“Blue Turf Thinking” Going Green
Opinion article
Born in Moscow, Idaho, I grew up a Vandal. With a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Idaho, I then turned to what was once the dark side: I now possess a shiny Masters of Public Health from Boise State University. Let’s all accept that rivalry has long since expired.
I cherished my time at Boise State, studying health broadly with concurrent opportunities to pursue interdisciplinary interests. I met my current partner, solidified my career aspirations, and cultivated a newfound community to go along with those up north. I embraced “Blue Turf Thinking,” while also pondering how this mindset can and must progress for future challenges.
The irony of the term resides in this: we should all be doing more “green” thinking. In this time of political divisiveness, one would be hard-pressed—and more than a bit foolish—to search for consensus regarding the predominant challenge facing society today. Poverty and inequality; water scarcity; wars and military conflicts; human rights violations; gender equality; misuse of artificial intelligence; pandemics–so it goes. In my opinion, climate change (and the resulting social inequalities) is the greatest issue today. I say this, as we know climate change disproportionately impacts the poorest people and countries. Addressing climate change simultaneously aids those most in need.
Sustainability: “Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” – United Nations Brundtland Commission, 1987
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) is the organization which governs the STARS report. STARS stands for “Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System,” and is a “transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance”. The year 2021 was the first time Boise State University submitted to the STARS system, earning a Silver rating and a current ranking of 4th among up-to-date Mountain West Conference universities.
Meanwhile, Boise State created the School of the Environment in 2022, providing interdisciplinary and experiential learning related to environmental issues facing communities in Idaho, our nation, and the world. Boise State also operates a Sustainability Governance Council, aimed at achieving Sustainability Action Plan goals. These goals include a new LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified residence hall, increased geothermal energy use, and others. Boise State’s Green Lab Certification helps research and academic labs across campus reduce energy, water, and material waste, and each year during Earth Week, Campus Sustainability hosts daily events in celebration of our providing planet.
In my last semester at Boise State, I became involved with research related to Sustainability Across the Curriculum: the effort to create sustainability-focused courses or embed sustainability topics within existing courses. It’s voluntary on the part of professors, but would ideally include faculty ranging from English to Health Sciences to Innovation and Design, and everywhere in between. Gone are the days that we can hope to tackle climate change merely from the fields of energy and environmental studies. And this preparation is paramount, as jobs related to sustainability are opening across nearly all industries.
Higher education is a place for critical thinking and problem solving, preparing students to become productive citizens, capable of addressing society’s greatest challenges. Boise State certainly does that, but can go even further. To address any specific challenge, one must be exposed to learning about the problem AND potential solutions. This is exactly what Sustainability Across the Curriculum is designed to do. In order to tackle climate change here in Boise and the Treasure Valley, Blue Turf Thinking must go green.
“And that is what a rapidly changing, wicked world demands—conceptual reasoning skills that can connect new ideas and work across contexts.” – Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World