Jennifer Wilhelm: Learning Green by Living Green (excerpt from The Exeter Bulletin, Winter 2006)

Wilhelm (left) has introduced a new dorm composting program; here she collects compost from participating dorms with Danele Smith (right) of the facilities management department

When Jennifer Wilhelm describes her role as PEA’s new environmental education fellow as “a dream job,” she isn’t exaggerating. “I thought I was going to have to create this kind of position for myself,” she says, “because it exists in so few places.”

Wilhelm became interested in campus sustainability issues while majoring in environmental studies at Green Mountain College, an environmental liberal arts college in Vermont, and decided to work at the high-school level during grad school at UNH. “There was a lot of focus on environmental education in colleges and universities,” she notes (UNH, for example, has its own Office of Sustainability), as well as programs for elementary and middle schools. What was missing, she felt, were programs for secondary-school students. “A lot of high schools don’t make environmental concerns a priority,” she explains, even though it’s a crucial period in which to educate young adults not only about larger environmental issues, but also the impact of their own behaviors. Exeter, she says, is well ahead of many other schools in this regard—not just because it offered her the job of her dreams, but because it has an institutional commitment to sustainability that spans students and staff, faculty and trustees. Since starting work in September, Wilhelm says she has been “impressed by how high the level of awareness already is.”

Raising that awareness still higher is Wilhelm’s goal for the 2005–06 school year. Together with PEA’s Environmental Task Force, she has introduced several new initiatives, including a dorm composting program, an ambitious food-waste audit in the dining halls, and, coming up later this winter, a month-long interscholastic electricity conservation competition with Lawrenceville and Northfield Mt. Hermon. “They’re all deliberately ‘visible’ programs,” she explains, “that cause people to think about their own practices.” And, occasionally, to grumble. “There was definitely some initial skepticism about the composting, concerns about odors and pests,” she admits. “But most people are open to trying new things, and the program has been going very well.”

Her fundamental goal, Wilhelm says, isn’t simply to open Exonians’ eyes to glories of composting, but to help create a cultural change. “When people first come to Exeter,” she says, “we’re told that when crossing the public streets on campus, we should make a point of smiling and waving at the drivers who’ve stopped to let us pass. After a while, we don’t think about it anymore. It’s just ‘what we do at Exeter.’ I’d like us to be the same way about our environmental practices.”

Read the article in its original form in The Exeter Bulletin, Winter 2006...

Editor's note: since the publication of this article, Wilhelm's title has changed to sustainability coordinator.