Hometown Heroes: Our Students

Ithaca, NY. Cornell University. Ezra Cornell, the great, great, great grandson of the Ezra Cornell who was the founder of the University, describes it as “the first truly American university, rich in traditions of learning, teaching, service and doing the right things for the right reasons.” Have you seen the Santa Monica City Hall posters with the motto “we do the right thing right”? Perhaps a Cornellian, who made their way to Santa Monica, brought their motto to us? It expresses a Santa Monica spirit and it is one we share with Cornell University.

I made my way through winter airports to give a talk on Civil Rights at the Alice Cook House at Cornell in celebration of Black History Month. The campus was covered with snow. In stark relief in the snowy landscape, Gothic and neoclassical architecture co-exist with the modernism of the I.M. Pei designed Art Museum, the Richard Meier (a Cornell graduate) designed Life Sciences Center, and the, under construction, Rem Koolhaus designed addition to the Architecture School.

As I met and talked with students, I thought of the first Ezra Cornell: Senator, Farmer, Carpenter, Telegraph Investor, Quaker, and of his commitment to “Any Person, Any Study.” The university was inaugurated on October 7, 1868, with an enrollment of 412 men. Two years later, Cornell admitted women students, the first to do so among what came to be known as the Ivy League. Today, in 2010, walking the campus, you see a visual testament to the success of the school’s commitment to its inclusionary ideals.

Associate Provost Doris Davis has been a key to this success. “Policies that support our mission include our need-blind admissions policy that ensures that a student’s financial circumstances are not taken into consideration when we review a student’s application for admission. We award financial aid to student based on one factor, and one factor alone: because they need it. These admissions and financial aid policies have allowed us to be successful in enrolling students who are academically talented and from all racial/ethnic, geographic and religious backgrounds.”

Thinking about today’s students and his own student days, Professore Ross Brann says, “Our students now are far more diverse than back in the day and that alone is all for the good; they are arguably smarter and certainly savvier than we were. If at times they appear to be jaded and cynical, they inhabit a world that is surely more complex than ours was and the deep interconnections between political, economic and media elites has its way of discouraging activism. And yet…I encounter so many students committed to various forms of social change. It is heartening to observe them readying to become leaders in education, service, non-governmental organizations and more.”

Brother and sister graduates from New Roads School, Sammy and Ruby Perlmutter, along with Samohi and Crossroads students, are among the Santa Monicans at Cornell. Sammy, an editor at the independent student paper, the Cornell Sun, talks about his personal expression of his political views and principles. "Personally, beyond frequent discussions with friends and intellectual conversations in classes, I express my opinions through my writing at The Sun. This has helped to forge my own viewpoints and also become highly critical of all political talk and policy."

A historic Cornell venue for the expression of political talk, philosophy and ideas is the Sage Chapel. The non-sectarian Chapel has a mosaic mural behind the altar paying homage to the nine muses of arts and science and to Plato’s philosopher king. New to the Chapel is a stained glass window honoring the civil rights martyrs, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Schwerner was a Cornellian.

I stood on the bridge over Cascadilla Creek at one of Cornell’s famous Gorges and thought of the first woman Architecture graduate in the 1880’s, Michael Schwerner in the 1960’s, and the students I had met. Water still ran in the icicle-covered gorge. I felt a bond with past and future students from knowing we shared the inspiration of this natural beauty and the knowledge of the values and ideals of the University, carefully carried throughout succeeding generations.

Ezra Cornell states, “President Lincoln was born in 1809 and my great, great, great grandfather was born in 1807. He supported Lincoln, was a Republican and attended Lincoln's inauguration. Both men recognized the challenges of their day and were determined to make a difference that would benefit the nation.” I believe the students I’ve met, in Santa Monica and at Cornell, share that determination.

What Say You? Paul Hawken and Arianna Huffington

“Our time is either the end of civilization or the transformation of civilization. We are at risk, but the risk we take in not changing is worse than the risk in changing.” So believes Paul Hawken, economist, businessman, and environmental guru. He spoke persuasively, part professor and part preacher, before a capacity crowd of, mostly, business professionals at the Sustainable Industries Forum in Santa Monica.

In what he described as a speech in three acts, Hawken’s first act was one of certain doom, the second act had the good guys down but not out, and the third act closes the play with hope for the future. “For hope to be hopeful it has to be pragmatic. It has to pass a sobriety test and walk a straight line to reality.”

Hawken notes that we now accept the reality of climate change but still throw billions of dollars into oil as an energy source when oil is a finite resource being used at a pace that’s unsustainable. “The sun is a 100% renewable energy source and supplies all the energy we could ever need, but we don’t know yet how to access and distribute it We are an accumulative society. Our consumption patterns are growing in logarithms. We will prevail only by capping the energy we use and by changing to 80% solar/wind.

“We are borrowing money from the future and using it to steal from the future. No reason we couldn’t borrow from the future to benefit the future,” said Hawken. “I don’t care about who you voted for I care if you care about your children.”

In his latest book, Blessed Unrest, Hawken talks about the unprecedented and uncounted global growth of NGOs. “NGOs and business have a bias for innovation and they drive change.” Hawken promises, “when they come together as allies in sustainability they are unstoppable. Nature always makes allies. It draws in. Nature is our greatest design teacher and our greatest ally.”

Hawken shared the stage with media star Arianna Huffington, author, journalist and co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post. Huffington said, “The Media is obsessed with the idea that every issue has two sides and that truth is always somewhere in the middle. But that is often just wrong. The world is not flat. It is not a little flat and little round. It is round. There is only one correct answer.”

Huffington also identifies Washington as part of the problem, saying, “Everything we are talking about today is representing the future, but Washington is about the past and present. Detroit wanted Washington to protect them from the future. Detroit won in Washington but they ended up in bankruptcy because what they fought so hard for was in their short-term interest only.”

Huffington shares the Hawken view of Act 1 as doom, getting to fathom the depth of the environmental threat. She sees us as being in Act 2, suffering disappointments and setbacks but having some triumphs and gaining allies. Finally, she is optimistic that the environmental movement, when it reaches a critical mass, “ a number infinitely smaller than everybody,” will bring us to Act 3. “When we do our part 100%, grace is extended to us.”

What Say You? Will you, are you, doing your part to reach ‘critical mass”?

http://www.sustainableindustries.com/forums/82393332.html will get you to the event video