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Profiles of Prescott College Students and Graduates Doing Sustainable Work
Photo by Kevin M. Beyer
On the Path to Sustainability with Terril Shorb
by Terril Shorb
In the autumn of 2008 I visited communities in which my Prescott College Adult Degree Program students (and graduates) live. The students live along the spine of the Rocky Mountains and across the upper Midwest and in New England. The theme of these visits was to talk to students about their life work in sustaining their respective communities. I wrote brief chronicles of these visits and also of thoughts along the way as I glimpsed communities and their regions. So please enjoy these sketches of what others who have graduated from the Sustainable Community Development program are doing in their home communities to help human beings to live more in harmony with each other and with the natural world. Feel free to scroll down to read more the entries in sequence, most recent at bottom.
August 25, 2008
The travels for the upcoming weeks will take us across many different kinds of habitat, from badlands to riparian corridors. We will be moving south to north and then west to east, so this will be an opportunity to explore the land and its effects on people there, and the impacts of people on the land.
September 5, 2008
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, we were surprised to find a Luna Moth sleeping over the door to our motel room. Also present was a tiny golden spider in a web no more than three inches across. We debated moving the spider to spare it the zealous cleaning crew, but decided it was so small no one would notice. Later, we tried to take an evening walk from our motel room and it turned out there is no way to get to walkable areas without treading bravely into a traffic lane along the on-ramp for two blocks and then to veer on to an industrial parking lot and from there into a grassy campus. We passed a former desert wash that is now corseted by manicured green grass banks and outfitted with a tidy concrete bottom. Not exactly original nature, but someone's idea of a carefully choreographed version of natural elements. The dot-com buildings in the industrial park are beautiful examples of modern architecture meant to inspire with much glass and ceramic brick and the like. Still, one wonders what sense of nature people have when they come out of those heavily glass-tinted, air-conditioned designer's showcases and onto the golf-course-like campus. Perhaps the idea is to have something that faintly resembles nature, but without the fuss and muss, otherwise known as living nature in the raw. High point of the evening was to return from the walk in the concrete and turf jungle to find the beautiful Luna Moth yet present. Soon, though, under a darkening desert sky, the moth lifted off into the night in search of nectar somewhere in that vast industrial-glass and grass expanse.
September 8, 2008
Here in northwesten Wyoming the countryside is coping with continued drought, though the creeks and rivers are running at near normal capacity due to decent winter and spring moisture. Here in Dubois local merchants say the tourist-dependent community is doing okay, though visitors are spending less in local shops for souvenirs and other merchandise and more on staples such as food. The local small supermarket has experienced days when tourists buy up things to make their meals while on the go, and some shelves are temporarily nearly bare. Apparently, as people continue to travel, at least from the local perspective, they are doing so in a more savvy way, showing some independence in terms of providing more for themselves. This could be a signal of people getting the message that each of us will have to rely more on our local communities and ourselves as the economy shifts.
A horned lizard in northcentral Wyoming. Shorb photo
September 22, 2008
We celebrate the autumn equinox here in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in Rapid City. This region seems to be weathering the economic storms of recent years, as there is a quiet vitality about the city. I spent the first five years of my life here and my extended family yet ranches south of here. Rapid City is at the ecological balance point of mountains and plains. To the west rise foothills and forested mountains famous for gold and the Mount Rushmore tribute to four of our presidents. Also much in evidence here and south is the presence of the native peoples who inhabited this region and yet remain within their traditional cultures, while striving to balance those traditions with the realities of the European culture that surrounds. Yesterday, as we crossed northeastern Wyoming, the presence of the petroleum re-boom is much in evidence in the form of many gas and oil wells. The economy in places like Gillette is again robust due to the jobs created in the energy extraction industries. The city website says that more than one in ten houses in the city was newly built in the year 2000 alone. Pronghorn (antelope) graze and romp amid the numerous roads and well sites carved into the loping prairie land, and it is not obvious at a passing glance just how much the energy development is affecting creatures and habitats. Many places in the West are again the focus of intense drilling activity as America tries to address its enormous energy appetite. I wish I heard more from the candidates this year about our need to balance energy needs with the critical care of our natural environment. Interestingly, with all the attention on the "economy," there has been little said about the links between a sustainable economy and the well being of the natural systems on which more ephemeral forces such as economies ultimately depend. One of my favorite thoughts is that the people insist and the governent listens and begins to protect more wild areas for the conservation of species to ensure they will be here in their own right and for our future generations of humans to enjoy.
I was thinking about these modern "encampments" that occur along especially interstate highways. The typical permanent campsite is a cluster of motels, gas stations, restaurants and other services for the traveller. In past decades the motels and such were right in town and a visitor at least got some impression of the local community. Now, with national chains, it is dififcult to have a sense of the local place because one is in a kind of open compound where all the motel lobbies look alike and the best hope a visitor has to get a sense of place is to go to the top floor and peer out a window. I usually try to get downtown and walk around and look for a local network of walking routes. Many cities now have them and we have found them in Pueblo, Colo., in Billings, Montana, in Sheridan, Wyoming, and here in Rapid City, South Dakota. These often are along streams or other natural areas and offer micro-habitats for wildlife. In Sheridan, for example, we found six species of spiders basking along the sidewalk, plus deer, many birds (including pheasants), and the occasional friendly Homo sapiens also walking the path. Perhaps local Chambers could extend walking routes to these interstate encampments and also have solar-powered, small shuttles to get people from the asphalt and sheetrock "villages" in to the living hearts of the nearby communities.
September 27, 2008
In every community we visit I look for easily accessible walkways or greenbelts and we have found them in most cities. 
Pictured at right is a section of a wonderful greenbelt and walkway system that goes on for a number of miles in Sious Falls, South Dakota. There is a beautiful linear park downtown that envelops the famous falls on the river and also honors the site where the Queen Bee flour mill flourished briefly near the end of the nineteenth century, powered by the falls. The walkway is wide enough to accommodate both pedestrians and cyclists and we saw a number of both. It also offers the walker an up-close sense of the river and riparian corridor, as well as of the city center. Squirrels romp, blue jays sing, and tree crickets chirp to accompany one along the river walk. We hope to continue to discover such walkways in the cities along the route and feel that these "hoofer" routes are passageways into a community's human history and natural heritage. As more people cycle and walk due to rising gas prices and growing health consciousness, those communities that provide such walkways for their own residents and for visitors will be extending a genuine spirit of caring and stewardship to all who dwell there and who pass through. (Terril Shorb photo)
October 1, 2008
Monarchs are on the move. As we drive easterly across the midwestern U.S., we ha ve encountered Monarch butterflies on their annual migration south to Mexico. Every few seconds, several butterflies cross the freeways and the hordes of hurtling trucks and cars. I grimace as the butterflies seem to rise up and clear the speeding vehicles, buffeted by the mini-hurricames of wind created by each of our cars. By the time we got to Pennsylvania, a span of more than a thousand miles of the country, the scale of the mass migration was beginning to be apparent. Terril Shorb photo 
October 2, 2008
Kutztown, Pennsylvania, nearby Kempton, and the surrounding countryside of the southeastern region of the state, is a beautiful and diverse mix of midwest farms and sturdy small businesses. Like much of the country, there is economic struggle here, too. But my conversations with my students in the region reveal a resiliency that is one key to a more sustainable life. Jesse and Matthew are graduates of ADP and they live on a small farm north of Kempton. As part of their ADP studies they undertook to learn an important cultural tradition in that part of the region, the pathways and practices of the Brauchers, whose traditions may be found within the larger body of Pennsylvania German peoples. Jesse and Matt grew their sustainability study related degrees from ADP and their own lifeworks into the Three Sisters Center for the Healing Arts. They are practitioners of "Der Braucherei Weg" or the Braucherei Path and Jesse mentors students in the tradition, including Lauren, who is a current ADP student within the Sustainable Community Development program. The idea of the Center, among others, is to carry the education that Jesse and Matt received from Braucher elders to the younger generations so that the culture is not lost, and in fact, may be restored. The tradition is intimately tied to deep understanding of the natural world as the source of health and well being. I came away from my visit with Jesse, Matt, and Lauren with a hopeful heart. Despite the political rhetoric in Washington, D.C. and the current frenzy over the economic downturn, there are people out here in our great nation who are quietly going about the business of restoring a lifestyle that is truly more interdependent with the natural world. Restoring that relationship between humans and nature is one form of "bailing ourselves out" that may actually provide some durable relief.
In the wooden hills north of Philadelphia, another of my graduates, Erin, has worked for and influenced a developer of urban residential clusters. The company urban-centered restores sites and creates townhouses and other living spaces for people who want to be nearer the metropolitan core. Erin is also in the process of thinking about an entreprenerial enterprise of her own that could involve retrofitting residential dwellings and also restoring nearby nature to ensure that people who live inside the houses also have immediate access to nature, which Erin says needs to be a vital part of the modern lifestyle. I think of this as creating rooms for the body and room for the spirit. We wish Erin the best as she moves toward her vision.
October 7, 2008
The southern coast of Maine was the farthest reach of our current travels to meet with Prescott College students and graduates. We made our temporary bioregional headquarters in Rockland, Maine, which is a regional trading point for some of our students in the region. The days were bright and breezy and cool, but the famous autumn colors of the hardwood-conifer forest along the ocean warmed our spirits considerably. We spoke with a woman whose husband makes his living as a lobsterman and confirmed that it is an honorable but highly challenging life-way. Harvesting the sea is an ancient occupation in that region and those of us who are landlubbers appreciate very much--from the safety of shore--the courage and tenacity of those who make their living out on the cold, clear waters of the Atlantic. We met with Belle, a current ADP student, who, with her partner, Hayes, is recently situated in an interesting community of like-minded people who are working the land as a kind of commons. Land-based agriculture in that part of Maine has not been of the scale of working the waters of the ocean, but there are many smaller-scale operations and Belle hopes to help grow the collaborative enterprise. Fruit and cheeses are among the products envisioned for the farm.
We had our information session at the Lincoln Street Community Center in Rockland, an old high school that was saved from the wrecking ball and is now a thriving place for community arts and learning activities, including an innovative alternative high school. The Center would be an appropriate site for future Prescott College gatherings and occasional workshops and seminars, so we hope to grow our partnership with the Lincoln Street Center.
October 13, 2008
South and east of Erie, in the beautiful and gently rolling hills of northwestern Pennsylvania, we visited with Darrell Frey at his Three Sisters Farm. Darrell is a graduate of our Sustainable Community Development program and he is an excellent model of what can be done on a small acreage to live much more in harmony with the natural world. He grows an astonishing diversity of lettuce and other crops, some of which are sold to restaurants in Pittsburgh. He uses organic and permaculture principles in his small-scale farming and his site is alive with pollinators buzzing in and out of the small patches of crops and throughout the vibrant, sun-lit interior of his bioshelter, or solar greenhouse.
Darrell was one of the first to create a living experiment in permaculture on an impressive scale when he erected the bioshelter. Below is a shot of that structure which he built in 1989 and which creates a place where he can extend his farming season into the cold months through the passive solar design. We enjoyed a tasty lunch of produce from his farm, including a salad with a very vibrant mix of fresh flavors from the many kinds of lettuce--plus a few greens that most people would call "weeds", but which are actually native plants that are palatable for humans as well as other creatures. And speakng of other creatures, Darrell's farm provides a micro-habitat for an amazing diversity of living wild creatures, so he is living the truth that it is possible to practice a form of sustainable agriculture that also provides for the needs of wildlife native to that bioregion.
all photos by Terril Shorb