Ok, I'll pose a question.

Do you feel that our campus does enough environmentally?

I don't. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few areas Dordt could improve:
- more recycling bins are needed.
- the recycling dumpsters by the apartments are seldomly emptied, leaving the dumpsters to be overflowing 75% of the time, discouraging people from placing stuff in the recycling dumpsters
- our campus, even though it used to, does not compost anything
- there are not enough bike racks, causing issues with the effectiveness of people being able to conveniently ride and park bicycles (just wait a couple weeks, you'll see...)
- Dordt needs to create more outdoor areas for people to sit down. More benches and picnic tables would create good space for people to hang out outside and become more aquainted with the outdoors.
- In the area between the Beej and the Rec Center, for example, more trees should be planted. It's an open area without any trees, but isn't a comfortable spot for people to play sports or lay out a blanket to do homework.
- Too many trees have recently been cut down to make room for parking lots/new construction

Don't get me wrong, our campus is improving. But there's more work to be done.

What do you think?

Behold, the Most Powerful Apartment on Campus.

C8 CAUCUS UNITE!!!

Haiti: How to Help

- DONATION CANS have been placed in the Library, the Copy Center and by Pastor Gorter's office in Student Services. All donations will go to Dordt student Claude Gillot's hometown.

- PRAYER CARDS have been placed by the donation cans. Pick one up as a reminder to keep our brothers and sisters in Haiti in prayer.

- Claude Gillot is selling T-SHIRTS he designed to raise funds for Haiti relief. If you would like to buy one, e-mail him at cldgllt@dordt.edu.

- DONATE to any of the organizations listed at the left.

Responding to Haiti

For many of us (myself definitely included), it is difficult to imagine the destruction caused by last week's earthquake in Haiti. This article by MSNBC's Joel Schoen helps somewhat:

...let’s try to imagine what the equivalent devastation might look like in the U.S.

Here’s (roughly) what our country might be dealing in the first week of an equivalent scale of destruction:

The White House and the Capitol have been destroyed. Congress and critical government agencies overseeing finance, health and other domestic services have been critically impaired. Many of the government employees who used to work in those offices are dead.

There is no Pentagon (because there is no Haitian military).

With the risk of aftershocks and doubts about the safety of government buildings still standing, President Barack Obama holds his cabinet meeting outside in a circle of white plastic chairs.

...

The U.S. Interstate highway system has been destroyed (there never was one in Haiti), and travel by road is arduous.

The entire air traffic control system has been destroyed. Days after the disaster, it has been replaced by a small makeshift system that includes handheld radios. There is one functioning runway in the entire country at a facility about the size of a small regional U.S. airport.

...

The infrastructure to handle marine cargo has been destroyed at the major seaports — New York, Los Angeles, Houston. The only port left operable to serve the entire country is in Charleston, S.C., and it’s not set up to handle large volumes of cargo.

Police and foreign troops are trying to maintain order on the streets, but looting and fires have broken out. The FBI building (in Haiti's case, the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission) has been destroyed, and hundreds of people, including the man in charge, have been killed.

As much as one third of the population (in the U.S., roughly 100 million people) are without food, water or shelter and limited means of acquiring it.

The death toll can only be guessed. In a country of 9 million, the loss of 100,000 souls in a single disaster is a little more than 1 percent of the Haitian population, or the equivalent of 3.3 million Americans.

Millions of survivors are in need of urgent medical attention; many simply won’t receive it — even if relief efforts proceed flawlessly. Most local hospitals have been destroyed. The ones that remain have no supplies. Doctors have resorted to using hacksaws and vodka in place of surgical instruments and alcohol.

...

With all of the money, people and supplies flooding in, you might expect the chaos to subside in a matter of weeks or months as things begin getting “back to normal.” That’s not going to happen in Haiti. For one thing, “normal” before the quake was a country just beginning to try to emerge from decades of dysfunctional government and abject poverty.

Before the quake, Haiti was already the poorest country in the western hemisphere and the third hungriest country on earth, after Afghanistan and Somalia. Haiti had a life expectancy of 60 and a poverty rate of 80%. The quake killed as many as 200,000 people and left millions homeless. As Schoen writes, "The greatest risk to Haiti’s long-term survival (if not revival) is that the world’s 24-hour news cycle turns its attention to the next disaster, and the opportunity is lost to rebuild Haiti as a viable state."

Let's not let that happen.

To give to earthquake relief, go these websites:
Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
International Red Cross
World Vision

Also, for Dordt students, a special service for Haiti will be held during community block (11:00) on Monday in the BJ Haan. Come join your fellow students in prayer for the people of Haiti. A freewill offering will be taken towards relief efforts in the town of Dordt student Claude Gillot.

96 letters down

Actually, it's 97 with Kurt's late-in-the-game last-ditch effort for one more concerned and active citizen in the Eckhardt.

So. 97 letters down. 97 voices for 30 million (30,000,000) oppressed and hurting North Koreans. Tables opened next to the SAC dance sales while the Grille opened for evening service and Praise and Worship began warming up and running sound check - it wasn't the entirety of campus, but there was an interesting, quivering and stark overlap of demographics and ritual.

The sad of the celebration, of our student body community's efforts today, is that there are 1,300 literate students at this school. Still 97 voices that responded to a gathering of open tables, borrowed pens, loose-leaf notebook paper, scribbled addresses and tired shoulders.

Let's call this a start, yes?

Please add to the count. Here are the very basics for what you need to start. If you would like us to quiet you down for Joel to stand on a chair and yell at you, feel free to make a request.

Sample Letter

(Your Name)

(Your Address)

December 9, 2009

The Honorable (Representative's Name)

(Representative's Address)

Dear Senator/Representative ________

[Part I: Introduction]

I am writing to you today about the ongoing human rights crisis in North Korea. While this crisis does not receive a great deal of coverage in the news media, it is of great importance to me as a voter.

[Part II: The Problem]

North Korea is ruled by a regime that denies its citizens the most basic liberties, and traps them in intolerable economic conditions. Millions of North Koreans have died of starvation or been killed by their government since the 1990s. The North Korean government currently holds 200,000 political prisoners - men, women, and children - in its prison camps.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans have risked their lives to flee into China, where they are hunted by the Chinese government and returned to North Korea if caught. If returned to North Korea, they face torture and perhaps execution. These actions put China in direct violation of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.

[Part III: Request for action]

I am writing to ask you to do everything in your power to address this crisis. Specifically, I want the United States to put pressure on the Chinese government to protect North Korean refugees, and to make human rights a central part of its engagement with North Korea. I would appreciate it if you wrote back to me explaining what you, as my senator/representative, are doing about the North Korean crisis, especially regarding the full implementation of the 2008 North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act.

[Part IV: Polite finish]

Thank you for your time, and for representing my [state/district] in the [Senate/House of Representatives].

Sincerely,

(your name)

North Korea Facts

- North Koreans are denied freedom of speech, religion, the press, travel, thought, and association.

- Millions of North Koreans have died of famine since the 1990s.

- 37% of North Korean children have stunted growth, 23% are underweight, and 7% are wasted.

- 200,000 North Koreans are serving life sentences in prison camps for political "crimes" committed by them or their family members. (Three generations of each prisoner's family are held responsible for political "crimes.")

- Prisoners in these camps are frequently subjected to summary execution, torture, hard labor, forced abortions, and other atrocities.

- Between 50,000 and 400,000 North Koreans have fled across the border to China in the hopes of reaching freedom. In violation of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, China hunts these refugees and returns them to North Korea if they are caught, where they face probable torture and execution.

Source: Liberty in North Korea, http://linkglobal.org

North Korea Letter-Writing Night!

On November 11, the organization LiNK (Liberty in North Korea) came to Dordt to screen the documentary Seoul Train, about the human rights crisis in North Korea, and the plight of North Korean refugees trying to escape to freedom.  If you'd like to get involved in trying to end this crisis, come to a letter-writing event this Wednesday night at the Grille, from 8:30-10:00 PM.  We'll be writing our congressmen and senators, urging them to take action.  Fact sheets, sample letters, pens, paper, envelopes and stamps will be provided.  All we need is you - the citizens.

As an added bonus, feel free to come to the Campus Center Board Room beforehand to enjoy snacks and socializing with your student symposium representatives.

For more on the North Korean human rights crisis, go to the LiNK or Seoul Train links on the left, or see these posts.

Iowa Tuition Grant cut

It might have been in October when John Baas, Vice President for College Advancement, contacted Troy and myself to gather Dordt's Iowa students. State legislators were deliberating budget-relieving options and the Iowa Tuition Grant, which provides private college and university students with need-based financial aid, was on the table. A handful of students gathered, called, texted, facebooked and tracked down their other friends until a couple dozen Iowa residents came to write their senators and representatives.

Today I received a letter in my mailbox, as I imagine every Iowa student had.

"The serious shortfall in state revenue caused by the recent economic downturn has resulted in a 10% mid-year cut to the Iowa Tuition Grant appropriation, a loss of over $4.7 million. To address this shortfall, the Iowa College Student Aid Commission has determined that all Iowa Tuition Grants must be reduced by up to $435 for the remainder of the year. While the maximum award has been lowered to $3,565, Iowa Tuition Grants continue to cover a significant portion of tuition charged by Iowa's independent colleges and universities."

The Des Moines Register has an article titled, Culver's cuts targeted us, private colleges complain. It might be a condescending title, it might be a tersely written article, pitting private college presidents against Governor Culver and his office, but it's a quick read.

Erryn Warnke, a student Wartburg College, said. "If support does continue to decrease, students will simply not be able to afford schools like Wartburg. The education will not be worth the cost.” (Source)

Gary Steinke, President of the Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said cuts to the Iowa Tuition Grant could strip some students of the opportunity to go to college. (Simpson College article)

That's what the situation seems to be. Higher education is often seen as the expected post-high school experience, an avenue to a financial stability. Yet it is the private institutions - schools like Wartburg and Dordt College - that (brochure-speak coming) equips its students to actively lead, doing more than acquiring a comfortable lifestyle. At the risk of sounding haughty to students at public colleges and universities, we wonder how much the state government, and the state itself, values its private institutions. Private higher education used to be affordable. Higher education used to be affordable. Affordability often supports necessity, especially for Iowa families living in small towns who are doing their best to send their students to a small school that instills their values, where professors learn their students' names.

What should we do? Student Symposium Officer of the News Joel Veldkamp is in conversation with Dordt's partner schools in their response, possibly organizing a united response. We will continue to speak with Dordt administrators. We're asking you to talk to your parents, consider your current situation and let us know what you think.

---ADDITIONAL INFORMATION---

Thank you for writing about the benefits provided for you by the Iowa Tuition Grant program. I am pleased to hear that you are able to attend Dordt College because of the Iowa Tuition Grant. I am also concerned with the cuts that are being directed to this program by the governor and the current major party in the legislature. I think it is a real travesty that Governor Culver has back filled his own All Iowa Opportunity Scholarship program but not the Iowa Tuition Grant.

I will continue to strongly support this important program during the economic downturn with an eye on the future for our graduates, like yourself, who could become the future leaders of Iowa.

From the office of Iowa Representative Dwayne Alons. November 30, 2009.