Michael Magazine is helping Fordham become its greenest self.
A sophomore at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, Magazine spent last fall interning with Fordham’s Office of Sustainability. His work included collecting data that the University will use to establish a framework to measure its sustainability performance.
He said his work not only helped him learn how to encourage sustainable practices, it also gave him the chance to make Fordham more sustainable.
“Part of being in a community of people that you come to know, and you come to care about, is also wanting to see it improve,” he said.
“So a lot of my perspective going into this internship has been ‘What ways can I improve the Fordham of tomorrow?’”
This Is My Community
Magazine’s interest in sustainability and climate issues also circles back to another community: his hometown of East Flatbush, Brooklyn. He lives there with his family and commutes to the Lincoln Center campus.
According to government statistics, the neighborhood’s lack of cooling infrastructure makes its citizens more vulnerable to climate-change-related heat waves than anywhere else in NYC, making the issue of sustainability very personal to him.
Along with several siblings, he’s part of his family’s first generation to attend college. The ability to major in environmental studies is what drew him to Fordham.
“When the neighborhood has any sort of disaster that can be enhanced by climate change, we feel it very hard,” he said.
“I live here. These are my neighbors, this is my community. I don’t want to see East Flatbush turn to charcoal in 2030 or 2050.”
Peeking Under the Hood
Magazine had participated in climate justice-related activities in high school, so when he learned about the Office of Sustainability’s internship program, he jumped at the chance to join the program along with 25 other undergraduate students.
Along with several other interns, he was asked to help the office gather data to fill out a framework known as STARS (Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System). It was developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and is colloquially known as AASHE STARS. Institutions can earn AASHE ratings based on everything from sustainability-related courses to water usage.
There are 372 colleges and universities with AASHE STARS ratings ranging from bronze to platinum. Fordham will soon submit the data necessary to gain a rating as well.
For AASHE STARS, Magazine gathered data related to the University’s investments. Activists have long advocated that institutions that embrace climate change mitigation policies should reconsider supporting the fossil fuel industry through their endowments; at Fordham, President Tania Tetlow announced that Fordham’s Board of Trustees had created an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, comprising students, faculty, administrators, and alumni, to discuss issues around ethical investments.
Magazine compared the experience to peeking under the hood of a car to see how the engine works.
“This was my first instance of being able to work in policy from inside the house instead of outside of it,” he said, noting that it deepened his understanding of the ways a large institution functions.
Improving the Fordham of Tomorrow
Gathering data and synthesizing it into a form that can be submitted for AASHE STAR consideration was somewhat tedious, but Magazine said it was worth it.
His takeaway is that Fordham is moving in the right direction when it comes to sustainability. In addition to embracing renewable energy and working with local communities to help them deal with climate change, establishing benchmarks such as an AASHE STAR rating moves the University toward a greener future.
“Even though things move slowly, they’re going to keep moving. They’re not going to stop,” he said.
“That it is something that we can work on, and we’ll reach the point where we get to that destination.”
