This post is by Cameron Andersen, a Graduate Student Assistant at NYU Special Collections. She is in her final semester of a dual degree program with Long Island University, completing both an MA in Religious Studies at NYU and an MLIS in Archives and Records Management at LIU.

Over the past few weeks, as we approach Earth Day on April 22, NYU’s sustainability messaging has become more and more noticeable. There are emails being sent to inboxes from the Office of Sustainability and immense graphics pasted on building windows urging students to make a difference. All of this verbiage is part of NYU’s 2040 Now initiative, a pledge on the part of the university to go entirely climate neutral by the year 2040. The initiative was initially introduced in 2007 as the Climate Action Plan, and promised to reduce NYU’s emissions by (1) reducing energy intensity, (2), generating and using cleaner energy, (3) generating renewable energy, and (4) reducing or offsetting remaining emissions. The university met its first goal, to reach a 30 percent emissions reduction by 2017, 5 years early in 2012. And the rest of the plan is on-track for 2040, as well.

This university-wide initiative is admirable. New York City and state are certainly forerunners and trend-setters in a global landscape, and we remain hopeful that these steps taken by NYU will be adopted by other schools around the world. But it is crucial to note that NYU’s path toward sustainability has historically been cleared by the students themselves. The student body calls, and the university answers. While NYU 2040 encourages us to look forward, I looked back through our University Archives to get a sense of what kind of environmental work was being done over the past few decades, both by the students and by the administration. What I found was a flux in how both bodies responded to the climate crisis, likely as news about the environment was breaking in the media, as well as a kind of call and response between the students and the university: we wanted action, and they worked to adjust their course offerings to work with us. It is important to note that, while I am thrilled to have found so much in the archives about the conversations between the student body and the university regarding climate activism and the environmental crisis, this is by no means a complete picture. There is likely much missing from the archives, but there was also much to find, and I’ve formed a timeline around what we have here in NYU Special Collections.

The first mention I saw in the archives of any kind of “green” program in place at NYU was in 1970. NYU students had formed an environmental group with Chaplain Rogge of the University Christian Foundation as its faculty head. Rogge sent out offers to many notable environmental activists at the time to come and speak at NYU, and was working on implementing a recycling program at the school.¹ The students themselves were organizing an Earth Day teach-in, at which they would educate their fellow classmates about the environmental crisis happening around them. Also in 1970, NYU was looking to incorporate ecological programs into the course offerings for undergraduate students, and was reaching out to other universities that offered these kinds of programs for their syllabi.²

Earth Matters, 1989-1992; New York University Archives Collection of Publications and Ephemera; MC.334; Box 400; Folder 11; New York University Archives.

Throughout the rest of the 1970s, we can see the courses offered to students that had to do with ecology and the environment increasing in number. These classes were offered in the chemistry, biology, and anthropology departments, and covered the environmental crisis from a very scientific perspective – Environmental Contamination, Behavioral Ecology, Ecological Anthropology, and Man and Nature: An Introduction to the Sciences, to name just a few.³ In 1974, NYU began to offer an Environmental Science minor for undergraduates.. In the late 1970s, then, the university proposed a master’s degree in Environmental Conservation Education which initially was critiqued for not including topics such as fossil fuels, nuclear power, environmental conflict mediation, and the choices of individuals. The proposal committee revised the program according to these recommendations, and it was approved and exists to this day.⁴ In the same decade, NYU also established a graduate program in Environmental Health Sciences in the Graduate School of Arts and Science.⁵ The change of university offerings over the course of this decade is so interesting to observe. It is clear that student-led clubs and groups pre-dated any administrative programs or courses of study, and so it seems that it was student interest in the topic along with faculty support that drove NYU to implement environmental sciences into the curriculum.

In the late 1980s through the 1990s, NYU students interested in sustainability could join Earth Matters, a student organization that published a newsletter and hosted events. From 1989 to 1993, according to their pamphlets, Earth Matters was concerned with wide-ranging topics such as water pollution, the mishandling of the U.S. Forest Service funds, hemp as a substitute for trees in paper-making, indigenous rights, car reduction, deforestation, the negative effects of electromagnetic fields, and eco-feminism.⁶ It seems that this club, and perhaps others like it, offered an outlet to students beyond administrative offerings for those passionate about ecological conservation and other environmental issues.

In the early 2000s, leading up to NYU’s announcement of their Climate Action Plan, the incoming student/Welcome Week programming began to include more and more environmental events for new freshmen and transfer students. Each year between 2000 and 2006, one environmental event was offered such as a recycling program and a gardening workshop.⁷ In 2008, the year after NYU 2040 was initially introduced, an entire “going green” bloc of workshops was offered to incoming students.

Earth Matters, 1989-1992; New York University Archives Collection of Publications and Ephemera; MC.334; Box 400; Folder 11; New York University Archives.

This interplay between student life and NYU administration has only become more prevalent over the years, as the university has incorporated NYU 2040 events in Earth Day week every year. There are countless ways for students to participate in climate action now, from majoring in Environmental Studies to joining a student-led campus club. The students and administration have aligned in the ways they value the environment and in their efforts to boost climate action before it’s too late.

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Notes:

1. Evironmental Crisis; Records of the University Christian Foundation; RG.39.3; Box 24; Folder 6; New York University Archives.
2. Environmental Studies, Ecology 1/70-11/71; Records of the Office of the Chancellor/Executive Vice President (Borowitz); RG.6.0.7; Box 48; Folder 19; New York University Archives.
3. Washington Square University College (1971-1974); New York University Archives Collection of Course Bulletins; MC.286: Box 25, 26; New York University Archives.
4. Environmental Studies Group 1980-1981; Richard C. Lonsdale Papers; RG.26.8; Box 13; Folder 3; New York University Archives.
5. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Bulletin (1976-78); New York University Archives Collection of Course Bulletins; MC.286; Box 38; New York University Archives.
6.  Earth Matters, 1989-1992; New York University Archives Collection of Publications and Ephemera; MC.334; Box 400; Folder 11; New York University Archives.
7. Program Guides 1992-2000, Program Guides 2002-2008; Center for Student Life Records; RG.12.16; Box 1; New York University Archives.