Earlier this month, several members of the UW Sustainability and Campus Sustainabilty Fund teams traveled to Oregon State University for the 2023 Washington & Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference (WOHESC). Around 400 people from across the region, including students, staff, faculty and community partners, came together to discuss the sustainability challenges we face and share ideas.
This was the first in-person conference for WOHESC since 2020, with the past two years being held virtually. The chance to meet people from other Pacific Northwest schools and learn how other campuses address sustainability, or reconnect after several years, was an exciting aspect of this conference.
The conference sessions started with an inspiring talk from Kathleen Dean Moore, an OSU Philosophy professor emerita. Moore’s presentation “Change, Like a River” asked attendees to consider "How do you change course rapidly, radically, & soon enough?" Moore likened the commercial and other powerful forces contributing to climate change like a river. It’s nearly impossible to simply stop a river, but through actions we can work to change its course.
The sessions during the two-day conference often touched on various ways staff, faculty and students and schools across our region have been working to change that course, and sharing tools and ideas to guide sustainable actions.
In addition to operational topics such as transitioning to clean energy and implementing sustainable purchasing, one of the main themes of the conference sessions was exploring the intersections of sustainability and environmental justice, and especially the importance of recognizing and valuing the Indigenous knowledge of the peoples connected to the land.
David Harrelson, Cultural Resources Department Manager of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, opened the conference’s second day with a talk on Indigenous placekeeping: a form of engagement that prioritizes ecological, historical and cultural relationships to place, while bringing the presence of Indigenous histories and futures into focus.
WOHESC also provides an opportunity for students at the various schools to connect with sustainability professionals and take in the lessons of the sessions and speakers. The UW Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) students also presented on their experience “Applying a Just Transition Framework to the Campus Sustainability Fund.”
“WOHESC was an incredible experience, and I am very grateful to have been able to attend!” said Gulsima Young, CSF Project Development Specialist. “I look forward to integrating the lessons that I learned and the new perspectives that I cultivated into my future work.”