Letters to the editor

As I read the Chips article about the proposed wind turbine, I was finally able to verbalize what it is that has been bothering me about Luther College. In the article, Professor Martin-Schramm is quoted as saying, “Around that time [Philosophy professor] Jon Jensen and I took students up to the ribbon cutting of Carleton’s new wind turbine. Jon and I gaped at it and said, ‘if they can do it, so can we!” Therein lies my problem. It appears to me that Luther College takes on projects simply because its peer institutions have before them. We’ve jumped on the “no caf tray” bandwagon, taken on an outside fi rm to manage our food service like a host of other colleges, and are now on the verge of building a wind turbine. While these may be noble and efficient ideas, this “keeping up with the Jones’” mentality is not what has made Luther the institution it is today.

So I offer President Torgerson and the Regents this challenge: Be proactive, not reactive. I chose to come to Luther. Not Carleton, not St. Olaf, not Wartburg. Luther. Just because they have something doesn’t mean we need it too. Let’s be innovative. Let’s be the leaders, not the followers. If “greening” the campus is the goal of the college, then let’s set the standard instead of simply following what is chic at the moment. Maybe that means installing solar panels on the roofs of our buildings or replacing all the drafty windows in Miller and Dieseth.

To Luther’s credit, Sampson-Hoffl is a wonderful and innovative building. So why not replace the least efficient building on campus and have two LEED buildings on campus? I’m pretty sure that there wouldn’t be too many tears shed if Main III was razed. While the costs of such a project would cost far more than the $3.7 million price tag for the turbine, the payoff (improved learning space, better effi ciency, etc) would be felt immediately and such projects wouldn’t stick out like a modern sore thumb over the Oneota Valley.

I haven’t done the cost analysis for any of this, but if Luther has, they have done a poor job communicating it with the student body. All I’m asking for is a little more leadership. It’s ok to be Luther. It’s time to embrace who we are and set the standard, not follow it.

-Alex Ulfers (‘11)