GUEST COLUMN: "Time for a fresh start"

Leigh Bauer says it's time for students - and faculty - to start picking up after themselves. Many things have happened since I joined the faculty in 1962. Buildings have been built and landscaped walks have replaced traffic-choked streets. Greater change, however, has occurred in the quantity of litter. Many, though not all, in our community think nothing of littering the classroom, as well as College Green. Several times a year, members of the community go off campus to do good works. They feel good about themselves. They get favorable attention from the media. They help their neighbors. What about the days we are on campus, ignoring as best we can the trash on Locust Walk, the cigarette butts at building entrances and the debris littering the classrooms? My challenge is not to the litterers, but to the rest of us -- to those who don't contribute to the problem, but who don't do anything to improve the campus environment, either. My challenge has as its hypothesis the belief that if each of us picked up several pieces of other people's litter daily, a marked change would result. If each faculty member, with his or her class, pledged that the classroom they entered would be cleaner when they left than when they arrived, a marked change would result. If litterers see others acting in a considerate and responsible manner, unconsciously their own habits would improve and a marked change would result. I hereby pledge to pick up other people's litter every day I am on campus, and to ask my students to do likewise. If enough of us will take this pledge, we can expect to have a campus we can be proud of, instead of one that is embarrassing to show our guests. We can expect favorable coverage from the national media. We can expect a deepened understanding of the fact that the smallest effort, on a daily basis, can change a community. I am available to help in any way I can. I invite you to call me at 898-3020 with ideas on how to combat the litter crisis. If the campus leaders care, we can transform the campus by Thanksgiving. If they don't, the rest of us can do the job for them by then, one piece of paper and can at a time.

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