- The vivid landscapes and still-life paintings of UWW alumna
Mickey Boisvert ’07 embrace sustainable themes. Boisvert’s
work can be seen through May at the UWW offices, and at
www.mickeyboisvert.com.
It used to be that profits sustained a business. They still do. But in a world where consumption far outstrips supply, business leaders are looking for sustainable models. New entrepreneurs understand the bottom line is about the impact a business has on the natural environment and on the people it touches as much as it is about making money.
That’s also the bottom line for a new bachelor’s degree focus in Sustainable Entrepreneurship that the University Without Walls (UWW) program is rolling out this fall.
Gary Bernhard, former director of UWW, sees a demand among students for ideas on how to make a living while being mindful of the fact that what we do as human beings has consequences that go beyond our immediate surroundings and beyond the current generation.
“Sustainability means a lot of different things,”
said Bernhard. “The idea is to create a way of life that is balanced with the resources we have and
the way we consume them.” He studied the growing number of programs and courses across
the nation that illustrate a different definition of what makes a successful business to develop the new area of focus.
It draws on courses from many departments across campus with offerings that fit individual interests, whether they are health, food service, energy conservation, green construction, and anything else around which a new business can be launched. One goal, said Bernhard, is that eventually students who prefer distance learning can put together a degree entirely with online courses.
A model for the type of thinking the UWW degree focus will promote is a general education course on sustainable living that professor John Gerber, in the Department of Plant, Soils, and Insect Sciences, has been teaching since 2005. He started with an enrollment of fewer than 30 and today as many as 300 students pack his lectures. His contribution to the UWW degree focus has to do with the personal choices people make in the way they live and work. “The students coming to my class are looking for the language to talk about the conflicts that they are experiencing in their lives,” said Gerber.
UWW student Micah Camp is now working on a plan to launch an environmentally friendly construction company in Oregon. In the spirit of the new UWW focus area, Camp designed a degree focused on natural building design and construction management. He intends to use the principles of what is now being called the triple bottom line: “It’s about people, planet, and profit,” said Camp, adding that for “entrepreneurs who are interested in progressive, sustainable business practices the future looks bright.”
