ENGL 428- ESOL Tests & MeasurementsI. Course Objectives.docx

ENGL 428- ESOL Tests & Measurements
I. Course Objectives:
As indicated by the title, this course examines language
assessments in TESOL. Course contents is intended to provide a
practical and comprehensive overview of the different phases
and activities involved in developing and implementing sound,
rational, and effective language assessment instruments and
activities. Specifically, the initial segment of the course will
emphasize an integrated approach to educating limited English
proficiency (LEP) students, which encompasses social,
cognitive, academic as well as linguistic dimensions and how to
better assess the language instruction needs of ESL/EFL
students.
The second part of the course will focus on the practical
applications of fundamental assessment principles, as well as
development and evaluation of teacher-generated instruments
for placement and diagnosis. The approach to this segment of
the course will reflect the shift that has recently occurred in
approaches to language testing in response to developments in
language teaching, i.e., recognition of the importance of
context, purposiveness, and realistic discourse in testing. Class
time will focus on both integrative as well as communicative
approaches by presenting various principles for guiding either
practicing and prospective teachers through an assessment
process mindful of standards-based instruction (e.g., dictation,
cloze summary, oral interview, role-plays, portfolio assessment
techniques) for 2L teaching at various levels.
Topics to be examined during the course include:
innovative means of assessing reading ability, standards and
performance outcomes, evaluating writing, computers in
assessment, as well as computer-based tests. Particular attention

will be given to discussing the issue of placement, evaluation
and research in TESOL. The course content will cover an
extensive range of practices and approaches, thorough treatment
of the evaluating of the reliability and validity of measures, and
a variety of techniques available that may fit a variety of
measurement contexts.
The main goal of this course is to assist practicing or
prospective teachers to learn how to do a variety of testing
types well. It has been noted in the literature on this subject
that, ‘bad or mediocre testing is common,’ this is particularly so
in the case of LEP students. Through this course we aim to
provide a theoretical and practical foundation that will steer
teachers away from the path leading to bad or mediocre
decisions that eventually affect their students’ lives. Specific
instructional objectives are:
1. To demonstrate understanding of fundamental concepts
(‘principles’) of 2L learning and assessment through daily class
discussion and varied written assignments.
2. To develop a comprehensive understanding of the
theoretical, historical and empirical foundations of ESL
assessment, particularly to serve as the basis for the
development and selection of testing instruments sensitive to
the learners’ language and content area needs and expectations.
3. To read, become aware of, and critically review relevant
research literature on areas pertinent to this topic while
developing a clear understanding of the implications to be
derived from sound, un-biased, valid assessments tailored to
meet the specific needs of LEP children, including critically
evaluating appropriate electronic resources.
4. To be able to make inferences applicable to testing in
the content areas as well as testing content through a second

language and reflect on valid applications of 2L theory to
assessment options via completion of an activity journal.
5. To acquire fundamental knowledge needed to make
program-level decisions (e.g., admissions, proficiency,
placement) as well as classroom-level decisions (e.g.,
diagnostic or achievement testing), including evaluating
quantitatively/ qualitatively appropriate content area materials
for a diverse classroom population as indicated through daily
class participation, completion of written assignments, and a
PowerPoint presentation.
6. To develop and demonstrate sensitivity to the
background, needs, and expectations of a culturally and
linguistically diverse (or pluralistic) student population and
take these into account in determining and developing suitable
assessment alternatives as exemplified in field observation
reports and a sample assessment.
7. To identify, adapt, or create viable assessment
instruments for ESL students in order to accurately determine
students’ reading achievement, identify patterns of oral and
reading comprehension and make recommendations for
classroom and special services, and articulate sound support for
selected evaluative choices in daily discussions, journal entries,
written assignments, sample assessment, PowerPoint
presentation.
8. To examine and evaluate the English Proficiency Exam
(e.g., IPT) and/or High School Proficiency Exam (among
others) for the state of Maryland and consider some of the
implications of such measure for LEP students and conduct Web
searches to collect assessment data on schools.
9. To aptly convey and manipulate assessment
information through spreadsheets or databases in order to

analyze student performance and make use of web searches and
library research to explore topics, align assessment with
curricular standards and locate specific information on ELL
populations that can then be used in preparation, selection and
administration of viable assessment alternatives addressed via
class discussions, journal, etc.
10. To write a reflective journal that includes a sample of
their work in class plus a narrative that explains how it shows
candidate mastery of one or more course objectives, how and
why they can integrate some aspect of the course into their
teaching practice, and to develop a rationale as to how their
work meets national professional standards.
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Instructions for Spring 2014 Freshman Composition Final
Examination Readings
Place your name on this packet of readings you download from
the Writing Program website.
You will return them to your instructor after you have finished
writing the final essay
examination.

No class time will be allotted for discussion of the readings, but
you may, if you wish, discuss
them outside of class with your classmates or other students
enrolled in your freshman
composition class.
Bring this packet with you to the final exam. You will use
information from these sources to
support your thesis. You may underline, highlight, and annotate
the readings.
You may also bring a dictionary and your Little Seagull
Handbook. However, you may not bring
thesis statements, outlines, prewriting, or drafts in any form to
exam.
If you use MLA documentation style to credit your sources,
bring the pre-printed Works Cited
page you downloaded with your reading packet and, when you
have finished writing, place the
page in the Blue Book in which you have written your final
draft.
If you use APA documentation style to credit your sources,
bring the pre-printed References

page you downloaded with your reading packet and, when you
have finished writing, place the
page in the Blue Book in which you have written your final
draft.
For Writing Program essays, MLA or APA are the only two
acceptable documentation styles.
For the final essay exam, you will need two large-sized Blue
Books. These are available at the
bookstore. (If you have large handwriting, you may need a third
Blue Book.) On the front cover
of each book, write your name, your WRC course and section
number, the date of your final, and
your professor’s name. Turn in both Blue Books to your
professor before the final. You may use
only Blue Books in which to write the final. On the day of the
final, your professor will return
the Blue Books to you so you can use them for the final essay.
At the final, use one book for
your prewriting and the other for your final draft. You will turn
in both at the end of the final,
along with the prompt.

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Sustainability is about more than recycling at top colleges
By Monika Joshi
One Indiana school is not only drilling its students on
academics, but it's also drilling holes in its campus to tap
geothermal
energy. A Vermont college is into burning wood chips as a way
to save money.
What they share is a passion for environmental sustainability —
operating in a way that uses renewable fuels and tries to
save money in the process. Interest in sustainability is
particularly strong on college campuses.
Princeton Review, in partnership with the U.S. Green Building
Council, is out this week with its 2012 Guide to 322 Green
Colleges and finds in a separate survey that 68% of more than
7,000 college applicants told them that a college's commitment
to the
environment would play a role in their decision to apply to or
attend that school. The guide can be downloaded at princeton -
review.com.green-guide or
centerforgreenschools.org/greenguide.
Further, the number of projects on campuses that have earned
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
certification, a testament to their environmental attributes, has
surpassed the total number of colleges.
"Universities are spending a good amount of time assessing

each of their buildings and determining how they're being
utilized and which should be prioritized for an energy-efficient
upgrade," says Jaime Van Mourik, director of higher education
at the
Center for Green Schools at the non-profit Green Building
Council, which runs the LEED program.
Here's a look at a handful of colleges that have gone the extra
mile in sustainability:
Ball State University, Muncie, Ind.
This university is going deep in its sustainability efforts —
quite literally. The school is in the process of creating the
world's
largest closed geothermal energy system.
Such a system uses the natural temperature of the earth
hundreds of feet below ground to help in heating and cooling
objects at the surface.
Ball State has constructed a system that pumps water 400 feet
below the ground, where it reaches equilibrium with the
temperature at that depth and then gets circulated back to the
surface.
Thus far, the university has drilled about 1,800 boreholes
around campus, and the system is providing cooling to the
entire
campus and heating to about half. In March, construction for the
project entered the final phase. When fully implemented, the
project will allow the university to cut its carbon emissions
almost in half and save about $2 million in annual operating
costs.
Butte College, Oroville, Calif.
The Northern California school touts that it is now "grid

positive," generating more energy than it consumes. In a project
that began in 2005, a total of 25,000 solar arrays have been
installed mostly at its main college campus. The arrays occupy
space not
only on rooftops but in parking lots and walkways as well.
"When we say that number, the campus community is surprised
because (the arrays) are not obvious," says Butte College
President Kimberly Perry. "They've been incorporated into the
design and culture of the campus, and I think that's the beauty
of it."
Chatham University, Pittsburgh
When the Eden Hall Foundation gifted Chatham University 388
acres of farmland in 2008, the university decided to create
an entire campus dedicated to sustainability. The Eden Hall
Campus, about 20 miles north of the main Chatham campus,
houses an
organic garden and greenhouse with research and teaching plots.
Though only a handful of classes are currently held on the Eden
Campus, it is expected to become a residential campus
within the next three to five years, according to David
Hassenzahl, dean of the university's school of sustainability and
the
environment.
"We plan to do everything out in the open and demonstrate to
people how to live more sustainably," Hassenzahl says.
Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt.
In an effort to reduce emissions, this liberal arts college turned
to using biomass, energy from plant material, as a source of
fuel. The institute's biomass gasification plant, located at the

center of campus, provides heating to the buildings on campus.
On an average day, two to three truckloads of wood chips are
delivered to the campus from within 75 miles. At the plant,
chips are heated to high temperatures with low oxygen,
eventually releasing wood gas. This gas is fed into a boiler,
producing steam
that is then circulated throughout the campus as a source of
heat. In addition, the steam turns turbines, generating 20% of
the
campus' electricity.
"When students make the connection between turning up the
heat in their room and trees getting cut down to provide the
heat, it's a whole new perspective for them," says Jack Byrne,
director of the university's sustainability integration office.
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How green is your campus?
By Amanda Leigh Mascarelli
Universities are working to bring sustainability to their
campuses and classrooms, and could serve as a model for other
institutions looking to go carbon-neutral. But there’s no single
way to grade the initiatives.
On a typically muggy day in late August, some 1,300 incoming

freshmen and their parents gathered for orientation
weekend at Emory University, near downtown Atlanta, Georgia.
Here, in the heart of the conservative Deep South, the students
received their first lesson of the school year. They were served
food that was locally or sustainably produced, which they ate
with
cutlery made from sugar cane. And they were handed reusable
water bottles and compact fluorescent light bulbs, which they
tot ed
around in reusable grocery bags. Over the two days of
orientation, the school composted nearly two tonnes of waste,
making it
Emory’s first near-zero-waste freshman orientation. “From the
first time the students interact with Emory, we try to make it
clear
that sustainability is part of our DNA, that this is our
expectation from them,” says Ciannat Howett, director of the
university’s office
of sustainability initiatives.
Emory is part of a wave of colleges and universities throughout
the United States and across the globe that are going
‘green’. “We’ve gotten into this situation where we have an
unsustainable environmental future because we’ve produced all
kinds of
really smart people that don’t get it,” says Michael Crow,
president of Arizona State University in Tempe. Crow is also
chair of the
American College & University Presidents’ Climate
Commitment, through which some 650 US educational
institutions have pledged
to become “climate neutral”. Nearly 400 of them are now facing
a 15 September deadline to submit their detailed ‘climate action
plans’ for achieving their goals.
Measuring up

Such schools also hope to serve as models for others, including
businesses, cities and counties, that hope to reduce their
environmental impacts. But their experiences underscore the
fact that sustainability can be hard to measure and that attaining
it,
especially with competing financial pressures, doesn’t happen
overnight.
More than 300 of the first signatories to the climate
commitment have submitted greenhouse-gas inventories,
which tally
electricity use, heating and cooling of buildings, transportation
to and from campus, and official air travel. Climate action plans
are
step two. So far, about 80% of the signatories have reported on
time and are in good standing with the initiative, says Anthony
Cortese, president of the Boston-based non-profit organization
Second Nature, which helps run the initiative. He expects 90%
fulfillment by the beginning of the 2010–11 school year. Still,
institutions set their own timetables for achieving climate
neutrality,
and there is no penalty if they fall short, aside from peer
pressure by other members.
To quantify their greenhouse-gas reductions and efficiency
gains, most schools rely on standardized emissions inventories,
such as the Campus Carbon Calculator provided by Clean Air–
Cool Planet, a non-profit group based in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire.
In some cases, institutions have their own environmental
engineers or energy analysts who keep track of carbon
accounting, with
others engaging students through their coursework. In addtion,
the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher
Education, based in Lexington, Kentucky, has developed a

system to help schools track their progress over time. Since
February
2008, some 70 schools have piloted that system; it will
officially launch in January, and its online reporting tool will be
available to all
campuses.
But it is difficult to find a universal system of ranking or
grading sustainability, because schools grapple with different
challenges, says David Oxtoby, president of Pomona College in
Claremont, California. Whereas schools in the American West
focus
heavily on water conservation, for instance, many in New
England are homing in on finding more centralized, lower-
carbon
alternatives for heating their buildings year-round.
Emissions gains
Some of the early starters have already made major advances in
shrinking their carbon footprints and improving efficiency.
Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, is building a
combined heat-and-power plant that will supply 85% of heating
to the
campus and run on renewable biomass such as locally sourced
wood chips. Green Mountain’s student enrolment has risen by
14%
since 2007, but its carbon emissions per student have decreased
by nearly 20%.
Meanwhile, the University of Minnesota, Morris, has
constructed a large-scale wind- research turbine that supplies
power
to most of its buildings. And in 2008, Middlebury College in
Vermont completed a biomass gasification plant, which is
expected to
replace 3.8 million litres of heating oil. Harvard University has

more than 60 green building projects in progress. One of its
building
renovations, completed in 2008, resulted in a 35% improvement
in energy efficiency and a 40% reduction in water use, says
Heather
Henriksen, the university’s sustainability director.
And if the 51 institutions in one study succeed in going carbon-
neutral, that would be equivalent to taking 690,000 cars off
the roads, says Jason Pearlman of the consulting firm
Sightlines, based in Guilford, Connecticut.
Some early skeptics, who once worried about universities trying
to ‘greenwash’ their reputations with minor institutional
adjustments, are now convinced. Dave Newport, director of the
Environmental Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder,
says
that several years ago he was dubious about whether
universities would really take a leading role in sustainability.
“Campus
4
leadership has really stepped up” since then, he says, “and the
effort is nothing short of full speed ahead.”
Many US schools have committed to meeting Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, set out by
the US Green Building Council. In 2001, Emory built the first
LEED-certified building in the south- east, a biomedical
research
building, and in 2005 it became the first US university to attain
LEED certification for an existing building when it renovated
its

business school, a $95,000 project that paid for itself in less
than a year through reduced energy bills, says Howett.
Institutions elsewhere are also jumping onboard. A junior
college in Puerto Rico and a community college in the Republic
of
Palau have signed the climate commitment. Six educational
institutions have also recently joined the Climate Neutral
Network, led
by the United Nations Environment Programme, with the
mission of helping society reach a low- or zero- carbon future.
They include
Tongji University in Shanghai, China, which has been
implementing building upgrades and energy-saving projects. In
2006, it saved
about 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and reduced its
carbon dioxide emissions by 9,200 tonnes, according to the
university’s
vice-president Chen Xiaolong. And in 2008, he says, it installed
a system to perform real-time monitoring of energy
consumption in
some 300 buildings across four campuses.
In southern Spain, Malaga University is installing solar panels
that will produce a mega- watt of energy to power the
campus, along with geothermal energy and a trigeneration
power plant to convert waste heat into power. The university
aims to
eventually meet all of its energy needs through renewable
energy, according to Rafael Morales, a university vice-rector
and head of
its sustainability programme.
In Britain, the University of the West of England in Bristol
expects to have 100% of electricity on its academic sites
coming

from renewable sources by 1 October. From 2006 to 2007, the
university cut its carbon emissions by 23%, says James
Longhurst, an
environmental scientist there. “We’re on a journey,” he says. “I
don’t think any of us are certain that we’ll ever arrive, but
we’re on a
journey towards being more sustainable.”
In the United States, some of the most aggressive schools in the
campus sustainability movement, such as Emory and
Harvard, have chosen not to sign the presidents’ climate
commitment. In part, that’s because many are skeptical of the
commitment’s focus on a zero-carbon goal. Reaching carbon
neutrality will require schools to buy offsets, which are often
criticized
because they allow a polluter to pay a fee to support a green
activity to ‘offset’ the polluter’s carbon transgressions.
“There’s no way
to become carbon neutral without buying offsets,
mathematically,” says Pearlman.
Buying offsets is still a fairly new and unregulated practice, so
some are concerned that it could take the place of more
meaning- ful emissions cuts. “Until it’s better regulated, we
didn’t feel comfortable that we could say we knew exactly
where every
dollar of that was going,” says Emory’s Howett. But Cortese
contends that over time, as schools make larger investments in
green
technologies and find better ways to cut carbon, fewer offsets
will be necessary.
Model institutions
Many schools also see themselves as a test bed for green living
from which communities and cities can learn. In Atlanta, a

city notorious for traffic congestion and poor air quality, Emory
is setting aside more than half of its campus as protected green
space, working to create a bike culture, and providing
incentives for its employees to ride buses powered by used
cooking oil from
its campus cafeterias. Harvard has developed a $12-million
revolving loan fund for sustainability projects, which doles out
up to
$500,000 per project. Within just a few years, the work has
saved nearly $4 million annually and some 25,000 tonnes of
carbon
dioxide equivalent, says Henriksen. She says she has fielded
calls from foundations and corporations and spoken to city
managers
who are thinking of setting up similar loan funds. And in 2007,
Middlebury completed a renovation of its Franklin
Environmental
Center, housed in an 1870s farmhouse near the centre of the
campus, as a model of sustainable design for those who want to
go
green while retaining the character of the region’s architecture.
Institutions do not seem to be shying away from their
commitments, despite the current financial downturn. Paul
Fonteyn,
president of Green Mountain College, says the school’s new
biomass-fuelled plant will save $250,000–300,000 per year in
heating
costs. “I don’t see how you can afford not to do this kind of
activity,” he says. Amy Johns, an environmental analyst at
Williams
College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, agrees. Although the
financial belt-tightening has made some projects more
challenging,
she says, “a lot of them do have a pretty solid payback, so even
in the hard financial times they can be pretty appealing”.

Jack Byrne, director of the sustainability integration office at
Middlebury, says that the recession is driving his school to find
more efficient ways to accomplish its green goals. “The one
thing that has been clear in all of this is that sustainability is a
core
value,” he says. “We’re just going to be looking for more
effective and efficient ways to do it with fewer people.”
The Roots of Sustainability
By Glenn M. Ricketts
Sustainability and Higher Education
Sustainability was born outside of the academy, but
environmentalism paved a relatively smooth way in. The social
activism
5
of the 1960s was institutionalized by the 1990s, and the sorts of
people who would have raised skeptical questions about a
movement founded on apocalyptic visions and ideological
enthusiasms had either retired or been marginalized. The new
academy
could only raise one series of questions to any new supplicant:
Will you respect diversity? Will you accommodate the
sensitivities of
identity groups? Will you join in a view of the world that treats
the basic narrative of society as a struggle between oppressors
and

the oppressed?
Sustainability came to the table with the right answers. But
while the environmentalist movement had already joined the
team by
melding with ecofeminism, the environmental justice
movement, and a tangle of alliances with other grievance
groups,
sustainability did not immediately become a major campus
movement. That took some serious effort by determined
advocates.
In 1990, Teresa Heinz, then married to Republican senator John
Heinz, met Massachusetts Democratic senator John Kerry
at an Earth Day rally. The Widow Heinz met Senator Kerry
again at the Earth Summit in 1992, and during the ensuing
courtship in
1993 they co-founded Second Nature: Education for
Sustainability, a non-profit organization dedicated to making
sustainability a key
feature of American higher education.
Second Nature had (and still has) a strikingly narrow focus. It
would advance sustainability not
by winning over students, not by funding faculty research, but
by converting the campus leadership. With a focus on “senior
college
and university leaders,” Second Nature placed itself, ironically,
in the tradition of Christian missionaries who evangelized the
chiefs,
confident that they would in turn force everyone else to heel.
Moving outward from university leaders, Second Nature evoked
the familiar environmentalist image that everything is
connected with everything else. In the end, the community

would convert:
We believe that in order for society to move in a sustainable
direction, higher education must develop a framework in which
the
sector and individual institutions operate as fully integrated
communities that teach, research, and model social and
ecological
sustainability.
In common with Marxist, feminist, Afrocentrist, and
multiculturalist antecedents, Second Nature views sustainability
as
central to the entire academic enterprise, rather than as
compartmentalized within a single discipline or department:
Our work toward this vision embraces interdisciplinary learning
and includes the community as a whole. By reinforcing the
concept that the educational experience of all students must be
aligned with the principles of sustainability, we help ensure that
the
content of learning embraces interdisciplinary systems thinking
to address environmentally sustainable action on local, regional
and
global scales over short, medium and inter-generational time
periods.
With relatively little public visibility, Second Nature has
gradually secured the support of senior administrators and other
academics through a series of conferences, seminars, and
international gatherings that promote its vision of sustainability.
Its most
signal success is undoubtedly the American College and
University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. Signatories—now
more than
650 college and university presidents, representing about a third
of American college students—have committed their respective

institutions to political, social, and educational activism, often
at significant expense, in immediately addressing the
“challenge” of
climate change:
We, the undersigned presidents and chancellors of colleges and
universities, are deeply concerned about the
unprecedented scale and speed of global warming and its
potential for large-scale, adverse health, social, economic and
ecological
effects. We recognize the scientific consensus that global
warming is real and is largely being caused by humans. We
further
recognize the need to reduce the global emission of greenhouse
gases by 80% by mid-century at the latest, in order to avert the
worst impacts of global warming and to reestablish the more
stable climatic conditions that have made human progress over
the last
10,000 years possible.
A college president’s commitment to sustainability virtually
assures that academic deans, support staff, and department
chairmen will do likewise. Newly-hired junior faculty members
will also eagerly queue up, understandably believing that
support for
“sustainability” will enhance “professional development” and
bolster their prospects of gaining tenure or promotion. They
will also
pass the good word to their students.
Beyond the tentatively informed enthusiasm of college and
university presidents, the sustainability movement has been
buoyed and promoted by the torrent of publications that has
appeared since the Brundtland report. Typically, these works
view
higher education as the critical agent in service of the massive

social, economic, and ideological reorientation necessary to
ensure
the “survival” of humanity and life on Earth. One of the earliest
and most influential campus proponents of sustainability,
Oberlin
College environmental studies professor David Orr, sees the
reform of higher education as paramount to sustainability’s
success.
Reflecting the once marginal tenets of deep ecology, Orr fixes
the wellsprings of ecological distress at the conceptual level:
The crisis we face is first and foremost one of mind, perception,
and values. It is an educational challenge. More of the same
kind of education can only make things worse. This is not an
argument against education but rather an argument for the kind
o f
education that prepares people for livelihoods suited to a planet
with a biosphere that operates by the laws of ecology and
thermodynamics.
Echoing the ideas of Arne Naess and other deep ecologists (as
well as Afrocentrists, feminists, and post-colonialists), Orr
accuses the Western philosophical tradition, especially the
seventeenth-century scientific revolution, of providing the basis
for
devaluing nature and making mankind its master rather than one
constituent part among The Whole.
The catastrophic consequences of this mindset require
comprehensive social, economic, and political reorganization, a
task Orr
6
assigns to higher education. Those who are “educated,” in Orr’s

view, must stabilize world population, cut greenhouse gases,
grow
forests, conserve soils, use energy-efficient materials and solar
energy, eliminate waste, and pretty much undo “200 years of
industrialization.”
It doesn’t stop there. With Orr, we encounter the feature of
sustainability that distinguishes it from the earlier forms of
environmentalism: the triumvirate established via the merger
with economic redistribution and social justice. So, along with
undoing
the Industrial Revolution, Orr also charges this educated elite
with overcoming “social and racial inequities.”
Orr has successors, among them Andres R. Edwards, who
explicates sustainability as the “holistic” approach entailing the
Three E’s: “ecology/environment, economy/employment and
equity/equality.”
The Three E’s, however, must be addressed as a
single entity, a “revolution of interconnections,” once again
invoking the master trope of the environmentalist movement,
Commoner’s mystic “everything is connected to everything
else.” Edwards declares:
The Sustainability Revolution provides a vital new approach to
tackling the issues confronting the world today. By taking a
comprehensive look at the interconnections among ecological,
economic and equity issues ranging from global warming to
pollution, health and poverty, we are more likely to seek and
implement lasting solutions.The Sustainability Revolution
marks the
emergence of a new social ethos emphasizing the web of
relationships that link the challenges we currently face.

The “web of relationships” encompasses an apparently limitless
range of political and social issues, all of which, in
Edwards’s view, fit neatly under the “sustainability” umbrella:
Sustainability encompasses a wide array of issues including:
conservation, globalization, socially responsible investing,
corporate reform, ecoliteracy, climate change, human rights,
population growth, health, biodiversity, labor rights, social and
environmental justice, local currency, conflict resolution,
women’s rights, public policy, trade and organic farming. These
issues cross
national boundaries, socioeconomic sectors and political
systems, touching every facet of society and driven by life-
affirming values
that influence policies and initiatives at the local, regional,
national and international levels.
This synthesis, of course, has now become axiomatic to the
intellectual supporters of sustainability. It purports to state a
self-evident social and biological truth. But is it true?
Discovering connections between apparently unrelated
phenomena is surely one of the keys to scientific discovery, but
also
to literature, art, and religion. We are, as humans, deeply
oriented to seeking out patterns, and uncovering ways in which
the
universe fits together is among our most satisfying
accomplishments. Such discovery often requires, however, that
we first break
things down to their underlying components. Simply asserting
that everything exists in a “web of relationships” doesn’t get us
very
far and may well impede the search for real connections.
“Everything is connected to everything else” isn’t science or
philosophy. It

is a declaration of faith. Sometimes the important thing is the
discovery of non-relations. Magical spells don’t make it rain.
The evil
eye doesn’t cause sterility. Childhood vaccines don’t cause
autism. Some connections, no matter the grip they have on our
imaginations, aren’t real. Is it possible that carbon emissions
don’t cause global warming? When we hear such declarations
from
people grounded in the “everything is connected to everything
else” approach to inquiry, we ought to approach the hypothesis
warily.
Orr and Edwards, as leading and typical spokesmen for
sustainability, also recall Charles A. Reich’s Greening of
America,
that archetypal 1960s text invoking a new kind of knowledge
one would gain through a vague, holistic “consciousness.” Like
his
contemporary Herbert Marcuse, Reich established the
“interconnections” between American consumer capitalism and
all existing
social evils by simple assertion. He believed this not because of
compelling evidence, but as matter of “insight,” and convinced
those
disposed to believe, almost as a matter of faith.
The sustainability movement proceeds in the same mysterious
way, asserting a comprehensive theoretical understanding
of the world, but rarely checking its propositions against the
facts, and often furious when anyone dares to look beyond the
conclusions to the supposed data. The movement espouses a
peculiarly potent distillate of political and religious enthusiasm,
even
in precincts one might think would resist any rush to judgment.
Within sustainability, “modeling” typically trumps evidence—
models

being infinitely adjustable and never actually falsifiable.
The late Michael Crichton observed tellingly that:
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World
is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the
religion of choice for urban atheists....Increasingly, it seems
facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism
are all
about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or
saved. Whether you are going to be to be one of the people on
the
side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going
to be one of us or one of them.
Physicist Freeman Dyson, a professed environmentalist but also
a skeptic with regard to global warming, recently lamented
the shrill intolerance and crude contempt directed toward
dissenters like himself and MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen
by
mainstream academic and scientific societies, for whom they
have become apostates:
The United Kingdom has made up its mind and takes the view
that any individuals who disagree with government policy
should be ignored. This dogmatic tone is also adopted by the
Royal Society, the British equivalent of the US National
Academy of
Sciences....In other words, if you disagree with the majority
opinion about global warming, you are an enemy of science.
Like Crichton, Dyson attributes this puzzling hostility to the
fact that environmentalism has evolved into a new and fervent
religion:

7
There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call
environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth,
that
despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious
living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as
frugally as
possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to
children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the
world.
Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular
religion.
Thus, Dyson concludes, even though the impact of
environmentalism had been highly salutary and the movement
unquestionably “[held] the moral high ground,” the detached,
scientific evaluation of global warming had been seriously
impeded by
the fact that some members of the environmental movement
have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global
warming
is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one
reason why the arguments about global warming have become
so
bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe
that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warmin
g is
an enemy of the environment.
Crichton and Dyson speak of the “environmental movement,”
but their words apply even more aptly to sustainability.
What exactly is the difference? Environmentalism focused on
the environment and went in search of how environmental
issues

connected to other matters of concern to social activists.
Sustainability simply assumes all those connections and reduces
environmental issues to one leg of a three-legged stool. The
credo of sustainability is that the earth, humanity, and life itself
will be
extinguished by human greed and folly unless we truly repent.
Reducing your carbon footprint is not enough. We must also
submit
to new structures of authority in which those who possess the
wisdom of “interconnectedness” will make the right decisions
for us.
We must relinquish capitalism, with its endless need for
consumption and growth. We must reorder human society to rid
ourselves
of the age-old scourges of hierarchy, racism, and sexism.
Sustainability can put on different hats at different times,
sounding as if it is sternly scientific at one moment, enchanted
with mystical unities the next, and down in the street fighting
for social justice and cut-rate mortgages the moment after that.
Like
most ideologies, it can be amorphous when it is tactically useful
to its proponents to blur the issues. But it does have core ideas,
and
“interconnectedness” writ large is the most important of these.
From its origins in the intellectual contortions of the 1960s,
sustainability has emerged as the newest missionary ideology
within higher educational institutions in the United States. With
an ever-expanding conceptual reach and touting the authority of
“science,” its influence is manifest in every aspect of campus
life. It embodies the omnipresent sense of emergency long
characteristic of environmentalism and the aggressive
intellectual imperialism of the 1960s, and confers an automatic
aura of moral
obligation and concomitant moral superiority. Sustainability

provides, to borrow Robert Conquest’s term, “The Idea”—the
thing, the
system, the beliefs that encompass and explain everything—
pursued by secularized intellectuals of the West since the late
eighteenth century.
And it is now ascendant in academic institutions that have long
since been transformed into citadels of
ideological indoctrination, postmodernism, and political
correctness.
8
9
***

23
24
25
26
Are Colleges Greenwashing?
By Chelsea Jones
When I began my undergraduate education years ago, the
concept of sustainability was not wide-spread or such a buzz
word as it is today. Now an increasing number of colleges and

universities are publicizing themselves as “sustainable”
campuses. But given that there are numerous opinions of what
defines sustainability, what do institutions really mean by these
claims? Are campuses becoming guilty of greenwashing or are
they truly embracing sustainable initiatives that are reflective of
the
school’s values? If the former, should there be any
governmental oversight of this behavior?
Greenwashing is defined as “disinformation disseminated by
an organization so as to present an environmentally
responsible public image.” It is typically associated with
businesses who want to portray their products and/or practices
as
environmentally friendly, but either the “green” claims of the
product are misleading or the business as a whole is
incompatible with
sustainable ideals. For example, Wal-Mart announced in 2005
that it would incorporate sustainability into its corporate
strategy. The company has since stated that it is working on a
goal to be supplied by 100% renewable energy and promised in
2010
to double its selection of “local” produce in stores from 4.5% to
9% within six years. As of 2011 less than 2% of Wal-Mart’s
electricity consumption in the U.S. comes from renewable
energy. It would take the company 300 years with this current
pace to
reach its 100% renewable energy goal. Additionally, Wal-Mart
defines “local” as within the same state, meaning fruit grown
around
San Francisco, California could be labeled “local” in San Diego,
California. These two initiatives heavily marketed by Wal-Mart
are
not in reality that sustainable and are very misleading. Before
Wal-Mart announced its sustainability campaign, 38% of
Americans
reported having an unfavorable view of the company – a peak

for Wal-Mart. As of 2010 that number dropped by almost half
to
20%. Its revenue has increased nearly 35% from 2005 to 2010
without changing much else of its business model or practices –
from
$312 billion to $419 billion. That is the power of
greenwashing.
Are colleges trying to benefit from greenwashing as well? A
company starts to engage in greenwashing when its practices
“don’t match up to the image they would like to have.”
Theoretically, colleges could behave in this way as well – in
order to attract
more students or to obtain higher rankings, they may try to
“green” their image without making any firm commitment to
doing
so. In April 2012, the Michigan State University (MSU) Board
of Trustees adopted the “Energy Transition Plan (ETP),”
declaring that
MSU plans to have its energy needs met by 100% renewable
energy and that it aims to be a leader in sustainability.
Interestingly,
MSU has the nation’s largest on-campus coal-burning power
plant (the T.B. Simon Power Plant) and it burns 250,000 tons of
coal
each year. MSU’s power plant was named by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January 2012 as the
25th biggest
polluter in Michigan. In 2008, MSU was fined $27,000 by the
EPA for high priority violations of excess sulfur dioxide
emissions and
nitrogen oxide emissions by the power plant. Could MSU be
trying to combat this negative environmental image by touting
lofty
and unlikely to be realized sustainability goals? A group of its
students think so. They claim that MSU is engaging in

greenwashing
by highly publicizing the ETP with its 100% renewable energy
goal when it does not set a timeline to close the power
plant. According to the ETP, the campus currently gets less
than 2% of its power from renewable energy. The ETP presents
a goal to
have 40% of the campus’ energy be produced by renewable
energy sources by 2030.
So is MSU actively engaging in greenwashing? While MSU’s
ETP presents a schedule for increasing renewable energy use,
unlike Wal-Mart, the timeline is still only tentative. MSU is
not bound by this plan and it is subject to review and revision
every five
years according to the ETP. It also appears that it will take at
least several decades before MSU will near its proclaimed goal
of 100%
of its energy be from renewable energy sources. To be fair,
MSU has to start somewhere and it is unrealistic to expect them
to
reach their 100% renewable energy goal within the next few
years. According to MSU’s President, Mary Sue Coleman, the
University
has embraced sustainability:
“With the pressing challenge of climate change, we are
elevating our emphasis on sustainability at Michigan. From
teaching
and research, to hands-on engagement, we are going to leverage
our many strengths so we can make significant contributions to
solving a genuinely complicated problem.”
However, the problem with greenwashing is that the perpetrator
is portraying itself as something it is not. Simply
publicizing that the university is committed to sustainability
and has a plan to be run by 100% renewable energy could make

it
appear to the average person that this goal will be attainable in
the near future, when in reality it will not. Operating under the
ETP
is arguably contradictory when the view out of most campus
classrooms is the nation’s largest campus coal power plant.
Surprisingly, MSU received a B+ on the College Sustainability
Report Card (CSRC) in 2011. The CSRC is an independent
evaluator of campus and endowment sustainability activities in
colleges and universities and seeks to encourage sustainable
initiatives on campuses in nine categories. Shockingly, MSU’s
score in the Climate Change & Energy category was an A. One
possible
explanation is that the information gathered to evaluate each
school is done on a voluntary reporting basis where CSRC sends
each
school several surveys to complete. The CSRC gives a brief
explanation for MSU’s A rating, stating that MSU decreased its
green
house gas emissions by 7% and is committed to a 15% reduction
by 2015. But this seems to pale in comparison to what other
schools have been doing (e.g. Carleton College has installed its
second campus wind-turbine and the turbines can meet
approximately 40% of the campus’ annual electricity demand).
The arbitrariness of various sustainability rankings has left
many
schools frustrated. If you look for a more detailed explanation
for this grade in the survey that MSU completed, the CSRC
notes that
27
MSU requested that this data be kept private – unlike most

schools. Perhaps MSU’s self-reporting is not incredibly reliable
or maybe
it successfully overemphasizes certain areas while downplaying
negatives such as its coal power plant and thus escapes a lower
score.
Is there a solution for this potential greenwashing abuse by
higher-education institutions? Supposedly independent ranking
systems are providing the necessary evaluations of a school’s
sustainability commitment, but they seem to be falling short.
The
Federal Trade Commission has released a revised set of “Green
Guides.” Its goal is to provide marketing principles to help
companies avoid making misleading environmental claims.
According to §260.1, the Green Guides apply to “claims about
the
environmental attributes of a product, package, or service in
connection with the marketing, offering for sale, or sale of such
item or
service to individuals.” Schools are selling an education to
students, which is a service so perhaps the Green Guides should
apply to
them as well. Maybe they technically already do but no one has
yet to challenge them in this area. Apparently a school’s
commitment to sustainability is important to some students as
many are “flocking” to schools that incorporate sustainability
into
their programs in hopes of gaining an edge in the “green collar”
job sector. Given that a group of MSU’s students are angry
over its
alleged greenwashing, there may be other groups harboring the
same feelings against their alma maters. I personally would not
be
surprised to see a greenwashing complaint filed with the FTC
against a university in the near future.

Introduction to StopGreenwash.org
These days, green is the new black. Corporations are falling all
over themselves to demonstrate to current and
potential customers that they are not only ecologically
conscious, but also environmentally correct.
Some businesses are genuinely committed to making the world a
better, greener place. But for far too many others,
environmentalism is little more than a convenient slogan. Buy
our products, they say, and you will end global warming,
improve air
quality, and save the oceans. At best, such statements stretch
the truth; at worst, they help conceal corporate behavior that is
environmentally harmful by any standard.
The average citizen is finding it more and more difficult to tell
the difference between those companies genuinely dedicated
to making a difference and those that are using a green curtain
to conceal dark motives. Consumers are constantly bombarded b
y
corporate campaigns touting green goals, programs, and
accomplishments. Even when corporations voluntarily
strengthen their
record on the environment, they often use multi-million dollar
advertising campaigns to exaggerate these minor improvements
as
major achievements.
Sometimes, not even the intentions are genuine. Some

companies, when forced by legislation or a court decision to
improve their environmental track record, promote the resulting
changes as if they had taken the step voluntarily. And at the
same
time that many corporations are touting their new green image
(and their CEOs are giving lectures on corporate ecological
ethic s),
their lobbyists are working night and day in Washington to gut
environmental protections.
All this - and more - is what Greenpeace calls greenwashing -
the cynical use of environmental themes to whitewash corporate
misbehavior. The term was coined around 1990 when some of
America's worst polluters (including DuPont, Chevron, Bechtel,
the
American Nuclear Society, and the Society of Plastics Industry)
tried to pass themselves off as eco-friendly at a trade fair taking
place
in Washington, DC.
But make no mistake: corporations were using greenwashing
long before that trade fair took place, and have not hesitated
to use it ever since. As the public's (and the media's)
environmental awareness has grown, so too has the
sophistication of corporate
public relations strategies. If companies had spent as much time
and money improving their core business practices as they have
spent making themselves look green, they might have made a
real difference.
Greenpeace wants corporations to talk the talk, but not if they
are merely cynically using such rhetoric to conceal their utter
failure
to walk the walk. We believe that corporations must play a
central, essential role in helping to solve the world's
environmental
challenges. We believe they can do so by ending their
destructive policies and by waking up to the economic benefits

of
environmentally sustainable practices and products.
In that spirit, we call on companies to stop portraying baby
steps on the environment as giant strides. When an oil company
invests in wind or solar power, every little bit helps. But we
need more than "little bits" to solve global warming, halt
deforestation,
prevent the destruction of the oceans, and end the proliferation
of toxic chemicals. As long as half-measures are sold as full
solutions, corporate actions, no matter how sincere, will be
nothing more than a more sophisticated form of greenwashing.
28
References
Alshuwaikhat, H. M., & Abubakar, I. (2008). An integrated
approach to achieving campus sustainability:
Assessment of the current campus environmental management
practices. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 16(16), 1777-1785.
Breen, S. D. (2010). The mixed political blessing of campus
sustainability. PS: Political Science and
Politics, 43(4), 685-690.
Brinkhurst, M. R., P., Maurice, G., & Ackerman, J.D. (2011).

Achieving campus sustainability: Top-down,
bottom-up, or neither? International Journal of Sustainability in
Higher Education, 12(4), 338-
354.
Finlay, J. & Massey, J. (2012). Eco-campus: Applying the
ecocity model to develop green university and
college campuses. International Journal of Sustainability in
Higher Education, 13(2), 150-165.
Introduction to stopgreenwash.org (n.d.), Retrieved from
http://stopgreenwash.org/introduction
Jones, C. (Dec. 6, 2013). Are colleges greenwashing?
Sustainability Law at Lewis and Clark Law School,
Retrieved from http://sustainabilityandlaw.com/2013/12/06/are-
colleges-greenwashing-by-
chelsea-jones/
Joshi, M. (April 19, 2012). Sustainability is about more than
recycling at top colleges. USA Today.
Mascarelli, A. (2009). How green is your campus? Nature,
461(7261), 154-155. doi:10.1038/461154a
Ricketts, G. M. (2010). The roots of sustainability. Academic
Questions, 23(1), 20-53. doi:
10.1007/s12129-009-9151-5

29
Works Cited
Alshuwaikhat, Habib M., and Ismaila Abubakar. "An Integrated
Approach to Achieving Campus
Sustainability: Assessment of the Current Campus
Environmental Management
Practices." Journal of Cleaner Production 16.16 (2008): 1777-
85. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Breen, Sheryl D. "The Mixed Political Blessing of Campus
Sustainability." Political Science and
Politics 43.4 (2010): 685-90. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Brinkhurst, Marena et al. "Achieving Campus Sustainability:
Top-Down, Bottom-Up, Or
neither?" International Journal of Sustainability in Higher
Education 12.4 (2011): 338-54.
Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Finlay, Jessica and Jennifer Massey. "Eco-Campus: Applying
the Eco-city Model to Develop
Green University and College Campuses." International Journal
of Sustainability in

Higher Education, 13.2 (2012): 150-65. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
“Introduction to StopGreenwash.org.” stopgreenwash.org.
Greenpeace, n.d. Web. 17 Apr 2014.
Jones, Chelsea. “Are Colleges Greenwashing?” Sustainability
Law at Lewis & Clark Law School.
Sustainability Law, 6 Dec 2013. Web. 17 Apr 2014.
Joshi, Monika. "Sustainability is about more than recycling at
top colleges." USA Today April 19,
2014. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Mascarelli, Amanda Leigh. "How Green Is Your Campus?"
Nature 461.7261 (2009): 154-155.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Ricketts, Glenn M. "The Roots of Sustainability." Academic
Questions 23.1 (2010): 20-53. Web. 5
Mar. 2014.

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