Amanda Smith
Lantern Staff
Although Butler offers multiple clubs and organizations like SGA and CRU for its students, it does not include an environmental club that many other colleges around the nation do. Sophomore Jaedn Cooper hopes to change this soon.
“I’ve always been really earth and eco-friendly, and I don’t think we have a lot of opportunities here [at Butler],” Cooper said. “It’s about small changes in your life that don’t even affect you that will impact the world in great ways over time.”
While in high school, Cooper started an environmental club that involved members cleaning up the town on designated days. Although she is busy while attending college and working, she still makes an effort to be eco-friendly by taking her younger siblings out on the weekends to pick up litter and throughout high school encouraged the school to conserve energy and recycle.
“The trash is always overfilling, there’s litter, and I would say that the most common types of trash coming from a college student are things that are usually recyclable materials,” Cooper said. “I just feel like it would be really beneficial if we had a program for recycling here.”
Cooper is not the only person on campus who is concerned about the environment and Butler’s lack of involvement. Professor of English Jennifer Kidd has noticed that there are not enough opportunities on campus for recycling, especially compared to the Andover campus, as well.
Cooper wrote a paper in Kidd’s class about a policy in her life that did not satisfy her. She took this as an opportunity to express her idea to begin an environmental club. Because of her interests in environmental conservation as a teacher, Kidd is interested in being the advisor of the club.
“I’m really big into that, and I really think about every piece of paper I throw away,” Kidd said. “When I buy something I think, ‘do I really need it?’ If you walk around campus it’s hard to tell where recycling is, and at the Andover campus, it’s more obvious.”
Cooper believes that the biggest thing stopping the campus from implementing a recycling program is the problem of hiring more students. While she recognizes this as an issue, she still thinks that there would be enough student-environmentalists on campus to get involved in a club that could run the recycling program.
“It doesn’t have to be huge, but just something little,” Cooper said. “I know there are plenty of environmentalists on campus. We have thousands of students so there has to be some people who are passionate about it. So, I think it would have a good turnout, personally.”
Although there is not yet a club, students with any additional questions can reach Cooper by jcooper19@butlercc.edu.
