People (who change the world)

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,

with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.

—Adrienne Rich, "Natural Resources"

Like other colleges and universities in America, St. Olaf is blessed with students, staff, faculty and graduates who care about each other and the world they inhabit together. We live with many people who make a difference in the world by being different. But sometimes we forget, as Adrienne Rich reminds us, that we are natural resources for each other.

This is a collection of personal stories, showing how people with no extraordinary power can reconstitute the world. Indeed, one of the most important things about these people is their ordinariness. They show us clearly that it doesn't take superpowers to make a place more sustainable. It takes powers of imagination, understanding, organization, persuasion and persistence-powers that we all have. If they can do it, so can we.

Even though most of these people aren't faculty, they are all professors, showing-in both word and deed-different creative ways of viewing the world and acting in it. They are literally exemplary, because they offer examples of how to act responsibly on a fragile planet. And they show us how people sustain themselves in the work of sustainability.

Some of these people know each other. Many of them don't. A few of them are dead. But together they constitute a community of memory and a community of hope. They offer us histories of hope, a "usable past" that helps us see how we can participate in ongoing traditions of care and conservation and creativity.

For some of these people, environmental issues are the heart of their identity and vocation. For others, their environmental commitments are tangential to other plans and purposes. In every case, though, their actions expand the possibilities for environmental sustainability.

• John Berntsen
• Pete Sandberg
• Gene Bakko
• Kathy Shea
• Bob Jacobel
• Gary Deason
• Matt Nielsen
• Jim Fisher
• Perry Kruse
• Elise Braaten
• Megan Gregory
• Marta Steenberg
• Larry Rasmussen
• Tom Boldt
  Paul White
  Stefan Anderson
  Day Burtness