ColumnWhen your youngest kid goes to college, it’s time to throw out the booster seat.

The female of the species, while expecting her offspring, frequently becomes engrossed in preparing her home for the new addition. This phenomenon, which has been documented in birds, humans, and other mammals, is known as “nesting” and it hits the mom-to-be with a freakish surge of energy, along with an urge to make a comfortable and welcoming spot for her child. Typical nesting behaviors are cleaning, organizing, and badgering one’s mate to assemble a hand-made Italian crib. Nesting may also lead to the irrational purchase of high-end taupe carpeting, which the newborn’s vile and projectile bodily functions will ruin instantly.

What no one prepares you for is what occurs at the other end of the parenting cycle: the infinitely sadder and slower process of de-nesting, which involves preparing your home for the next, child-free stage of life. I am heading into this phase – morosely and entirely against my will. My oldest child has graduated from college, started a career, and left home for good; the youngest is leaving for college in two short months. With this in mind, I have had to face the fact that it’s time for my home to become less child-centered. I have forced myself to de-clutter: to throw out boxes full of soccer cleats, flash cards, and decapitated Barbies. I have admitted, finally, that the old changing table will not really make a good potting bench and I have given it away. And I am feeling a healthy compulsion to take apart the swing set that is quietly rotting in my backyard, long untouched and devoid of all activity, except for a good-sized wasp nest that comes alive every spring.

In the spirit of recycling, I feel like I should pass along all the kids’ toys and artifacts, but there are some things I can’t bear to get rid of. Giving away the red plastic Little Tykes car would feel like saying an irrevocable goodbye to the sleepy toddler who liked to nap in the front seat, one hand holding his bottle and the other holding the steering wheel (this led me to worry that my son, as an adolescent, would have a similar tendency to drink and drive). The oversized rocking chair I used to lull both children to sleep takes up too much room in my basement, but I would part with my spare kidney before I’d give that away.

There are some parts of my house that have matured, organically, over time – my bookshelves used to be crammed full of childcare manuals by Dr. Spock and Penelope Leach, along with Dr. Ferber’s Guide to Solving your Child’s Sleep Problems. Now those shelves are filled with books that have grimly aspirational titles, like Letting Go and Surviving and Thriving in the Empty Nest. I am sure I’ll survive but I’m not so sure about the thriving part. I can’t help feeling that I am being fired without cause from a job I have loved beyond reason.

My husband is a devoted father, but he is protected by a stoic Y chromosome from feeling the same desperate need to hang on to our youngest child. My daughter is seldom home this summer, as she goes out into the world, trying her freedom on for size. While she is out, my husband tries to distract me with movies and dinners and outdoor concerts, but I find myself hanging around the house on the off chance that she will come home and ask me to make her a sandwich. And while I’m at home, I fill albums with baby pictures, and I frame my daughter’s grade school self-portraits, all of which depict a happy girl with a big pink hair bow that I don’t recall her ever actually owning or wearing. I am not de-nesting so much as making my home into a shrine to the kids who have flown the coop.

But I refuse to be a buzzkill. My daughter is overjoyed at the prospect of going to school, and she can’t wait to perform in college plays and study her twin passions of psychology and theater. So I put on a happy face and act like I am not feeling acute despair at the thought of her leaving. And somehow I am pulling it off – my daughter pirouettes happily through her last days at home without seeing any hint of the anguish I work so hard to stifle. She may be the budding theater star, but it seems that I am a pretty good actress as well.

Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: haydnseek

ColumnAs the saying goes, “Girls go to college to get more knowledge,” but do they care if their schools are eco-friendly?

My poor, misguided parents somehow failed to realize that getting me into a decent college was supposed to be their mission in life. In fact, they had practically no involvement at all in my college search, a process which was, by today’s standards, incredibly short and sweet. As a high school senior, I cut school with three friends and visited two colleges in one day. I chose those schools based largely on the fact they didn’t require application essays, and of my two choices, I selected the one that had the most promising male-to-female ratio. I’m pretty sure I spent more time selecting a prom dress than picking my college.

To say that things are different for kids today is a gross understatement. Helicopter parents (like me), now take a scorched earth approach to college applications, and we have all become wily experts in the art of marketing our children to institutions of higher learning. Parents now spend the better part of high school shepherding their offspring through a grueling application process that requires total commitment, massive amounts of time and energy, and a small army of paid professionals (tutors, essay consultants and private college advisors). I have spent the past two years schlepping my daughter to far-flung campuses where we have grinned like obsequious idiots at the perky tour guides who showed us around (A word to the wise: don’t waste your time trying to impress, or bribe, these young tour guides, since they have no say in the admissions process).

I have spent untold hours harassing my child until she fine-tuned her applications, studied for the SATs, and cranked out the gazillionth draft of her personal essay.  And she was on board for all of it, an equal partner in the madness, as she immersed herself in the process of becoming an informed consumer of U.S. universities. My daughter has combed the internet and college catalogs to create stacks of Excel spread sheets, meticulously categorizing schools according to size, location, fraternity life and academics.  But for all her research, my daughter had absolutely no idea where her college choices stood in terms of being green.

This is kind of surprising, given that college guidebooks have started aggressively ranking schools on their environmental profiles, rating them on their use of solar energy panels and the number of recycling bins scattered throughout the campus. Those college guidebooks are my daughter’s bibles, and from them she has learned and retained the tiniest and most obscure details about each school she’s applied to: she can tell you the exact number of undergraduates, the percentage of students who live off campus, and whether or not the school accepts transfer credits. She can describe each school’s personality, recite its mission statement almost verbatim, and tell you if it attracts hipsters, stoners, or meatheads. But when I asked her if she knew the schools’ green ratings, she was stumped, and extremely surprised to learn that she had missed an entire category of college information. Her friends, we would come to learn, were equally ignorant that data on sustainability was readily available in college guide books.

These are not kids who are indifferent to the environment. On the contrary, my daughter is the vice president of her school’s environmental awareness club, and her two best friends are co-presidents. My daughter and her friends recycle religiously and care passionately about global warming.  But there is simply no room in their jam-packed little heads to hold even one more fact about the colleges they are considering. With the economy in a shambles, these kids feel that their future success and happiness depends on being admitted to a “top” college, so they just can’t afford to worry about a school’s commitment to sustainable food sources and low-flush toilets.

Today’s high school seniors crave acceptance to colleges with big names and big endowments, schools that will impress future employers, schools that will give them a high-status decal to slap on their car’s rear window. Ironically, many of those decals will end up on the back of a Toyota Prius, because these kids  genuinely care if their car is environmentally friendly – they just don’t seem to care if their school is.

Image: ilamont.com

Back in the day, finding an environmentally-aware college was a tough assignment, but these days the amount of universities with green programs and sustainable energy or food policies courses are in the hundreds. Ferreting out 10 of our favorites was tough, but having so many awesome colleges to choose from is a great problem to have.

University of Colorado at Boulder (shown above) – CU-Boulder is just about the greenest university you can imagine. It’s got 27 different degree, major, or certification programs related to environmental studies and cranks out more scientific publications on environmental research than any other institution in the nation. Folsom Field, home of the Colorado Buffaloes football team is a zero-waste stadium and the college’s campus-wide recycling program is run by students. This year, the school partnered with Zipcar to encourage ride-sharing and carpooling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Unity College – Wow, students from this college in Maine recently had a meeting with White House staffers to discuss putting solar panels on the Presidential abode. The White House didn’t agree to do it, unfortunately, but these kids get an “A” for effort. Meanwhile, back on campus an Environmental Stewardship Curriculum is built into every student’s education so they graduate prepared for “leadership roles in environmental issues, on levels ranging from local to global.”

College of the Atlantic – Here’s one college cafeteria you’ll enjoy eating in. Almost all the beef it serves is grass-fed and the produce comes from local farms or the campus’ own organic farm. Recently-built student housing is powered by renewable energy and all new construction is built with water-and energy-saving details in mind. The school also runs shuttle to ferry students to back and forth to a nearby town and provides bikes for on-campus use.

Middlebury College – This small liberal arts college in Vermont thinks big when it comes to environmental awareness. Local farmers and on-campus gardens supply food to the cafeteria and wind turbines power the school’s recycling facility. An $11-million biomass plant is being built on the campus so the college can be carbon neutral by 2016, but in the meantime students are keeping busy participating in the Green Finger Project, a viral campaign aimed at raising awareness of the disturbing effects of climate change on the planet.

University of Maryland – The administration at this College Park campus puts their money where their mouth is. Students, faculty, and staff with big ideas that promote on-campus environmental sustainability can apply for money to fund their projects and make them a reality. The school schedules regular presentations and film screenings on everything from climate change to reducing energy use, and sponsors 15 different sustainability-related clubs for students to join.

New York University – NYU is well-known for its arts and drama departments, but it’s got one heck of a sustainability program going on, too. It offers grad and undergrad degrees in subjects like urban planning, environmental health, global affairs, and more. Campus projects include a bike-sharing program, sustainability task force (think Green Police), and an environmental health clinic for students and faculty.

Warren Wilson College – This small college in Asheville, NC takes its impact on the environment very seriously. They’ve got their own Climate Action Plan that serves as a roadmap for the school’s vision of the “practice of sustainability.” Students grow food in the Cow Pie garden (um, yum?), power school-owned vehicles and equipment with biodiesel fuel, and live in eco-friendly dorms. They also design and participate in outreach programs that educate elementary school students and participate in the National Audubon Society Seabird Restoration Program.

University of Oregon – Students at this school have a long list of choices when they’re ready to make a positive impact on the environment. For instance, Project Tomato sends incoming freshman on a four-day bike trip to local farms to harvest tomatoes. They bring their haul back to the dining hall and make about 64 gallons of pizza sauce – enough to serve a week’s worth of pies – all the while learning about sustainable agriculture.

Evergreen State College – This cool school gets huge brownie points for creativity thanks to its Sustainable Prisons Project. Paired with the Washing State Department of Corrections, students help figure out ways to reduce the footprint of prisons through environmental awareness and sustainable practices. On campus, you’ll find a salmon-safe certified organic farm, conservation programs, and study halls outfitted with solar panels.

Arizona State University-Tempe – ASU’s renewable energy policies alone are enough to make this school stand out in the crowd. The campus sports six wind turbines and several buildings are already solar panel-equipped, with more to follow in the next few years. Annual recycling drives let students donate old belongings to charity rather than dump them at the curb at the end of the school year, and the Electric Vehicle Club submits a hybrid race car for the yearly Formula Hybrid Competition in Loudon, NH.

Image: Stuart Yeates

If you’re planning to take the college path – which costs a small fortune these days – why not make it green?

Many business schools are beginning to offer sustainable business classes in their MBA programs, but the number of actual Green MBAs is still relatively small. Additionally, online green MBA programs are being developed and offered by for-profit and non-profit brick and mortar campus schools as well, allowing for a more flexible learning experience. As with most institutions, smaller colleges tend to adapt more readily to changing conditions, but rest assured, these are quality education programs developed for this expanding niche.

The following top five green MBA schools were chosen by their curriculum, innovation and commitment to sustainability in business.

1. Bainbridge Graduate Institute

The The Seattle Times profiled this pioneer in the creation of the Green MBA, one of the first schools to develop and incorporate sustainability into each course within their MBA program, ultimately offering an actual Sustainable MBA. While not a large school, Bainbridge Graduate has turned out successful graduates like Kevin Hagen (class 2005) who is the current director of corporate responsibility at an outdoor equipment retailer.

2. Presidio Graduate School

For those looking to earn a green MBA but want the flexibility to get into public administration or the business world, this is the school for you. Offering an MBA and MPA in Sustainable Management, the Presidio Graduate School also offers dual programs for those who want options, or want to be able to combine the strengths of each specialization into their careers. Amongst the faculty at Presidio are the world-renowned sustainability consultant, Hunter Lovins, and the former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange, Warren Langley.

3. University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business

You will find responsible business practices woven into the core curriculum at the University of Michigan. The distinctive Multidisciplinary Action program (MAP) involves non-profits, developing nations and sustainable enterprise. Community service is another hallmark of this program, as is a partnership with the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the Frederick and Barbara Erb Institute, which focuses on global sustainable enterprise.

4. Stanford University, Graduate School of Business

If the campus is any indication of their sustainable programs, then they are definitely one of the top universities in the U.S. With their campus buildings expected to achieve the highest platinum certification for environmental sustainability, Stanford University has made a commitment to both teaching sustainability and living it. Already know for their environmental consciousness within the socially minded Northern California town of Palo Alto, their business school MBAs are also influenced. The curriculum for just about every class at this business school has a lesson of sustainability, from corruption studies to examining long-term environmental concerns and issues.

5. Yale University School of Management

Already a prestigious business school, many may be surprised to learn how developed and green Yale’s MBA program is. Incorporating partnerships between the Yale Center for Business and the Environment and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, provides a opportunity for research, education, and outreach to advance business solutions to global environmental problems.

The number of schools offering green MBA programs are growing and so is general interest in them. With companies becoming more interested in their own green image, the market for sustainable MBA graduates will only expand as well.

Resources:

A good overview of both online and campus based Green MBA Programs available from top colleges.

Business Week article on the growing popularity of sustainable MBA programs.

An article profiling sustainable degrees offered by northwest colleges from the Seattle Times.

Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking of the top MBA programs for the year 2010.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jean-Paul LaCount, the founder and managing editor of The Chic Ecologist, a sustainable green-living resource.

Image by: urbanlegend

As Harvard seniors prepare to don those prestigious caps and gowns and hear the golden advice of class speaker, Christiane Amanpour, we recall this hopeful image from last year’s commencement when the class flashed a poignant sign of the times: “No Layoffs!” Poor brainiacs. They got duped like the rest of us.

We’ve created a society that assumes securing anything above menial labor requires a $100K degree from a credible school, and many of us have become depleted wage slaves trying to foot the bloated bill or pay back student loans. Yet the growing devaluation of a basic college degree among employers and demand for applicants with work experience spells rejection for hundreds of thousands of graduates entering a softer, less conventional market.

The $40 thousand-a-year college on that resume may look impressive when answering a Craigslist ad, but is no longer a must stop on the road to success. Pulverized financial recruiters like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, which aggressively went after Harvard students in the past, cannot promise a way to recoup that enormous college investment of blood, debt and beers. Besides, the finance sector, which ballooned in the 1980s and 90s, has seen the biggest decline in hiring, along with professional services like accounting and engineering.

The effect has been a decline in interest in these areas. Instead, working in a desired field while earning that degree or a strategic straight shot to grad school are the new directions young people are taking – rather than depending on that pricey degree to get a foot in the door. Others are taking advantage of online education options or cutting higher ed all together to secure the American dream. But can we change our thinking, too?

Rising Tuition and Softer Market

College tuition keeps rising and we keep pressuring students to pay the tab to get through, even weaker ones who might be better served finding other options. Why bother?

In 2008, nearly 70% of all high school students attended college and the total amount of cash loaned went up 18% from the previous year to $81 billion. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the average tuition cost rose 6.5% in the fall of 2009 and two-thirds of students finish college with outstanding loans of which the average debt is $23,200.

While the tuition-loan debt rises, so does the unemployment rate for recent graduates which now stands at a record high of 10.6%. This has prompted more students to seek higher degrees to get started in their careers, figuring they need something extra to check off on an application to be attractive to employers now looking for more.

According to the Harvard Crimson’s Annual Survey, Harvard grads planning to go immediately to graduate school rose from 21 to 25% last year, and will probably rise higher in 2010. Obviously, it also helps if you can distinguish yourself with “real world” work experience you accrued while earning those degrees.

That worldly experience over a watered down degree also might make more sense for a world trying desperately to set the clock back to a greener time, living the way our grandparents lived by drastically reducing consumption and conserving resources.

Certainly, college degrees are necessary for careers in law, medicine and engineering and school offers a stimulating social and intellectual milieu for curious minds and passionate souls. And don’t forget those rites of passage like keg parties with vomiting over balconies and pulling all-nighters aided by Adderall to cram for exams.

But creative students’ time might be better spent on getting a foot in the door of a beneficial area of growth: Organic and bio dynamic farming and cooking; Creative and journalistic web writing and design; Development of renewable, alternative energy.

“You don’t learn that in college, but rather how to become good consumers and get lots of money,” says eco economist Brad Hoyt. “Employers who are employing people in complex, high consumer industries need to become dinosaurs. We need to accept that, and figure a way to do it peacefully and calmly, rather than in a panic once we wake up.”

The green issue surrounding college has us asking if our planet can continue with this system, where hundreds of thousands of people graduate colleges each year focused entirely on recouping investments, and that usually means serving the corporate complex in some way.

Why can’t we afford it? “We need three planets to produce the resources we are producing and there is no end in sight,” observes Hoyt. “The economic recovery is designed around one goal: Getting  people spending again, and the planet cannot afford it anymore.”

So what are the alternatives?

Conservationists point to food, water and energy as our main concerns, and argue young, passionate thinkers can help develop future sustainability methods in these areas, especially by joining research being done on how to move our resources around. We have used oil for the last century to expand our population worldwide. It has allowed us to produce cheap food, surviving with McDonald’s, and to make travel cheap, while locally grown and sustainable organic fare has come at a higher price.

We all know the stories of successful entrepreneurs like Ted Turner who circumvented the expensive college route after getting rejection letters. For our planet, stories like these are a blessing in disguise.

In the green fields, this can include new moving companies with sustainable packaging materials or food trucks delivering healthy fresh produce to dessert communities in large cities forced to feed on trans fats and factory beef. There are prefab house companies (Warren Buffet is investing in them now), fair trade companies to be founded in third world countries and green job recruiters for energy development throughout North America and overseas. There are solar and wind energy training programs to learn about the emerging alternative. The planet is begging for more of this, and students have the energy to devote to a new wave of innovation and industry.

In addition, education and health care are becoming more attractive fields than get-rich jobs, and you don’t need to spend $100k to get a good background in these fields and make yourself employable. Just ask those Harvard grads who spent a fortune or are buried in loans. A high percentage admitted if finances were not a concern “the arts” was a dream field, along with – crucially – public service and education.

Last year, the number of Harvard grads entering the health care field doubled, while a record number- 14 percent – received applications from Teach for America, which has a mission to enlist promising future leaders from all backgrounds to commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools in low-income communities.

Who qualifies for these opportunities?

Teach for America says in addition to college grads, many corps members have been coaches of athletic teams, directors of community organizations and team managers at their work. They show leadership in a variety of areas, not just in school.

While it is true many postings – even from Green Businesses – still say they require a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, it might make sense to seek a cost-effective education at a community college. If you feel you need to go on, you can transfer to a university that offers what you and employers are looking for.

Community colleges: a better deal

Businessweek tells us that while junior colleges once struggled to be viewed as offering other than a second-class education, the reality is that more business students are starting off there to save money while working towards their education and career goals. Some students taking advantage of the two-year jump start say it is such a good deal it is almost a scam to pay more for all four years.

It’s good, green logic when you know that at least half of all students who attend junior colleges do end up transferring to four-year-schools.  As long as society continues to view degrees as requirements, even for skills not cultivated in college, the money-saving approach makes a lot of sense. And when you do choose the four-year or graduate school, opt for one that is more experiential than academic so you can get that practical experience that will make you even more viable.

Images: Anne Oeldorfhirsch, Harvard Education, College View, Green for All

It may have been published a couple of years ago, but Americans are now catching up to the message of Steve and Annette Economides and are eagerly plunking down their pennies for the hot home economics crash course.

The authors of America’s Cheapest Family have done remarkably well feeding their family of seven on just $350 per month, paying off their first house in nine years and purchasing a second, larger home, buying cars with cash, taking nice vacations, and yes, even socking away money in savings.

They’ve done so well, they are hitting the television news circuit including Inside Edition and receiving praised on numerous green websites to teach a fairly clueless nation the ABC’s of creating a comfortable, debt-free life. Forget the Joneses! It’s time to keep up with the Economides.

The couple, who live in Scottsdale, Arizona (a money-driven, rapidly built-up, energy-sucking environ), launched their popular bimonthly newsletter, The Home Economiser, in 2003 and have appeared in Good Housekeeping as well as on National Public Radio and Good Morning America.

Perhaps their message has been somewhat lost until the proverbial s–t hit the fan, sending many of us seeking advice from the successfully frugal among us, the ones who arrogantly yet wisely uttered I told you so as we maxed out our credit cards.

According to publishers marketing this new debtors’ bible:

“You don’t need to be a CPA or a math wizard to learn their revolutionary system, which will teach you:

- hundreds of ways to save money on everyday household expenses, including groceries, clothing, and health care
- how to save in advance for major purchases such as homes, cars, and vacations
- how to stop living paycheck to paycheck
- how to eliminate debt . . . forever!”

Oooh, that sounds good, real good to the masses choosing between lesser evils of selling their homes, getting night jobs that will take them away from their kids, and selling what they can from cars to gold and furniture – anything to stay afloat.

While the Economides’ disciplined road to penny pinching offers a way to avoid those evils, Nature Moms points out some of the methods may not sit well with the green among us, namely buying processed foods in bulk while forgoing more costly fresh fruits and veggies for the last two weeks of the month.

” I think families that eat lots of fresh, raw, whole foods would have a lot of adapting to do but the basic plan is a good one,” says the author of the site. “I would probably feel more comfortable doing bi-monthly shopping expeditions with weekly trips to farmers’ markets for fruits and veggies.”

One of the best chapters deals with clothes shopping and how buying stylish second-hand finds can help you stay within your budget and then some. And in terms of housing costs, they advise paying off your mortgage in less than 10 years.

For some of us the lessons have come a bit late, but not too late to try a new tack.

Images: Pink Sherbet, Amazon, Inside Edition