soil of Nebraska, or Clayton

Thomas-Muller who has indefatigably (though no one is beyond fatigue) organized native North America.

Sometimes it comes from sacrifice: Tim DeChristopher went to jail for two years for civil disobedience, and

so most of us are going to listen to what he might have to say.

Sometimes it comes from dogged work on solutions: Wahleah Johns and Billy Parish figured out how to

build solar farms on Navajo land and crowdfund solar panels on community centers. Sometimes truly

unlikely figures emerge: investor Jeremy Grantham, or Tom Steyer, a Forbes 400 billionaire who quit his

job running a giant hedge fund, sold his fossil fuel stocks, and put his money and connections effectively to

work fighting Keystone and bedeviling climate-denying politicians (even Democrats!). We have

organizational leaders like Mike Brune of the Sierra Club or Frances Beinecke of NRDC, or folks like

Kenny Bruno or Tzeporah Berman who have helped knit together large coalitions; religious leaders like Jim

Antal, who led the drive to convince the United Church of Christ to divest from fossil fuels; regional leaders

like Mike Tidwell in the Chesapeake or Cherri Foytlin in the Gulf or K.C. Golden in Puget Sound.

Yet figures like these aren’t exactly “leaders” in the way we’ve normally imagined. They are not charting

the path for the movement to take. To use an analogy from the Internet age, it’s more as if they were well-

regarded critics on Amazon.com review pages; or to use a more traditional image, as if they were elders,

even if not in a strictly chronological sense. Elders don’t tell you what you must do, they say what they

must say. A few of these elders are, like me, writers; many of them have a gift for condensing and


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crystallizing the complex. When Jim Hansen calls the Alberta tar sands the “biggest carbon bomb on thecontinent,” it resonates.

When you have that standing, you don’t end up leading a movement, but you do end up with people givingyour ideas a special hearing, people who already assume that you’re not going to waste their energy on apointless task. So when Naomi Klein and I hatched a plan for a fossil fuel divestment campaign last year,people paid serious attention, especially when Desmond Tutu lent his sonorous voice to the cause.

These elders-of-all-ages also play a sorting-out role in backing the ideas of others or downplaying those thatseem less useful. There are days when I feel like the most useful work I’ve done is to spread a few goodKickstarter proposals via Twitter or write a blurb for a fine new book. Conversely, I was speaking inWashington recently to a group of grandparents who had just finished a seven-day climate march fromCamp David. A young man demanded to know why I wasn’t backing sabotage of oil company equipment,which he insisted was the only way the industry could be damaged by our movement. I explained that Ibelieved in nonviolent action, that we were doing genuine financial damage to the pipeline companies byslowing their construction schedules and inflating their carrying costs, and that in my estimation wreckingbulldozers would play into their hands.

But maybe he was right. I don’t actually know, which is why it’s a good thing that no one, myself included,is the boss of the movement. Remember those solar panels: The power to change these days is remarkablywell distributed, leaving plenty of room for serendipity and revitalization. In fact, many movements hadbreakthroughs when they decided their elders were simply wrong. Dr. King didn’t like the idea of theFreedom Summer campaign at first, and yet it proved powerfully decisive.

The coming of the leaderless movement

We may not need capital-L Leaders, but we certainly need small-l leaders by the tens of thousands. Youcould say that, instead of a leaderless movement, we need a leader-full one. We see such leaders regularly at350.org. When I wrote earlier that we “staged” 5,200 rallies around the globe, I wasn’t completely accurate.It was more like throwing a potluck dinner. We set the date and the theme, but everywhere other peoplefigured out what dishes to bring.

The thousands of images that accumulated in the Flickr account of that day’s events were astonishing. Mostof the people doing the work didn’t look like environmentalists were supposed to. They were largely poor,black, brown, Asian, and young, because that’s what the world mostly is.

Often the best insights are going to come from below: from people, that is, whose life experience meansthey understand how power works not because they exercise it but because they are subjected to it. That’swhy frontline communities in places where global warming’s devastation is already increasingly obviousoften produce such powerful ideas and initiatives. We need to stop thinking of them as on the margins, sincethey are quite literally on the cutting edge.

We live in an age in which creative ideas can spring up just about anywhere and then, thanks to new formsof communication, spread remarkably quickly. This is in itself nothing new. In the civil rights era, forinstance, largely spontaneous sit-in campaigns by southern college students in 1960 reshuffled the decklocally and nationally, spreading like wildfire in the course of days and opening up new opportunities.

More recently, in the immigration rights campaign, it was four “Dreamers” walking from Florida toWashington, D.C., who helped reopen a stale, deadlocked debate. When Lieutenant Dan Choi chainedhimself to the White House fence, that helped usher the gay rights movement into a new phase.

But Dan Choi doesn’t have to be Dan Choi forever, and Tim DeChristopher doesn’t have to keep going to


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jail over government oil and gas leases. There are plenty of others who will arise in new moments, which isa good thing, since the physics of climate change means that the movement has to win some criticalvictories in the next few years but also last for generations. Think of each of these “leaders” as theequivalent of a pace line for a bike race: one moment someone is out front breaking the wind, only to peelaway to the back of the line to rest for a while. In movement terms, when that happens you not only preventburnout, you also get regular infusions of new ideas.

The ultimate in leaderlessness was, of course, the Occupy movement that swept the U.S. (and other areas ofthe world) in 2011-2012. It, in turn, took cues from the Arab Spring, which absorbed some of its tricks fromthe Serbian organizers at Otpor, who exported many of the features of their campaign against SlobodanMilosevic in the 1990s around the planet.

Occupy was exciting, in part, because of its deep sense of democracy and democratic practice. Those of uswho are used to New England town meetings recognized its Athenian flavor. But town meetings usuallyoccur one day a year. Not that many people had the stomach for the endless discussions of the Occupymoment and, in many cases, the crowds began to dwindle even without police repression — only to surgeback when there was a clear and present task (Occupy Sandy, say, in the months after that superstorm hitthe East coast).

All around the Occupy movement, smart people have been grappling with the problem of democracy inaction. As the occupations wore on, its many leaders were often engaged as facilitators, trying to create aspace that was both radically democratic and dramatically effective. It proved a hard balancing act, even if aremarkably necessary one.

How to save the Earth

Communities (and a movement is a community) will probably always have some kind of hierarchy, even ifit’s an informal and shifting one. But the promise of this moment is a radically flattened version ofhierarchy, with far more room for people to pop up and propose, encourage, support, drift for a while, thenplunge back into the flow. That kind of trajectory catches what we’ll need in a time of increased climatestress — communities that place a premium on resiliency and adaptability, dramatically decentralized butdeeply linked.

And it’s already happening. The Summer Heat campaign ended in Richmond, Calif., where Chevron runs arefinery with casual disregard for the local residents. When a section of it exploded last year, authorities senta text message essentially requesting that people not breathe. As a result, a coalition of local environmentaljustice activists has waged an increasingly spirited fight against the plant.

Like the other oil giants, Chevron shows the same casual disregard for people around the world. Thecompany is, typically enough, suing journalists in an attempt to continue to cover up the horrors it’sresponsible for in an oil patch of jungle in Ecuador. And of course, Chevron and the other big oilcompanies have shown a similar recklessness when it comes to our home planet. Their reserves of oil andgas are already so large that, by themselves, they could take us several percent of the way past the two-degree-C temperature rise that the world has pledged to prevent, which would bring on the worstdepredations of global warming — and yet they are now on the hunt in a major way for the next round of“unconventional” fossil fuels to burn.

In addition, as the 2012 election campaign was winding down, Chevron gave the largest corporatecampaign donation in the post-Citizens United era. It came two weeks before the last election, and wasclearly meant to insure that the House of Representatives would stay in the hands of climate deniers, andthat nothing would shake the status quo.


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And so our movement — global, national, and most of all local. Released from a paddy wagon after the

Richmond protest, standing in a long line of handcuffees waiting to be booked, I saw lots of elders,

doubtless focused on different parts of the Chevron equation. Among them were Gopal Dayaneni, of the

Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, who dreams of frontline communities leading in the

construction of a just new world, and Bay Area native activist Pennie Opal Plant, who has spent her whole

life in Richmond and dreams, I suspect, of kids who can breathe more easily in far less polluted air.

I continue to hope for local, national, and global action, and for things like a carbon tax-and-dividend

scheme that would play a role in making just transitions easier. Such differing, overlapping dreams are

anything but at odds. They all make up part of the same larger story, complementary and complimentary to

it. These are people I trust and follow; we have visions that point in the same general direction; and we have

exactly the same enemies who have no vision at all, save profiting from the suffering of the planet.

I’m sure much of this thinking is old news to people who have been building movements for years. I

haven’t. I found myself, or maybe stuck myself, at the front of a movement almost by happenstance, and

these thoughts reflect that experience.

What I do sense, however, is that it’s our job to rally a movement in the coming years big enough to stand

up to all that money, to profits of a sort never before seen on this planet. Such a movement will need to

stretch from California to Ecuador — to, in fact, every place with a thermometer; it will need to engage not

just Chevron but every other fossil fuel company; it will need to prevent pipelines from being built and

encourage windmills to be built in their place; it needs to remake the world in record time.

That won’t happen thanks to a paramount leader, or even dozens of them. It can only happen with a spread-

out and yet thoroughly interconnected movement, a new kind of engaged citizenry. Rooftop by rooftop,

we’re aiming for a different world, one that runs on the renewable power that people produce themselves in

their communities in small but significant batches. The movement that will get us to such a new world must

run on that kind of power too.

Bill McKibben is founder of 350.org and Schumann Distinguished Professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. He was

recently honored with the Gandhi Peace Award for his work coordinating the civil disobedience actions around the

Keystone XL pipeline in June 2011. He serves on Grist's Board of Directors.


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Advancing Women in Leadership Online Journal

Volume 18, Spring 2005

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Fundi- The Enduring Leadership Legacy of Civil Rights Activist Ella BakerStephen Preskill

University of New Mexico

Many Black activists have pronounced Ella Baker the Fundi of the American Civil Rights Movement. Mosesand Cobb (2001), veterans of the Mississippi voter registration project from the early 1960s, named her

“our Fundi in the tradition of community organizing” (p. 4). Joanne Grant (1981), who later wrote animportant biography of Ella Baker’s life, called her film about Baker’s legacy – Fundi: The story of EllaBaker. Fundi is a Swahili word for the person who possesses practical wisdom and is skilled at passing onto new generations the knowledge that the community’s elders regard as most important. The Fundi is ateacher and a learner. The Fundi supports other people in learning the lessons of the elders. The Fundidoes not seek credit or fame. She is quietly satisfied to provide a bridge from one generation to the next

and to help young people root their ideas and actions in their culture’s most enduring traditions.

Throughout her life Ella Baker stepped in again and again to model learning, relationship-building,

teaching, and leadership.

Although she devoted her life to upholding the cause of racial justice and gained a reputation among civil

rights activists for being a great leader, the name of Ella Jo Baker remains largely unknown to the general

public. Born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Baker was the granddaughter of proud and defiant ex-slaves.

With the support of her parents who made many sacrifices to further their daughter’s education, Baker

graduated from North Carolina’s Shaw University as the valedictorian of her 1927 class. Almost

immediately after graduation, she left the South for New York City and immersed herself in the

excitement of the Harlem Renaissance. It wasn’t long before she was participating actively in a variety of

organizations to help people secure their rights and enhance their economic opportunities. All of this led

eventually to her assuming a leadership position in the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP) – the preeminent Black advocacy group in the United States since its founding in

1909. As Director of Branches for the NAACP, Baker was especially effective in maintaining contact with

the Association’s grassroots membership and pushed hard for education and training programs to prepare

rank and file people from throughout the South for leadership roles. In the 1950s, Baker was the first

Executive Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – the organization that grew

out of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and supported Dr. Martin Luther King’s efforts to combat racism. In

1960, she left the SCLC to launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – the group

set up to sustain the student protest movement that began so dramatically on February 1, 1960, when

four Black students from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina staged a sit-in at a

segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Greensboro to protest racial discrimination.

Throughout all of this work, Baker stressed the value of learning, growth, and the development of

grassroots leadership. She saw herself primarily as an adult educator and a cultivator of untapped

leadership. Every cause, in her view, simmered with opportunities for education. Taking the time to think

through the issues, to cast off worn out assumptions, and to plan reflectively for the long term mattered

most to her. She maintained that social action yielded valuable learning when sufficient time was set aside

for reflection and dialogue.


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She held steadfastly to her belief that leaders are at their best when supporting ordinary people to lead

themselves. She believed in leadership, but she particularly believed that the most effective leaders are

self-effacing people, more interested in developing leadership in others than in getting recognition for their

individual achievements. When asked by an interviewer to explain how you organize people, she said

matter of factly that you don’t start with what you think. You start with what they think. She continued,“You start where the people are. Identification with people…If you talk down to people, they can sense it.

They can feel it. And they know whether you are talking with them, or talking at them, or talking aboutthem” (Cantarow &O’Malley, p. 70, 72). She affirmed repeatedly that leaders are teachers and must

create opportunities for people to learn from each other and to reflect on the best ways to take action

collectively. She maintained that leading and learning are part of the same process and that no successful

movement can be continued without leaders who are intent on learning from those around them. Leaders

were critical to Ella Baker, not as solitary individuals who bask in the reflected glory of group action, but as

solid and selfless collaborators in the enduring struggle for social justice. When she was first organizing the

group that became SNCC, Baker hesitated to be overly directive. She observed, “those who had worked

closely with me knew that I believed very firmly in the right of the people who were under the heel to be

the ones to decide what action they were going to take to get from under their oppression” (Cantarow &

O’Malley, p. 84). She did not seek credit or even much compensation for what she did, but she received

enormous gratification from witnessing people, who enjoyed little notice from others, grow into leaders

owing to her support. As Barbara Ransby (2003) shows in her magisterial new biography, Ella Baker’s

approach to leadership was “democratic and reciprocal.” She saw leaders as teachers and as learners in

which learning is “based on a fluid and interactive relationship between student and teacher,” (p. 359)

and leading is seen as an ever-shifting bond that holds leaders and followers together.

The kind of leader Baker strived to be can be inferred from her comments on working with the NAACP

branches. She observed:

If you feel you are part of them and they are part of you, you don’t say “I’m-a-part-of-you.”

What you really do is you point out something. Especially the lower-class people, the people

who’d felt the heel of oppression, see they knew what you were talking about when youspoke about police brutality. They knew what you were speaking about when you talkedabout working at a job, doing the same work, and getting a differential in pay. And if your

sense of being a part of them got over to them, they appreciated that. Somebody would get

the point. Somebody would come out and say,“I’m gon’ join that darn organization.”

(Cantarow & O’Malley, p. 72)

Baker as Servant and Transformer

Baker’s goal of identifying with the people, of learning about their goals and desires and building from

there, recalls Greenleaf’s (1977) notion of servant leadership, Burns’s (1978) theory of transforming

leadership, and Freire’s (1973) dialogic approach to education and transformation. While working for the

NAACP, Baker strived to be a servant-first. If her leadership did not help those served to grow as persons,

then it lacked any real value. In line with Greenleaf’s claim that servant leaders are superb listeners,

Baker practiced the discipline of listening assiduously and seemed to concur with Greenleaf that listening

could powerfully build “strength in other people” (p. 17). But she also followed Burns in that she put the

utmost effort into practicing leadership as a reciprocal process, into realizing goals that were “mutually

held by both leaders and followers” (p. 425). She also invested great effort in the teaching function of

leadership and the role she might play in transforming a seemingly ordinary action into something

momentous that brought “end-values, such as liberty, justice, and equality” (p. 426) to the forefront. In

these ways, she also followed Freire closely as Ransby (2003) has so brilliantly demonstrated. According to

Ransby (2003), the SNCC-inspired Freedom Schools, that led to huge increases in the registration of Black

voters in the early 1960s, carried the imprint of Baker’s philosophy and practice of leadership. First, like

Freire, Baker contended that to lead is to teach, not to “transfer knowledge but to create the possibility for

the production or construction of knowledge” among learners and followers (p.328). Second, for Baker,

teaching and learning were mutual, part of the same continuum, in which willingness “to listen across

boundaries of difference” counts most of all (p. 328). Third, teaching, like leading, is not a top-down,

didactic process. It is above all, an occasion to help learners [and followers] “begin to question” (p. 329).

Ella Baker respected people in the classic sense. She strove to acknowledge and appreciate them in all

their complexity and fullness. She did not make assumptions about the people she endeavored to lead,


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but actively sought to find out all she could about them. She then used what she learned to facilitateopportunities for learning and taking action that reflected their beliefs. Baker grew famous among therank and file membership of the NAACP as the leader who seemed to know and understand each branch’sspecial situation and the unique challenges that each branch leader faced.

Transformational leaders do not so much orate and lecture, as they create opportunities for people tolearn together, to become, as Burns (1978) points out, “joint seekers of truth and of mutualactualization” (p. 449). Baker noted that her work as activist and leader did not stress imparting newtheories or drawing complex pictures of social relations. She focused her efforts instead on helping peopleto more clearly “see their own ideas” (Ransby, p. 363). She did this, as Bob Moses (2001) has pointed outby quietly working “in out-of-the-way places” and then by really “digging into [life in] local communities”(p. 4). She did this as well the many times she delivered speeches that helped people to see theuniversality of the Civil Rights struggle.

Baker was unusually wide-awake to the people and the events swirling around her. Listening closely,observing keenly, speaking concisely, seeing discerningly, she picked up on things other people missed. She was famous among the SNCC membership for holding individual side conversations with quieterparticipants (often women) while group deliberations were going on, and then interrupting the discussionto announce to those assembled that someone she had just spoken to held a powerful idea that needed tobe heard. Dallard (1990) reports that Baker would sit down next to a particularly reticent participant,quietly draw that person out, and then grab the attention of the rest of the group by shouting: “Look,here’s somebody with something to say about that” (p. 84). She was also the one inclined to locate areasof agreement or consensus in the midst of what appeared to be sharp conflict. During a meeting of SNCCwhen a bitter argument broke out between the partisans of direct action and civil disobedience and thosecommitted to advancing the goal of increasing voter registration, Baker stepped in with unusual directnessto show how both goals could be pursued simultaneously. Reflecting on this occasion, Baker noted: “Inever intervened…if I could avoid it. Most of the youngsters had been trained…to follow adults….I felt theyought to have a chance to learn to think things through and to make the decisions. But this was a pointat which I did have something to say” (Dallard, p. 86).

Baker as Bridge-Builder

In 1958, Baker reluctantly accepted the title of “Temporary Executive Director” of the Southern ChristianLeadership Conference - the civil rights organization that Martin Luther King created to capitalize on thesuccess of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When she stepped down from this position almost 3 years later,her title still included the word “temporary.” When her male successor took over, he was immediatelygranted the full title of “Executive Director.” As a strong-willed, intellectual female in an organizationlargely staffed by males, Baker rarely got the recognition that her male colleagues enjoyed. Yet few of hermale counterparts knew grassroots leaders as well as she.Few were as comfortable as Baker relating tothe SCLC’s broad range of constituents. She was equally effective with highly educated organizers or poor,illiterate farmers.

Baker can be viewed as a classic “bridge leader” - a term coined by Belinda Robnett (1997) in her study ofAfrican American female activists. She often did the important behind the scenes work that helped to builda movement or organization, while others, usually male, got the credit. Baker’s supporters and closeassociates, though, understood how transforming her leadership was. They recognized how dedicated shewas and how authentically she believed in people’s potential. Like few other leaders in the Civil RightsMovement she built trust and commitment from the ground up, making possible many of the dramaticaccomplishments we associate with more famous activists.

Empowering SNCC and Group-Centered Leadership

In April of 1960, with her tenure at SCLC coming to an end, Baker welcomed over 200 student protestersfrom 19 states to Raleigh, North Carolina to propose an organization to coordinate and support theemerging student protest movement. Inspired by the four Black students from Greensboro who stunnedthe nation by “sitting-in” at a segregated lunch counter, hundreds of young protesters from throughoutthe South followed the lead of the Greensboro students. Many of these students were hauled off to jail fordisturbing the public peace and for defying laws promoting segregation. Their patience and forbearance inthe face of white resistance and hate was inspiring. Baker admired the students’ initiative and identified


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closely with their courageous struggle. She quietly created an atmosphere at the conference that wouldallow the students to share their experiences freely, to learn from each other, and to build a foundationfor a new student movement. Baker knew that the students’ actions were momentous, but feared thatanxious adult leaders, like King, might slow their progress by urging caution. In organizing the Raleighmeeting, Baker hoped to provide a forum for discussion and learning that would remain student-centeredand would allow the students to explore the creation of their own, independent organization.

In fact it is instructive, at this point, to take note of the contrasting leadership styles of Baker and MartinLuther King. There is no question, of course, about King’s greatness as a leader, but there is reason tobelieve that his strong, charismatic, almost mythic style of leadership sometimes did as much harm to theprogress of the Civil Rights Movement as it did good (Payne, pp. 400-402;; Ransby, p. 188). For one thing,the hero worship that King inspired sometimes had the effect of disempowering people. It made themthink that they could not achieve great goals on their own, that without his talent for striking oratory andhis capacity for trenchant analysis, no real gains would be made. The founder of the Highlander FolkSchool, Myles Horton (1990), has noted that King’s leadership was so strong and charismatic that it ofteninhibited others. He once told King: “You are so much the powerful leader that it’s hard for people whowork with you to have a role they can grow in” (p. 127). Horton urged King to cultivate new leaders, buthe never seemed able to do this, as the SCLC depended so heavily on burnishing King’s powerful image.Furthermore, the tendency of the media to focus all of their attention on King – a practice encouraged bySCLC administrators – meant that many deserving activists got little or no credit for their efforts. BobMoses recalled conversing with Ella Baker’s successor at SCLC, Wyatt T Walker, about the need for manyleaders in the movement. Moses believed it was a huge mistake not to encourage multiple leaders.Walker, who was representative of the all-male leadership allied with King, ended the exchange abruptlyby declaring, “We all need to get behind one leader” (p. 28).

E.D. Nixon, who effectively and courageously provided the impetus for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, wasone grassroots leader who was completely overshadowed by King. Nixon’s resentment over this slightpersisted for many years (Branch, p. 190). Baker, on the other hand, wanted ordinary people to besupported for achieving their own goals and to receive appropriate credit for their accomplishments. Theydidn’t need a savior to put an end to oppression. All they needed, Baker averred, “was themselves, oneanother, and the will to persevere” (Ransby, p. 188). A whole different view of leadership was neededaccording to Ella Baker, one that didn’t depend on a charismatic guru. Baker’s view was that the group, ifsufficiently cohesive and collaborative, could more efficiently and effectively assume the leadership role.Baker observed: “Instead of the leader as a person who was supposed to be a magic man, you coulddevelop individuals who were bound together by a concept that benefited the larger number of individualsand provided an opportunity for them to grow into being responsible for carrying out a program” (Ransby,p. 188).

When Baker spoke at the conclusion of the student gathering in Raleigh, she touched on a number ofthese themes. First, she made it clear that the sit-ins symbolized something much more than the right ofblack people to be served at a segregated lunch counter. The daring actions of these courageous blackcollege students were not just part of a struggle for their own emancipation or that of their race. Theywere part of a movement to uphold human freedom that held “moral implications…for the whole world”(Forman, p. 218). What they accomplished and how they responded under pressure could inspire freedomlovers across the globe to rise up against their oppressors. Second, because the struggle was so universaland so urgent, she noted, a democratic, group-centered focus must be maintained. By de-emphasizing theleadership of charismatic individuals, the goal of expanding the sphere of human liberty could be guided bymany voices and not detoured by power grabs. For Baker, true leadership occurs when the individual isstretched to his or her highest potential “for the benefit of the group” (Forman, p. 218). She linked thispoint to a third observation that the students would remain adamantly independent of adult control and oftraditional top-down ways of running organizations. Spurred on by Baker, they wanted the group as awhole to provide the necessary leadership to advance their cause. Finally, Baker concluded that althoughthe conference in Raleigh had been a great triumph, the future success of the student movementdepended on the willingness of its leaders to embrace adult education. She called for training in non-violence, group dynamics, and ways to creatively redirect the rage engendered by racism towardmeaningful and lasting social change.

At the October, 1960 gathering of SNCC, a follow-up to their April meeting, the student leaders exhibiteda new found confidence in their ability to shape the organization’s future course. With the recognition and


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support of numerous other activist groups, SNCC now emerged as a less vulnerable and more permanenthuman rights group. What must have greatly pleased Ella Baker was SNCC’s ongoing commitment togroup-centered leadership. Resisting the temptation to create a hierarchical structure and eager tosupport rather than to control local organizations, the members of SNCC continued to believe that theycould do their best work by nurturing local leadership and by keeping lines of communication open for thebenefit of all. Over time tensions would emerge over the true mission of SNCC, but there was never anydoubt throughout most of its history that one of its most important functions was to help local communitygroups “determine their own direction” (Carson, p. 30). As Payne (1995) has noted, the key to SNCC’sinfluence and legacy was “the respect it had for people regardless of their status and the ways in whichthat respect empowered those people to make the contributions they had in them” (p. 185). Fewdissented from the belief that without Ella Baker’s leadership and vision it would have been impossible tosustain this enduring purpose.

Although Baker was self-effacing and often quiet, the vision she projected was radical. She reminded thestudents frequently that they needed to “learn to think in radical terms.” Baker used “the term radical inits original meaning – getting down to and understanding the root cause. “It means,” she asserted,“facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change thatsystem” (Moses & Robb, p. 3). Baker was respected as a leader who believed in the Civil Rights Movement,but who, in a larger sense, used the Movement as an opportunity to radically alter an unjust system.

Leader as Teacher/Leader as Learner

Even as SNCC began to exert a major influence on the Civil Rights Movement, the need for searching andextensive discussions about its mission and structure remained strong. For at least the first two years ofits existence, years in which Ella Baker continued to play an active role, SNCC gathered periodically torevisit and to explore their collective purposes. The “marathon meetings” that inevitably ensued alwaysincluded Baker’s quiet and unobtrusive presence. She rarely contributed a view of her own, butparticipated most often as a listener and occasionally as a questioner. Comparing her to Nelson Mandela,Grant (1998) explained that Baker listened closely and actively to every person and would occasionallyrefer to a previous speaker’s words to lend them added credibility and weight. She regularly paraphrasedand synthesized what others had said, and taught the young people in SNCC “that everyone hadsomething to give, thus helping them learn to respect each other” (p. 137).

Baker also participated by questioning students with a masterful Socratic persistence. She would not tellthem what to do, but she would interrogate participants repeatedly about purpose and mission. As MaryKing (1987), an early SNCC volunteer, noted, “Again and again, she would force us to articulate ourassumptions” (p. 60). Mary King sometimes felt intimidated by Baker’s methods, but she came to seethat her questioning was a strategy to combat dogmatism. Only through persistent and sharply wordedquestioning, Mary King learned, could the temptation to adopt a single, doctrinaire approach be avoided.She attributed to Baker one of the most important lessons of her life. “There are many legitimate andeffective avenues for social change and there is no single right way” (Payne, p. 97).

Baker’s approach to leading, which was inseparable from her approach to teaching and learning, stemmedfrom her belief that the students must have control over their own decision making. This was especiallytrue of the SNCC students, who believed that overbearing adults would only hamper efforts to keep themovement energized. But they would listen to those rare adults who treated them as equals and whoregarded the students as responsible thinkers and doers. This was exactly Ella Baker’s view, which is whythe students prized her leadership. As Bob Moses said recalling Ella Baker’s legacy for SNCC:

It was Ella more than anyone else who gave us the space to operate in. As long as she wassitting there in the meetings, no one else could dare come in and say I think you should dothis or that, because no one could pull rank on her. Her stature was such that there wasn’tanyone from the NAACP to Dr. King who could get by her. I think that the actual course ofthe SNCC movement is a testimony to the fact that the students were left free to develop ontheir own. That was her real contribution. (Dallard, pp. 84-5)

Joanne Grant (1998) pointed out that, although Baker spurned the profession of teaching as a vocationalaspiration, her chief role with SNCC turned out to be as teacher. She wanted to develop new leaders andthere was no way to do this except through some form of instruction. Of course, Baker employed avariety of forms to support and guide the students – listening, affirming, questioning, and, only rarely,


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asserting. But these were all aspects of her teaching role. Baker was a fount of wisdom and experience

for the students of SNCC. As time went on, her ability to teach, facilitate, and redirect the students

toward more productive, generous, and humane goals grew into legend. It was out of such encounters

that her reputation as Fundi developed.

Baker’s Developmental Leadership

Throughout her life, but especially as “founding mother” of SNCC, Baker espoused and practiced a

philosophy of what Payne (1995) and Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock (1997) have called developmental

leadership. It left little room for charismatic, top-down influence. Despite the many opportunities she had

to further her fame, she stayed behind the scenes, supporting and nurturing her fellow activists and

organizers, never seeking recognition for herself. Baker embraced a highly collaborative approach to

leadership in which individuals did not take credit or accept responsibility for their actions alone, but

instead alternated between leader and follower for the sake of the general welfare. She discouraged

leaders who thirsted for acclaim, who were animated by glory and power, urging them instead to revel in

the accomplishment of collective goals. Yet, Baker was also the first to defend anyone possessing the

courage to take a principled stand against the group when doing so for the group’s sake. Defiance can be

admirable when selfless, she seemed to say, but destructive when carried out merely for self-

aggrandizement.

Baker’s (1972) notion of group-centered, developmental leadership stressed learning, interdependence,

and self-sufficiency. Traditional leadership makes followers dependent on leaders, stripping followers of the

resources to learn from their experiences and to make decisions for themselves. Developmental leadership

assumes each person is indispensable, all group members are potential leaders and learners, and, as Baker

herself has affirmed, such leaders “cannot look for salvation anywhere but to themselves” (p. 347). Self-

sufficiency was her goal for everyone, which also meant that people must be free to make mistakes, to

choose a misguided course of action and to learn from its consequences. Such circumstances were

necessary to allow civil rights workers to grow as learners and leaders. At a time when large, consolidated

organizations were the norm, Baker believed that people must take control over their own lives by acting

within relatively small organizational environments. Organizations must be small enough, Baker assumed,

for people to get to know one another by name, to get to know one another as persons. Payne (1995) has

noted that Baker “envisioned small groups of people working together but also retaining contact in some

form with other such groups, so that coordinated action would be possible wherever large groups really

were necessary” (p. 369). Only then, she believed, could the nurturing of both individual and collective

growth occur.

Baker (1972) insisted that “what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being

leaders as much as in developing leadership among other people” (352). Witnessing young people emerge

as leaders—in part as a result of her specific efforts—gave her life meaning and purpose. Seeing them

furthermore develop the values and principles upon which real democracy is based fueled her hope. These

were truly the things she lived for. In an interview with historian Gerda Lerner she said:

Every time I see a young person who has come through the system to a stage where he

could profit from the system and identify with it, but who identifies more with the struggle of

black people who have not had his chance, every time I find such a person I take new hope.

I feel a new life as a result of it. (Baker, 1972, p. 352)

Conclusion – Leading as Teaching, Learning, Transforming and Developing

There is no question that Ella Baker met the multiple tests of transformational leadership that Burns

(1978) delineates in his groundbreaking book - Leadership. This is particularly remarkable, as shesuccessfully exercised leadership in multiple settings decades before Burns put forward his theory. Yet,

leaders like Baker, females who did much of the behind-the-scenes work that made possible the

accomplishments of more high-profile leaders, usually male, receive virtually no attention in Burns’s book.

Ella Baker was a leader who formed long-term relationships with her co-workers and who worked

constantly to redistribute power by helping people to emerge as leaders themselves. As a self-actualized

person, Baker was not threatened by others seeking to come forward as leaders. Like other

transformational leaders, Baker exhorted her followers to express their commitments to justice and

equality openly and passionately, and to allow these commitments to carry them forward toward assertive


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action. She reminded civil rights workers that their struggle was a struggle for freedom loving peopleeverywhere. Furthermore, Baker was a towering example of dignity and decency herself. She embodiedthe principles she espoused and inspired others to do the same.

It is in fact striking how closely Baker paralleled the expectations Burns held for transformational leaders.She lived the idea that leadership is collective. She was one of the leading advocates of group-centeredleadership, of the idea that the strongest, most effective leadership is something held in common by thegroup and is best carried out by the group itself. She heartily endorsed the notion that leadership isdissensual and went out of her way to foster discussions among leaders and followers that included heavydoses of constructive disagreement and creative conflict. She affirmed that the clash of differences, whencarefully controlled and constructively expressed, enhances learning and stimulates group growth. Shealso believed that leadership is causative. It can make a difference, change people’s minds, and get themto think and act more generously for the good of the whole. Similarly, she practiced morally purposefulleadership by supporting people to pursue those goals that would help them flourish as human beings.These things included most notably – opportunities to learn, opportunities to lead, and opportunities tochange a system that undermined human dignity. Finally, Baker’s leadership was elevating. It gave peoplenew hope that they had the ability and the power collectively to renew the world.

While Burns’s theory of transformational leadership explains a great deal about the influence Bakerexercised, Payne’s (1995) and Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock’s (1997) theory of developmental leadershipalso casts light on the some of the contributions made by this American Fundi. Transformationalleadership, despite its many insights, may put too much emphasis on the individual leader. Ella Baker’sgenius was in using leadership to decenter leaders, to redistribute power from one person to manypersons and, in so doing, to help people gain the resources, acquire the learning, and develop theconfidence to go out and support the development of others in their own communities.

Baker was a strong presence wherever she went. She was respected and even revered by many. But thesource of her leadership had nothing to do with the sort of mystical aloofness or charismatic distance weassociate with more traditional leaders. Her leadership focused on relationships, on getting to know peopleon a first name basis, and on finding out directly from them what they cared about most. But, like anygreat teacher, her desire to know people through conversation and active listening and close observationof their actions was not a good in itself. It was the means by which she attempted to develop their latentabilities and help them to see that their individual and collective empowerment were within their owncontrol.

As Barbara Ransby has so eloquently pointed out, Baker was also a practitioner of dialogic teaching andlearning as espoused by Paulo Freire. Both “viewed education as a collective and creative enterpriserequiring collaboration and exchange at every stage (2003, p. 362).” Both believed in the power of simplehumility and close listening, embracing the wise notion that “silence in the context of communication isfundamental” (2003, p. 362). Ransby also quotes organizer Prathia Hall, a protégé of Baker’s, who recallssitting on the porches of the poor people whom she sought to register to vote in rural Georgia. “We’d sitand we’d listen, and we’d listen to the person talk about survival and talk about families…I think some ofthe most important lessons I learned were on the porches of people who couldn’t read or write theirnames” (2003, p. 362). One can’t help thinking that Ella Baker and Paulo Freire, too, would have beenvery proud of how Prathia Hall nurtured relationships with the Black people of rural Georgia and learnedfrom their experiences.

In an influential essay about building a foundation for a strong, democratic society, Benjamin Barber(1998) concurs with Baker that it is not strong leaders, but strong organizational members that are mostneeded. Leaders are at their best as facilitators, moderators, and head-listeners. Leaders who arescrupulous listeners work to ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute something valuable to thegroup. For the leader, to lead through listening means “not to scan an adversary’s position for weaknessesor potential trade-offs, (p. 108)” but to support each participant in empathizing with all others, “todiscover in the babble of voices a consensus that is audible only to the scrupulous auditor (p. 108).” Theeffective facilitator as leader “wishes to transform all the He’s and She’s who come into the meeting withtheir own interests into a single We with a common interest (p. 108).” Such a leader “will insist thatevery [participant] be heard, but by that [the leader] will mean not only that all can speak but that allmust listen” (p. 108).

According to Howard Gardner (1995), leaders tell a recurring story that reveals the identity of the leader,


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underscores group goals, and highlights the values that the group both espouses and enacts. Such storieshelp the group to understand “who they are, where they come from, and where they are headed” (p. 43).Furthermore, the values embedded in the story that the leader conveys are embodied or lived by thatleader on a daily basis.

The story Ella Baker related was one of ordinary people working together for social change to further racialjustice and enhance human dignity. As a leader, she remained offstage doing all she could to supportothers in assuming leadership roles. Rarely making decisions herself, she worked quietly to createenvironments for people to take charge of their own lives and to make choices that shaped how theywould live together. She prized freedom and fairness and respect and strived to model these ideals in allof her interactions with others. Perhaps most of all she esteemed continuous learning and deepenedunderstanding as the twin bases for authentic transformation.

In a statement to her followers that parallels almost exactly Gardner’s claims about the leader’s story, EllaBaker succinctly put forward her own leadership narrative. It also brings us full circle, because it remindsus in no uncertain terms how Ella Baker fulfilled her role as the Fundi of the Civil Rights Movement. Sheencouraged her followers to foment radical change, but only after cultivating a thorough understanding ofthe tragedies and triumphs and trials of the past:

In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that ismeaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. That iseasier said than done. But one of the things that has to be faced is…to find out who we are,where we have come from and where we are going…I am saying as you must say, too, thatin order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, butwe must understand where we have been. (Quoted in Moses and Cobb, p. 3)

References

Baker, E. (1972). Developing Community Leadership. In G. Lerner, (Ed.), Black women in white America:A documentary history. New York: Vintage.

Barber, B. (1998). A passion for democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Belenky, M., Bond, L., & Weinstock, J. (1997). A tradition that has no name. New York: Basic Books.

Branch, T. (1988). Parting the waters: America in the King years, 1954-1963. New York: Simon andSchuster.

Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row.

Cantarow, E. & O’Malley, S.G. (1980). Ella Baker: Organizing for civil rights. In E. Cantorow (Ed.), Movingthe mountain: Women working for social change (p. 52-93). Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press.

Carson, C. (1981). In struggle: SNCC and the black awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.

Dallard, S. (1990). Ella Baker: A leader behind the scenes. New York: Silver Burdett Press.

Forman, J. (1972). The making of black revolutionaries. New York: Macmillan.

Freire, P. (1973). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press.

Gardner, H. (1995). Leading minds. New York: Basic Books.

Grant, J. (Producer/Writer/Director). (1981). Fundi: The story of Ella Baker. (Motion Picture). (Availablefrom First Run Icarus Films, 32 Court St., 21st Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201)

Grant, J. (1998). Ella Baker: Freedom bound. New York: John Wiley.

Greenleaf, R. (1977). Servant leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

King, M. (1987). Freedom song. New York: William Morrow.


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Moses, R.P. & Cobb, C.E. (2001). Radical equations: Math literacy and civil rights. Boston: Beacon Press.

Payne, C. (1995). I’ve got the light of freedom: The organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedomstruggle. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ransby, B. (2003). Ella Baker and the Black freedom movement: A radical democratic vision. Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press.

Robnett, B. (1997). How long? How long?: African American women in the struggle for civil rights. NewYork: Oxford University Press.

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THE TYRANNY of STRUCTURELESSNESS

by Jo Freeman aka Joreen

The earliest version of this article was given as a talk at a conferencecalled by the Southern Female Rights Union, held in Beulah, Mississippi inMay 1970. It was written up for Notes from the Third Year (1971), but theeditors did not use it. It was then submitted to several movementpublications, but only one asked permission to publish it;; others did sowithout permission. The first official place of publication was in Vol. 2,No. 1 of The Second Wave (1972). This early version in movementpublications was authored by Joreen. Different versions were published inthe Berkeley Journal of Sociology, Vol. 17, 1972-73, pp. 151-165, and Ms.magazine, July 1973, pp. 76-78, 86-89, authored by Jo Freeman. Thispiece spread all over the world. Numerous people have edited, reprinted,cut, and translated "Tyranny" for magazines, books and web sites, usuallywithout the permission or knowledge of the author. The version below isa blend of the three cited here.

During the years in which the women's liberation movement has beentaking shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are calledleaderless, structureless groups as the main -- if not sole --organizational form of the movement. The source of this idea was anatural reaction against the over-structured society in which most of usfound ourselves, and the inevitable control this gave others over ourlives, and the continual elitism of the Left and similar groups amongthose who were supposedly fighting this overstructuredness.The idea of "structurelessness," however, has moved from a healthy

counter to those tendencies to becoming a goddess in its own right. Theidea is as little examined as the term is much used, but it has become anintrinsic and unquestioned part of women's liberation ideology. For theearly development of the movement this did not much matter. It earlydefined its main goal, and its main method, as consciousness-raising, andthe "structureless" rap group was an excellent means to this end. Thelooseness and informality of it encouraged participation in discussion, andits often supportive atmosphere elicited personal insight. If nothing moreconcrete than personal insight ever resulted from these groups, that didnot much matter, because their purpose did not really extend beyondthis.

The basic problems didn't appear until individual rap groups exhaustedthe virtues of consciousness-raising and decided they wanted to dosomething more specific. At this point they usually foundered becausemost groups were unwilling to change their structure when they changedtheir tasks. Women had thoroughly accepted the idea of"structurelessness" without realizing the limitations of its uses. Peoplewould try to use the "structureless" group and the informal conference forpurposes for which they were unsuitable out of a blind belief that no othermeans could possibly be anything but oppressive.


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If the movement is to grow beyond these elementary stages of

development, it will have to disabuse itself of some of its prejudices

about organization and structure. There is nothing inherently bad about

either of these. They can be and often are misused, but to reject them

out of hand because they are misused is to deny ourselves the necessary

tools to further development. We need to understand why

"structurelessness" does not work.

FORMAL AND INFORMAL STRUCTURES

Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a

structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes

together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure

itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible;; it may vary over

time;; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources

over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the

abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved. The very fact

that we are individuals, with different talents, predispositions, and

backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or

interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness

-- and that is not the nature of a human group.

This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as

deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social

science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic

as a "laissez faire" society;; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the

strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This

hegemony can be so easily established because the idea of

"structurelessness" does not prevent the formation of informal structures,

only formal ones. Similarly "laissez faire" philosophy did not prevent the

economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices, and

distribution of goods;; it only prevented the government from doing so.

Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the

women's movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are

the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not). As

long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions

are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to

those who know the rules. Those who do not know the rules and are not

chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid

delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware.

For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in a given group

and to participate in its activities the structure must be explicit, not

implicit. The rules of decision-making must be open and available to

everyone, and this can happen only if they are formalized. This is not to

say that formalization of a structure of a group will destroy the informal

structure. It usually doesn't. But it does hinder the informal structure

from having predominant control and make available some means of

attacking it if the people involved are not at least responsible to the

needs of the group at large. "Structurelessness" is organizationally

impossible. We cannot decide whether to have a structured or

structureless group, only whether or not to have a formally structured

one. Therefore the word will not be used any longer except to refer to the

idea it represents. Unstructured will refer to those groups which have not

been deliberately structured in a particular manner. Structured will refer

to those which have. A Structured group always has formal structure, and

may also have an informal, or covert, structure. It is this informal


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structure, particularly in Unstructured groups, which forms the basis forelites.

THE NATURE OF ELITISM

"Elitist" is probably the most abused word in the women's liberationmovement. It is used as frequently, and for the same reasons, as "pinko"was used in the fifties. It is rarely used correctly. Within the movement itcommonly refers to individuals, though the personal characteristics andactivities of those to whom it is directed may differ widely: An individual,as an individual can never be an elitist, because the only properapplication of the term "elite" is to groups. Any individual, regardless ofhow well-known that person may be, can never be an elite.Correctly, an elite refers to a small group of people who have power

over a larger group of which they are part, usually without directresponsibility to that larger group, and often without their knowledge orconsent. A person becomes an elitist by being part of, or advocating therule by, such a small group, whether or not that individual is well knownor not known at all. Notoriety is not a definition of an elitist. The mostinsidious elites are usually run by people not known to the larger public atall. Intelligent elitists are usually smart enough not to allow themselvesto become well known;; when they become known, they are watched, andthe mask over their power is no longer firmly lodged.Elites are not conspiracies. Very seldom does a small group of people

get together and deliberately try to take over a larger group for its ownends. Elites are nothing more, and nothing less, than groups of friendswho also happen to participate in the same political activities. They wouldprobably maintain their friendship whether or not they were involved inpolitical activities;; they would probably be involved in political activitieswhether or not they maintained their friendships. It is the coincidence ofthese two phenomena which creates elites in any group and makes themso difficult to break.These friendship groups function as networks of communication outside

any regular channels for such communication that may have been set upby a group. If no channels are set up, they function as the only networksof communication. Because people are friends, because they usuallyshare the same values and orientations, because they talk to each othersocially and consult with each other when common decisions have to bemade, the people involved in these networks have more power in thegroup than those who don't. And it is a rare group that does not establishsome informal networks of communication through the friends that aremade in it.Some groups, depending on their size, may have more than one such

informal communications network. Networks may even overlap. Whenonly one such network exists, it is the elite of an otherwise Unstructuredgroup, whether the participants in it want to be elitists or not. If it is theonly such network in a Structured group it may or may not be an elitedepending on its composition and the nature of the formal Structure. Ifthere are two or more such networks of friends, they may compete forpower within the group, thus forming factions, or one may deliberatelyopt out of the competition, leaving the other as the elite. In a Structuredgroup, two or more such friendship networks usually compete with eachother for formal power. This is often the healthiest situation, as the othermembers are in a position to arbitrate between the two competitors forpower and thus to make demands on those to whom they give theirtemporary allegiance.The inevitably elitist and exclusive nature of informal communication


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networks of friends is neither a new phenomenon characteristic of the

women's movement nor a phenomenon new to women. Such informal

relationships have excluded women for centuries from participating in

integrated groups of which they were a part. In any profession or

organization these networks have created the "locker room" mentality

and the "old school" ties which have effectively prevented women as a

group (as well as some men individually) from having equal access to the

sources of power or social reward. Much of the energy of past women's

movements has been directed to having the structures of decision-making

and the selection processes formalized so that the exclusion of women

could be confronted directly. As we well know, these efforts have not

prevented the informal male-only networks from discriminating against

women, but they have made it more difficult.

Because elites are informal does not mean they are invisible. At any

small group meeting anyone with a sharp eye and an acute ear can tell

who is influencing whom. The members of a friendship group will relate

more to each other than to other people. They listen more attentively,

and interrupt less;; they repeat each other's points and give in amiably;;

they tend to ignore or grapple with the "outs" whose approval is not

necessary for making a decision. But it is necessary for the "outs" to stay

on good terms with the "ins." Of course the lines are not as sharp as I

have drawn them. They are nuances of interaction, not prewritten scripts.

But they are discernible, and they do have their effect. Once one knows

with whom it is important to check before a decision is made, and whose

approval is the stamp of acceptance, one knows who is running things.

Since movement groups have made no concrete decisions about who

shall exercise power within them, many different criteria are used around

the country. Most criteria are along the lines of traditional female

characteristics. For instance, in the early days of the movement,

marriage was usually a prerequisite for participation in the informal elite.

As women have been traditionally taught, married women relate

primarily to each other, and look upon single women as too threatening

to have as close friends. In many cities, this criterion was further refined

to include only those women married to New Left men. This standard had

more than tradition behind it, however, because New Left men often had

access to resources needed by the movement -- such as mailing lists,

printing presses, contacts, and information -- and women were used to

getting what they needed through men rather than independently. As the

movement has charged through time, marriage has become a less

universal criterion for effective participation, but all informal elites

establish standards by which only women who possess certain material or

personal characteristics may join. They frequently include: middle-class

background (despite all the rhetoric about relating to the working class);;

being married;; not being married but living with someone;; being or

pretending to be a lesbian;; being between the ages of twenty and thirty;;

being college educated or at least having some college background;; being

"hip";; not being too "hip";; holding a certain political line or identification

as a "radical";; having children or at least liking them;; not having

children;; having certain "feminine" personality characteristics such as

being "nice";; dressing right (whether in the traditional style or the

antitraditional style);; etc. There are also some characteristics which will

almost always tag one as a "deviant" who should not be related to. They

include: being too old;; working full time, particularly if one is actively

committed to a "career";; not being "nice";; and being avowedly single

(i.e., neither actively heterosexual nor homosexual).

Other criteria could be included, but they all have common themes. The

characteristics prerequisite for participating in the informal elites of the


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movement, and thus for exercising power, concern one's background,personality, or allocation of time. They do not include one's competence,dedication to feminism, talents, or potential contribution to themovement. The former are the criteria one usually uses in determiningone's friends. The latter are what any movement or organization has touse if it is going to be politically effective.The criteria of participation may differ from group to group, but the

means of becoming a member of the informal elite if one meets thosecriteria art pretty much the same. The only main difference depends onwhether one is in a group from the beginning, or joins it after it hasbegun. If involved from the beginning it is important to have as many ofone's personal friends as possible also join. If no one knows anyone elsevery well, then one must deliberately form friendships with a selectnumber and establish the informal interaction patterns crucial to thecreation of an informal structure. Once the informal patterns are formedthey act to maintain themselves, and one of the most successful tactics ofmaintenance is to continuously recruit new people who "fit in." One joinssuch an elite much the same way one pledges a sorority. If perceived asa potential addition, one is "rushed" by the members of the informalstructure and eventually either dropped or initiated. If the sorority is notpolitically aware enough to actively engage in this process itself it can bestarted by the outsider pretty much the same way one joins any privateclub. Find a sponsor, i.e., pick some member of the elite who appears tobe well respected within it, and actively cultivate that person's friendship.Eventually, she will most likely bring you into the inner circle.

All of these procedures take time. So if one works full time or has asimilar major commitment, it is usually impossible to join simply becausethere are not enough hours left to go to all the meetings and cultivate thepersonal relationship necessary to have a voice in the decision-making.That is why formal structures of decision making are a boon to theoverworked person. Having an established process for decision-makingensures that everyone can participate in it to some extent.Although this dissection of the process of elite formation within small

groups has been critical in perspective, it is not made in the belief thatthese informal structures are inevitably bad -- merely inevitable. Allgroups create informal structures as a result of interaction patternsamong the members of the group. Such informal structures can do veryuseful things But only Unstructured groups are totally governed by them.When informal elites are combined with a myth of "structurelessness,"there can be no attempt to put limits on the use of power. It becomescapricious.This has two potentially negative consequences of which we should be

aware. The first is that the informal structure of decision-making will bemuch like a sorority -- one in which people listen to others because theylike them and not because they say significant things. As long as themovement does not do significant things this does not much matter. But ifits development is not to be arrested at this preliminary stage, it willhave to alter this trend. The second is that informal structures have noobligation to be responsible to the group at large. Their power was notgiven to them;; it cannot be taken away. Their influence is not based onwhat they do for the group;; therefore they cannot be directly influencedby the group. This does not necessarily make informal structuresirresponsible. Those who are concerned with maintaining their influencewill usually try to be responsible. The group simply cannot compel suchresponsibility;; it is dependent on the interests of the elite.


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THE "STAR" SYSTEM

The idea of "structurelessness" has created the "star" system. We livein a society which expects political groups to make decisions and to selectpeople to articulate those decisions to the public at large. The press andthe public do not know how to listen seriously to individual women aswomen;; they want to know how the group feels. Only three techniqueshave ever been developed for establishing mass group opinion: the voteor referendum, the public opinion survey questionnaire, and the selectionof group spokespeople at an appropriate meeting. The women's liberationmovement has used none of these to communicate with the public.Neither the movement as a whole nor most of the multitudinous groupswithin it have established a means of explaining their position on variousissues. But the public is conditioned to look for spokespeople.While it has consciously not chosen spokespeople, the movement has

thrown up many women who have caught the public eye for varyingreasons. These women represent no particular group or establishedopinion;; they know this and usually say so. But because there are noofficial spokespeople nor any decision-making body that the press canquery when it wants to know the movement's position on a subject, thesewomen are perceived as the spokespeople. Thus, whether they want to ornot, whether the movement likes it or not, women of public note are putin the role of spokespeople by default.This is one main source of the ire that is often felt toward the women

who are labeled "stars." Because they were not selected by the women inthe movement to represent the movement's views, they are resentedwhen the press presumes that they speak for the movement. But as longas the movement does not select its own spokeswomen, such women willbe placed in that role by the press and the public, regardless of their owndesires.This has several negative consequences for both the movement and the

women labeled "stars." First, because the movement didn't put them inthe role of spokesperson, the movement cannot remove them. The pressput them there and only the press can choose not to listen. The press willcontinue to look to "stars" as spokeswomen as long as it has no officialalternatives to go to for authoritative statements from the movement.The movement has no control in the selection of its representatives to thepublic as long as it believes that it should have no representatives at all.Second, women put in this position often find themselves viciouslyattacked by their sisters. This achieves nothing for the movement and ispainfully destructive to the individuals involved. Such attacks only resultin either the woman leaving the movement entirely-often bitterlyalienated -- or in her ceasing to feel responsible to her "sisters." She maymaintain some loyalty to the movement, vaguely defined, but she is nolonger susceptible to pressures from other women in it. One cannot feelresponsible to people who have been the source of such pain withoutbeing a masochist, and these women are usually too strong to bow to thatkind of personal pressure. Thus the backlash to the "star" system ineffect encourages the very kind of individualistic nonresponsibility thatthe movement condemns. By purging a sister as a "star," the movementloses whatever control it may have had over the person who thenbecomes free to commit all of the individualistic sins of which she hasbeen accused.

POLITICAL IMPOTENCE

Unstructured groups may be very effective in getting women to talk


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about their lives;; they aren't very good for getting things done. It is whenpeople get tired of "just talking" and want to do something more that thegroups flounder, unless they change the nature of their operation.Occasionally, the developed informal structure of the group coincides withan available need that the group can fill in such a way as to give theappearance that an Unstructured group "works." That is, the group hasfortuitously developed precisely the kind of structure best suited forengaging in a particular project. While working in this kind of group is a very heady experience, it is

also rare and very hard to replicate. There are almost inevitably fourconditions found in such a group;;

1) It is task oriented. Its function is very narrow and very specific, likeputting on a conference or putting out a newspaper. It is the task thatbasically structures the group. The task determines what needs to bedone and when it needs to be done. It provides a guide by which peoplecan judge their actions and make plans for future activity.2) It is relatively small and homogeneous. Homogeneity is necessary to

insure that participants have a "common language" for interaction. Peoplefrom widely different backgrounds may provide richness to aconsciousness-raising group where each can learn from the others'experience, but too great a diversity among members of a task-orientedgroup means only that they continually misunderstand each other. Suchdiverse people interpret words and actions differently. They havedifferent expectations about each other's behavior and judge the resultsaccording to different criteria. If everyone knows everyone else wellenough to understand the nuances, these can be accommodated. Usually,they only lead to confusion and endless hours spent straightening outconflicts no one ever thought would arise.3) There is a high degree of communication. Information must be

passed on to everyone, opinions checked, work divided up, andparticipation assured in the relevant decisions. This is only possible if thegroup is small and people practically live together for the most crucialphases of the task. Needless to say, the number of interactions necessaryto involve everybody increases geometrically with the number ofparticipants. This inevitably limits group participants to about five, orexcludes some from some of the decisions. Successful groups can be aslarge as 10 or 15, but only when they are in fact composed of severalsmaller subgroups which perform specific parts of the task, and whosemembers overlap with each other so that knowledge of what the differentsubgroups are doing can be passed around easily.4) There is a low degree of skill specialization. Not everyone has to be

able to do everything, but everything must be able to be done by morethan one person. Thus no one is indispensable. To a certain extent,people become interchangeable parts.

While these conditions can occur serendipitously in small groups, this isnot possible in large ones. Consequently, because the larger movement inmost cities is as unstructured as individual rap groups, it is not too muchmore effective than the separate groups at specific tasks. The informalstructure is rarely together enough or in touch enough with the people tobe able to operate effectively. So the movement generates much motionand few results. Unfortunately, the consequences of all this motion arenot as innocuous as the results' and their victim is the movement itself.Some groups have formed themselves into local action projects if they

do not involve many people and work on a small scale. But this formrestricts movement activity to the local level;; it cannot be done on the


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regional or national. Also, to function well the groups must usually pare

themselves down to that informal group of friends who were running

things in the first place. This excludes many women from participating.

As long as the only way women can participate in the movement is

through membership in a small group, the nongregarious are at a distinct

disadvantage. As long as friendship groups are the main means of

organizational activity, elitism becomes institutionalized.

For those groups which cannot find a local project to which to devote

themselves, the mere act of staying together becomes the reason for

their staying together. When a group has no specific task (and

consciousness raising is a task), the people in it turn their energies to

controlling others in the group. This is not done so much out of a

malicious desire to manipulate others (though sometimes it is) as out of a

lack of anything better to do with their talents. Able people with time on

their hands and a need to justify their coming together put their efforts

into personal control, and spend their time criticizing the personalities of

the other members in the group. Infighting and personal power games

rule the day. When a group is involved in a task, people learn to get

along with others as they are and to subsume personal dislikes for the

sake of the larger goal. There are limits placed on the compulsion to

remold every person in our image of what they should be.

The end of consciousness-raising leaves people with no place to go, and

the lack of structure leaves them with no way of getting there. The

women the movement either turn in on themselves and their sisters or

seek other alternatives of action. There are few that are available. Some

women just "do their own thing." This can lead to a great deal of

individual creativity, much of which is useful for the movement, but it is

not a viable alternative for most women and certainly does not foster a

spirit of cooperative group effort. Other women drift out of the movement

entirely because they don't want to develop an individual project and they

have found no way of discovering, joining, or starting group projects that

interest them.

Many turn to other political organizations to give them the kind of

structured, effective activity that they have not been able to find in the

women's movement. Those political organizations which see women's

liberation as only one of many issues to which women should devote their

time thus find the movement a vast recruiting ground for new members.

There is no need for such organizations to "infiltrate" (though this is not

precluded). The desire for meaningful political activity generated in

women by their becoming part of the women's liberation movement is

sufficient to make them eager to join other organizations when the

movement itself provides no outlets for their new ideas and energies.

Those women who join other political organizations while remaining

within the women's liberation movement, or who join women's liberation

while remaining in other political organizations, in turn become the

framework for new informal structures. These friendship networks are

based upon their common nonfeminist politics rather than the

characteristics discussed earlier, but operate in much the same way.

Because these women share common values, ideas, and political

orientations, they too become informal, unplanned, unselected,

unresponsible elites -- whether they intend to be so or not.

These new informal elites are often perceived as threats by the old

informal elites previously developed within different movement groups.

This is a correct perception. Such politically oriented networks are rarely

willing to be merely "sororities" as many of the old ones were, and want


118

to proselytize their political as well as their feminist ideas. This is only

natural, but its implications for women's liberation have never been

adequately discussed. The old elites are rarely willing to bring such

differences of opinion out into the open because it would involve exposing

the nature of the informal structure of the group.

Many of these informal elites have been hiding under the banner of

"anti-elitism" and "structurelessness." To effectively counter the

competition from another informal structure, they would have to become

"public," and this possibility is fraught with many dangerous implications.

Thus, to maintain its own power, it is easier to rationalize the exclusion

of the members of the other informal structure by such means as "red-

baiting," "reformist-baiting," "lesbian-baiting," or "straight-baiting." The

only other alternative is to formally structure the group in such a way

that the original power structure is institutionalized. This is not always

possible. If the informal elites have been well structured and have

exercised a fair amount of power in the past, such a task is feasible.

These groups have a history of being somewhat politically effective in the

past, as the tightness of the informal structure has proven an adequate

substitute for a formal structure. Becoming Structured does not alter their

operation much, though the institutionalization of the power structure

does open it to formal challenge. It is those groups which are in greatest

need of structure that are often least capable of creating it. Their

informal structures have not been too well formed and adherence to the

ideology of "structurelessness" makes them reluctant to change tactics.

The more Unstructured a group is, the more lacking it is in informal

structures, and the more it adheres to an ideology of "structurelessness,"

the more vulnerable it is to being taken over by a group of political

comrades.

Since the movement at large is just as Unstructured as most of its

constituent groups, it is similarly susceptible to indirect influence. But the

phenomenon manifests itself differently. On a local level most groups can

operate autonomously;; but the only groups that can organize a national

activity are nationally organized groups. Thus, it is often the Structured

feminist organizations that provide national direction for feminist

activities, and this direction is determined by the priorities of those

organizations. Such groups as NOW, WEAL, and some leftist women's

caucuses are simply the only organizations capable of mounting a

national campaign. The multitude of Unstructured women's liberation

groups can choose to support or not support the national campaigns, but

are incapable of mounting their own. Thus their members become the

troops under the leadership of the Structured organizations. The avowedly

Unstructured groups have no way of drawing upon the movement's vast

resources to support its priorities. It doesn't even have a way of deciding

what they are.

The more unstructured a movement it, the less control it has over the

directions in which it develops and the political actions in which it

engages. This does not mean that its ideas do not spread. Given a certain

amount of interest by the media and the appropriateness of social

conditions, the ideas will still be diffused widely. But diffusion of ideas

does not mean they are implemented;; it only means they are talked

about. Insofar as they can be applied individually they may be acted on;;

insofar as they require coordinated political power to be implemented,

they will not be.

As long as the women's liberation movement stays dedicated to a form

of organization which stresses small, inactive discussion groups among

friends, the worst problems of Unstructuredness will not be felt. But this

style of organization has its limits;; it is politically inefficacious, exclusive,


119

and discriminatory against those women who are not or cannot be tied

into the friendship networks. Those who do not fit into what already

exists because of class, race, occupation, education, parental or marital

status, personality, etc., will inevitably be discouraged from trying to

participate. Those who do fit in will develop vested interests in

maintaining things as they are.

The informal groups' vested interests will be sustained by the informal

structures which exist, and the movement will have no way of

determining who shall exercise power within it. If the movement

continues deliberately to not select who shall exercise power, it does not

thereby abolish power. All it does is abdicate the right to demand that

those who do exercise power and influence be responsible for it. If the

movement continues to keep power as diffuse as possible because it

knows it cannot demand responsibility from those who have it, it does

prevent any group or person from totally dominating. But it

simultaneously insures that the movement is as ineffective as possible.

Some middle ground between domination and ineffectiveness can and

must be found.

These problems are coming to a head at this time because the nature

of the movement is necessarily changing. Consciousness-raising as the

main function of the women's liberation movement is becoming obsolete.

Due to the intense press publicity of the last two years and the numerous

overground books and articles now being circulated, women's liberation

has become a household word. Its issues are discussed and informal rap

groups are formed by people who have no explicit connection with any

movement group. The movement must go on to other tasks. It now needs

to establish its priorities, articulate its goals, and pursue its objectives in

a coordinated fashion. To do this it must get organized -- locally,

regionally, and nationally.

PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURING

Once the movement no longer clings tenaciously to the ideology of

"structurelessness," it is free to develop those forms of organization best

suited to its healthy functioning. This does not mean that we should go to

the other extreme and blindly imitate the traditional forms of

organization. But neither should we blindly reject them all. Some of the

traditional techniques will prove useful, albeit not perfect;; some will give

us insights into what we should and should not do to obtain certain ends

with minimal costs to the individuals in the movement. Mostly, we will

have to experiment with different kinds of structuring and develop a

variety of techniques to use for different situations. The Lot System is

one such idea which has emerged from the movement. It is not applicable

to all situations, but is useful in some. Other ideas for structuring are

needed. But before we can proceed to experiment intelligently, we must

accept the idea that there is nothing inherently bad about structure itself -

- only its excess use.

While engaging in this trial-and-error process, there are some

principles we can keep in mind that are essential to democratic

structuring and are also politically effective:

1) Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific

tasks by democratic procedures. Letting people assume jobs or tasks only

by default means they are not dependably done. If people are selected to

do a task, preferably after expressing an interest or willingness to do it,


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they have made a commitment which cannot so easily be ignored.

2) Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be

responsible to those who selected them. This is how the group has control

over people in positions of authority. Individuals may exercise power, but

it is the group that has ultimate say over how the power is exercised.

3) Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably

possible. This prevents monopoly of power and requires those in positions

of authority to consult with many others in the process of exercising it. It

also gives many people the opportunity to have responsibility for specific

tasks and thereby to learn different skills.

4) Rotation of tasks among individuals. Responsibilities which are held

too long by one person, formally or informally, come to be seen as that

person's "property" and are not easily relinquished or controlled by the

group. Conversely, if tasks are rotated too frequently the individual does

not have time to learn her job well and acquire the sense of satisfaction

of doing a good job.

5) Allocation of tasks along rational criteria. Selecting someone for a

position because they are liked by the group or giving them hard work

because they are disliked serves neither the group nor the person in the

long run. Ability, interest, and responsibility have got to be the major

concerns in such selection. People should be given an opportunity to learn

skills they do not have, but this is best done through some sort of

"apprenticeship" program rather than the "sink or swim" method. Having

a responsibility one can't handle well is demoralizing. Conversely, being

blacklisted from doing what one can do well does not encourage one to

develop one's skills. Women have been punished for being competent

throughout most of human history;; the movement does not need to

repeat this process.

6) Diffusion of information to everyone as frequently as possible.

Information is power. Access to information enhances one's power. When

an informal network spreads new ideas and information among

themselves outside the group, they are already engaged in the process of

forming an opinion -- without the group participating. The more one

knows about how things work and what is happening, the more politically

effective one can be.

7) Equal access to resources needed by the group. This is not always

perfectly possible, but should be striven for. A member who maintains a

monopoly over a needed resource (like a printing press owned by a

husband, or a darkroom) can unduly influence the use of that resource.

Skills and information are also resources. Members' skills can be

equitably available only when members are willing to teach what they

know to others.

When these principles are applied, they insure that whatever structures

are developed by different movement groups will be controlled by and

responsible to the group. The group of people in positions of authority will

be diffuse, flexible, open, and temporary. They will not be in such an

easy position to institutionalize their power because ultimate decisions

will be made by the group at large. The group will have the power to

determine who shall exercise authority within it.

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122 Rev. 06/13/2016

Oberlin Social and Recreational Options Allen Memorial Art Museum Founded in 1917, the Museum is recognized today as one of the five best college and university art museums in the United States. The collection features old master and 19th-century paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts, as well as Modern and Contemporary works. It is free to the public. Visit the website for more information, including hours: http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/ Apollo Theater The Apollo is Oberlin’s historic single screen movie theater, open since 1913, and screens a range of first-run movies at a reasonable price: http://new.oberlin.edu/apollo/ The Arboretum Often referred to as “the Arb,” the Arboretum is a 60-acre nature preserve that is a short walk from south campus, and enjoyed by both the town and College. Firelands Association for the Visual Arts (FAVA) Fava is an independent, nonprofit arts organization that features rotating exhibitions and community activities in their space in downtown Oberlin. Visit their website for information about exhibits, hours and special events: http://www.favagallery.org/ Gingko Gallery & Studio, & Community Action to Save Strays (CATSS) The back of this downtown art gallery houses a kitten rescue operation, where students often pitch in to provide attention to sheltered kittens. Hales Annex This building houses the Pool Room and Oberlin College Lanes, Northeast Ohio’s only bowling center that is alcohol free. There is no cost to use the Pool Room, but the bowling alley requires a nominal fee. Visit the website for hours and rates. Hales Annex website (note the Cat in the Cream Coffeehouse will be closed during the Foresight Prep program): http://new.oberlin.edu/student-life/get-out-and-do/hales-annex.dot Oberlin College Lanes: http://www.oberlin.edu/bowling/main.html Oberlin Heritage Center This museum complex includes three beautifully preserved historic sites: The Monroe House (1866), Jewett House (1884) and Schoolhouse (1836), where you can learn more about Oberlin’s crucial role as part of the Underground Railroad, and its history of abolitionism, women’s activism and scientific discovery. Building tours are $6. Visit the website for additional information, including schedules: http://www.oberlinheritagecenter.org/


123 Rev. 06/13/2016

Oberlin Summer Theater Festival The Festival presents free productions of meaningful theater classics. A full performance schedule is available at the festival’s website: http://www.oberlinsummertheaterfestival.com/ Philips Recreation Center The Jesse Philips Physical Education Center is a 115,000-square-foot facility. Its gymnasium is used for basketball, volleyball, and intramural and recreational activities. Other facilities in Philips include a climbing wall and bouldering cave; Carr Pool; weight eooms containing Cybex Strength and Universal weight training machines, as well as free weights, a heavy bag, speed bags, and stretching room; and six racquetball and nine squash courts, two of which are set up for table tennis and one for indoor golf. The John W. Heisman Club Field House is linked to Philips, and includes a six-lane 200-meter track and four tennis courts. The facility will be available to Foresight Prep students throughout the program (see “Break Hours” on the website): http://www.goyeo.com/news/2008/7/13/Rec_0713082942.aspx?path=rc#


124 Rev. 06/13/2016

Community Guidelines Use the space below to note and continually modify the group’s collective agreements for maintaining an inclusive and respectful living space and classroom:


125 Rev. 06/13/2016

RATA Contact Information Emergency Phone (always in possession of RATA on duty) (312) 802-1144 Max Herzog (314) 359-7319 [email protected] Skyler Davis (248) 227-0238 [email protected] Rachel Young (270) 996-7745 [email protected]

OBERLIN COLLEGE CAMPUS 1 Allen Memorial Art Museum and Art Building 2 Allencroft (Russian House) 3 Apollo Theatre 4 Asia House (Quadrangle) 5 Bailey (French House) 6 Baldwin Cottage 7 Barnard House 8 Barrows Hall 9 Bookstore10 Bosworth Hall11 Burton Hall12 Carnegie Building13 Conservatory of Music14 Cox Admin. Building15 Creative Writing16 Dascomb Hall17 Daub House (Bonner Center)18 East Hall19 Fairchild House20 Finney Chapel21 Hales (College Lanes, Cat in the Cream)22 Hall Annex23 Hall Auditorium24 Harkness House25 Harvey (Spanish House) 26 Hotel at Oberlin & Gateway Center27 International House 28 Johnson House (Hebrew Heritage House)29 Kade (German House)30 Robert L. Kahn Hall31 Keep Cottage32 King Building33 Knowlton Athletics Complex34 Bertram & Judith Kohl Building35 Langston Hall (North)36 AJ Lewis Center & Annex (Environmental Studies)37 Lewis Center (for Women and Transgender People)38 Lewis House (Ombuds & Multifaith Resource Center)39 Lord-Saunders (Afrikan Heritage House)40 Mudd Center (Main Library)41 Noah Hall 42 Old Barrows43 Peters Hall44 Philips Phys. Ed. Center45 President’s House46 Price (Third World House)47 Rice Hall48 Safety & Security49 Science Center50 Severance Hall51 South Hall52 Stevenson Hall53 Talcott Hall54 Union Street Housing55 Ward Alumni Center56 Warner Center57 Wilder Hall (Student Union)58 Wright Lab of Physics59 Zechiel House

TAPPAN SQUARE

TO ATHLETIC FIELDS

OBERLIN ARBORETUM

College Admissions

Conservatory Admissions

Memorial Arch

Bandstand

North Quad

Science Quad

Wilder Bowl

TO CHARLES MARTIN HALL HOUSE, SHANSI HOUSE, AND TANK HALL

TO SERVICE BLDG, STUDENT HEALTH,

COMMUNICATIONS, COUNSELING CTR

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future of cities syllabus 2016

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