By Jonathan Hiser
Politicians, professors and students rallied across the nation last Thursday in the largest campus teach-in in U.S. history. At UP, performances, fairs and 27 sessions took aim at issues from campus sustainability to international trash dumps. More than 1,700 national institutions participated in a Focus the Nation movement to discuss global climate change and its possible solutions.
"Students are basically recognizing this as their generational issue and I love that," said Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, who presented during the session on "Global Warming, the Impact on Oregon, and How to Take Action" in the Buckley Center Auditorium.
About 1,200 UP students attended the sessions spread across campus. Some professors canceled classes to give students a chance to attend, others offered class credit for attending and other students went of their own accord.
Theology major Mathew Cuda chose to attend a session on social welfare and climate change at 8:10 a.m. rather than sleep in. Cuda said he liked seeing professors from various fields bring their respective insights together to solve global issues.
"If you only have environmentalists and scientists looking at it, you're not going to change a lot of these paradigms," Cuda said.
A dozen students from De La Salle North Catholic High School attended the event to gather ideas for their own fledgling environmental club they started this year.
"We're just trying to get ideas and learn more about the environment so we can do our job at our school better," said De La Salle student Tiffany Owen.
UP alumna Jane Emrick said she was excited to see students motivated and united on a national issue. Having attended UP in what she called a lull between the Women's Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, Emrick was excited to finally be caught up in a campus movement.
"You can feel the passion building," Emrick said. "I just think it's great to see the turnout and motivation of the students. It really is a success."
The day-long event culminated in a roundtable question and answer session at the Chiles Center. Nearly 2,000 people registered for entry tickets, over half of which were UP students.
Titled "Green Democracy," the panel included students from nine Oregon colleges, Governor Ted Kulongoski, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon Sen. Ben Westlund and Oregon House Chair of Energy and Environment Jackie Dingfelder.
ASUP President David Gregg served as the UP representative on a panel of college students from around the area. Panelists took turns addressing questions to Kulongoski, Blumenauer, Westlund and Dingfelder.
Gregg asked the panel how Oregon could reduce reliance on car travel.
"Just go on I-5 anytime of day and it's a catastrophe between Portland and Vancouver," Gregg later said in an interview. "It's worse than Seattle."
Gregg thought the panel discussion was a good first step in instigating policy change, but admitted that the politicians answers left something to be desired.
"(As) typical politicians, they danced around the questions and gave answers that were steeped in rhetoric," Gregg said. "I think we started a good dialogue, but we need to keep pushing for change."
Bradbury said he was impressed by the turnout, noting that his goal is to get as many people as possible to recognize that climate change isn't "a little inconvenience."
"This is a real issue that we all need to address both in terms of our politics and our personal actions," Bradbury said.
International graduate student Khalid Alkalali said he was moved by Bradbury's presentation to do what he can to help.
"Some people think global warming is a hoax, but these violent weather changes are connected to it," Alkalali said.
Education major sophomore Jalah Reid attended sessions between classes. Reid said educating future generations is key to a college experience. Feeling that a lot of the older people in her community are "set in their ways," Reid said it's up to the younger generation to make an impact.
"We can take this (information) home to our own families because there are definitely things I'd like to tell my parents and grandparents about," Reid said.
Global Warming Outreach Coordinator Suzanne Casaus noted that students can find themselves in a unique position, becoming the spokesperson on environmental issues in their families and amongst their friends back home.
"I'd say 50 percent of the students here have parents that think this is a bunch of rubbish," Casaus said. "But that's what's really exciting to me about the university level: There's a hunger for knowledge."
Co-founder of Sokol Blosser Winery, Susan Sokol Blosser ended her keynote address encouraging students to change their perspectives of what is sustainable.
"Change only happens when a system is in crisis. You can either rise to the issue or succumb," Blosser said. "The issue for you is global warming. Go for it."
Anna Walters contributed ?to this report.
