Maine Perspective Front Page
Campuswide Programs Planned Around Class Book
The new Class Book promises to challenge students, faculty and staff to consider the role we as consumers play in the destruction of our environment -- and the role we might also play in saving it.
In The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, writer, executive and environmentalist Paul Hawken argues that only by adopting genuine concern for the environment will businesses prosper. By abandoning the traditional, short-sighted fixation with profit in favor of new practices and ethics, he asserts, businesses can help to restore the environment and fulfill their potential mission of improving our lives.
The Ecology of Commerce is the first UMaine Class Book to deal with the environment. In choosing the provocative 1993 bestseller, the selection committee hoped to challenge readers to consider how support of certain products and companies can harm air, water, soil and wildlife.
"It really brings into question the whole idea of how we exchange dollars for goods and how that impacts the environment. We're all in this together, and we need to find a common solution," says Harvey Kail, associate professor of English.
"No one completely agrees with (the book), but it seems to touch so many nerves &endash; so many important themes &endash; that it can't be ignored."
More than 1,000 members of the University community, most of them first-year students taking English composition, will read The Ecology of Commerce. It is the sixth Class Book in what began as a four-year pilot project and has continued as a means for giving students and faculty a common base from which to discuss ideas.
Past Class Books have led to panel discussions, lectures and other events. Thursday, Nov. 20, four faculty members from philosophy, plant systematics, sustainable agriculture and resource economics will address the question, "Can Business Go Green?" The forum is set for 12:30 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall.
In addition, Hawken is scheduled to lecture at UMaine in March, as part of a series of events sponsored by the Class Book Committee and the Continuing Education Division of the UMaine Division of Lifelong Learning.
As in the past, the number of campus departments and organizations involved with the project continues to grow, making the Class Book even more of a common experience.
Campus Living, for instance, has assigned a graduate assistant, Jennifer Hapgood, to coordinate Class Book activities for students living on campus. Popular films with environmental and business themes will be shown monthly on campus cable, which serves the residence halls. For a second year, a conference on the FirstClass electronic mail system also will encourage debate.