Interpretive Studies in Sustainable Development

Connecting Sustainability with Place

Milena Klimek

“A community is not something that you have , like a camcorder or a breakfast nook. No, it is something you do . And you have to do it all the time.” ---Alan Thein Durning

The MN Boundary Waters

Senior Project Proposal:

In pursuing my interests of sustainability, I have considered many definitions and examples. My senior project will reflect a few different definitions as well as create examples for people who may walk a similar path of interests as I. Three angles and examples of sustainability have been of extreme interest to me. Aiding others with the understanding of sustainability, my personal growth and grasp of sustainability, and sustainability within place.

I envision my senior project to be a three-part project. I would like to first compile a sustainability reader containing various chapters or essays concerning sustainability on international and national levels. This reader would be edited by myself, and complete with introductions to the different readings, explaining to the readers why the particular essay was chosen. This would be a literature review of sorts, possibly filled with art and poetry that correspond with the various readings and themes of sustainability. It could eventually be an important resource and asset for both professors and students in the future who are interested in learning more about sustainability and sustainable communities.

Secondly, I will ask and answer the question of “What sustains Milena.” This question is very important to me because I believe that in the answer I will discover new thoughts and ideas and ethics that are important to me. Also, delving into such a question, will enable me to understand the process my life took in order to shape my beliefs and convictions, which I hold today. This is to be a deeply personal section, which I feel is necessary because of my interest in personal connections with education. The question may be answered in photos, music, favorite poems, excerpts from books, and especially with essays written on stories or memories from my life. This third portion of my senior project may fit better in the CIS major's senior portfolio, however I believe that it is important to make a direct connection between my senior project and the motivations behind it. I want to connect my senior project to my web portfolio because I it is essential for me to analyze how my senior project fits into my own life and education. This is evident in my passion for personal experience and connection. I also believe that I must connect my senior project to my web portfolio in order to tie, more effectively, my projects theme of local and global sustainability together, in a personal way.

Lastly, I will take a look at the history and possible future of sustainability in our Northfield community, taking advantage of the grassroots, close-knit community nearby. I will do an over-time approach of the sustainable development within Northfield. I will take a look at how Northfield has grown closer or further away from sustainability in the social, biological, and economic frameworks. I will see what possibilities the future might hold for sustainable growth in Northfield. Corresponding with my growth over four years as a community member of St. Olaf and Northfield, I have become increasingly aware of what place means, and what place means to me. I believe that it is important to be connected in the community that you live in, and to have a sense of place, because of this, learning more about the Northfield community and connecting with the citizens, rich with experience and knowledge, will be wonderful resources for this project. A portion of this project will focus on St. Olaf as I co-teach Campus Ecology with Jim Farrell. This experience will enable me to become familiar with educating others on sustainability and will be useful in interpreting community members of St. Olaf. I will evaluate and research the sustainability of this community by using a different methodology than is predominantly used. I am interested in studying the specific case studies by using an interpretive approach, which would focus less on statistics and reports and more on narratives and interviews.

Logistically speaking, the first semester of my senior year focuses on two of the three prongs of my project. “What Sustains Milena”, and the Sustainability Reader, which will be facilitated by Jim Farrell with check-up appointments with Sheri Breen. The second semester will focus on the sustainability of Northfield and place, where I will be working predominantly with Sheri Breen, as well as co-teaching the Campus Ecology course with Jim Farrell.

This senior project represents a culmination of my personal process of understanding not only sustainability, but my grasp on environmentalism and community as well. My hope is that this project will encompass my education here at St. Olaf, effectively interpret my drive to take my education in my own hands and exude my passion and motivation for doing so. I hope to have a three-pronged project which shows the connections which I have made throughout not only my academic studies but my journey through my personal sustainability and my definition and awareness of place and the community to which it has brought me. I plan to have a diverse understanding in sustainability through my eyes, through others eyes, and way to share those understandings in hopes that others can strive for something similar.

Semester I:

The first semester of this year is dedicated in first establishing a Sustainability Reader to both enable familiarity of sustainability as a term and sustainability as an attainable concept. Sections of the reader may concern topics such as:

--Definitions of sustainability --Economics/business

--Community --Agriculture/food

--Spirituality --Observation/seeing nature

--Water --Electricity

--Technology --Transportation

--Materialism/consumerism --Art

--Globalization --Development

--Ethics/philosophy --Politics

--Education --Local/smaller vs. larger

--Organizations/movements --Place

The reader will include introductions to each chapter, extra quotes, and perhaps relevant poetry and art. The reader will be constructed from books and essays that I have read or will read over the semester, and I am hoping to get specific recommendations from various professors who specialize on certain topics. I will also be focusing on the transformation and construction of my own sustainability, addressing the question of “What sustains Milena”. This will be a compilation of quotes, poems, memories, essays, personal reflections, pictures, music, etc… that have effected me in someway. This section is directly related to my senior web portfolio, which will be an effective way of showing the connections I have stumbled across or have been led to in my education, both here at St. Olaf as well as my entire life. This will also not be an exclusive exercise solely for this semester or year.

I will be predominantly working with Jim Farrell during my semester one, whom I have contact with throughout the week via e-mail and meeting. I will also be “checking-in” with Sheri Breen bi-weekly to update her on my progress and to receive fresh ideas. My ideal goals are to have constructed a physical Sustainability Reader for the use of both faculty and students in the years to come, as well as to have a decent start of my web portfolio including material which answers the question of “What sustains Milena”. Jim will be evaluating this portion of my project based on progress and success of the reader and my personal journey and thoughts through “What sustains Milena”.

Semester II:

The second semester of my senior year will be focusing on The sustainability of my place. Both Northfield and St. Olaf. Sheri Breen has thoughtfully selected three helpful readings to begin this journey focusing on the technique of analysis which I choose to use, an interpretive approach. I would like to focus on the narrative and stories of our lives on campus and in the Northfield community. I want to focus on feeling, emotion and place and what sustainability within such a community means to the various members. This will be done by interview, researching history and reading past articles. This project ties very much with my hands on approach to learning. I will talking with the community members, feeling their passion and zeal, not simply reading it, hoping I have the right tone of voice. I will be visiting businesses or meetings, understanding the grassroots feel of such a community. In short, I will be experiencing.

This portion of my senior project has more developing to undergo, however, I would like to present my interpretations through a public showing of a website. I would like to present this to both St. Olaf and Northfield community members, because we are all members of the same community and place, but with different visions and ideas, some long-term and some short-term. To present this to both communities, simultaneously, would perhaps converge different community and sustainability perspectives. I will need more ideas such as where and when this needs to be presented when second semester rolls around.

I hope that the criteria in which my senior project will be evaluated would include an understood appreciation of the connections between sustainability, both personal and environmental, and place. I would hope that there is a thorough search for the understanding of change and how not only I but others have changed throughout their lives and how that can be applied to sustainability. I hope that my project will both leave the audience questioning their place and role in their community, and projected personal and environmental sustainability and also leave the audience with a place to start answering some of their questions, the sustainability reader. Concretely, I would expect to be evaluated on clarity and achievement of goals, evidence of comprehensive research and analysis, definition and appropriate use of methodology, focused and articulate writing, original field work, and ingenuity and originality. I would suggest to my advisor when attending the Faculty Certification Committee to come with an open, questioning mind, paper and pens to write down comments, and an idea of her own personal sustainability and place, possibly to share.

Web Portfolio:

I have an appointment for next week to begin the process of learning dream weaver, so I feel like I will have a good basis for starting my web portfolio. I may want to put interviews in video or audio sound if possible, but those will be questions I will ask the MDC. I may also need to understand copyrighted/fair use a bit more with both my Sustainability Reader, and certain excerpts to be placed on my web portfolio.