Sterling Terrain V02 - Flipbook - Page 5
Sterling College | 3
Educating for the Symbiocene
Written By
Dr. Lori Collins-Hall, Interim President
This fall semester, Sterling welcomed its 27th bachelor of arts collegiate class. Chronologically, our
current students span the familiar generational designations of X, Y (Millennial), and Z. Perhaps more
importantly, our students are socio-emotionally members of Generation S, an orientation developed
through the experience of living in a time of global crises caused by humans.
Several shared characteristics distinguish members of Generation S — a classification coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht: the understanding that natural resources are limited and continual consumption
is destructive, the recognition that our human and natural worlds are interdependent and both require
care, and the knowledge that our actions can solidify or change the course of our collective future.
Generation S recognizes the impact of governmental decision-making around environmental, economic, and social issues increasingly stacks the deck in favor of “a few” at the expense of “the many” and
our ecosystem. And, as such, Generation S shares a desire to live into the Symbiocene — a hoped-for
next era in which humans return to understanding the criticality of biological and cultural diversity, a
rich awareness of interspecies community, and the importance of living in ways that are supportive
and mutually beneficial. If you’re reading this issue of Terrain, you probably also find yourself a member
of Generation S.
These newest students, like those who came before them, chose our college in rural Vermont over other
colleges with amenities Forbes Magazine and others describe as part of the “arms race” for students.
To compete for students, more and more institutions have used on-campus movie theaters, lazy rivers
and hot tubs, or dorm rooms with wall mounted plasma TVs in an attempt to stand out from the rest. Our
students, however, are choosing Sterling out of a desire to live within natural limits and in eco-social
harmony with other beings that make their home on Earth.
Unfortunately, aims as healthy and plain as eco-social harmony are not easy to carry out. After 300
years of industrial extractivism, and a shorter but no less transformative period of techno-utopianism,
the knowledge and skills needed to live in community and as part of the natural world are harder to
come by, especially in higher education. Indeed, much of higher education is designed to prepare learners to achieve a much narrower and individualistic goal: a high paying job and upward mobility that ultimately drives consumerism and profit margins without regard for the natural world. Sterling stands out
as a place where members of Generation S can learn to think and act ecologically – two things anyone
who aspires to live in balance and reciprocity on this Earth must be able to do.
As you are likely aware, the current geologic era has been named the Anthropocene – a period of well
documented and profound human influence on biophysical, climatic, and evolutionary processes on a
global scale. These human influences are increasingly evident and not benign in their impact: global
warming, deforestation, mass extinction of species, extreme and changing weather patterns, and toxins killing our oceans and contaminating our drinking water, just to name a few. Unfortunately, these
impacts are experienced across the Earth. Regardless of how one feels about the term Anthropocene,
it is hard to argue about the impacts that recent centuries of human development, social organization,
and economic activity have had on Earth.
It is also hard to ignore the particular emotions that accompany the realization of and reckoning with
the devastation that humanity has caused. When a 5th generation rural resident sees clear-cutting of
the last remaining old growth forests in their homeplace, they might feel sadness. When unprecedented