Environmental Group

The AVC Environmental Group had its first meeting November 16, 2017. We are a professor-led advisory group to the Academic Senate, meeting on the first and third Thursdays of each month in the spring semester. Membership is open to all campus constituencies (teachers, students, administrators, classified employees, and interested outside community members). To become a member of the group, email Santi Tafarella (stafarella@avc.edu) or Brian Palagallo (bpalagallo@avc.edu).

The AVC Environmental Group “thinks globally and acts locally,” modeling 21st century global citizenship via environmental and systems awareness and action. The advisory group is a big picture group, seeking creative ways to advertise and support already existing environmental and sustainability projects on campus, and to initiate new ones. Systems thinking—critical reflection on the history and function of cycles, patterns, and structures—appears in every textbook on campus, whether the subject is anatomy, architecture, poetics, complexity theory, economics, or geology. Seeking interdisciplinary insight, the group thus works to creatively support the already local, but fragmented, practice of thinking critically about our Earth system as a multiplicity of interacting subsystems, and acting on that critical reflection. Our mission is therefore intellectual, collegial, educational, and practical.