A number of University of Southern California students harassed university president C. L. Max Nikias last week, demanding that he take immediate action to reduce USC’s carbon emissions by, among other requests, purchasing a Prius.
Dozens of students marched around campus and walked onto USC Village last Friday, where they spotted Nikias and followed him. According to the Daily Trojan, the students were slinging catchy phrases like “Hey Nikias, buy a Prius” and “High tuition, no green ambitions, all we have is hella emissions.”
The students are part of an environmental advocacy group at USC known as Environmental Core, which has undertaken various initiatives on the campus that center around forcing other students to comply with a more “sustainable” lifestyle.
For example, Environmental Core also produced the Meat Reality initiative which “works to educate students and faculty on the shocking environmental impact of the modern agriculture industry and how reducing meat and dairy consumption can significantly decrease one’s footprint.” According to their website, the organization regularly works with other campus organizations on endeavors related to increasing “student awareness of the consequences of meat consumption.”
While it was reported that a few dozen USC students joined in the protest, that number pales in comparison to USC’s total undergraduate population of nearly 19,000. With tuition rates that have passed $50,000, many undergraduates may be leery of any new university initiatives designed to make the campus more green and efficient, as such practices generally come at an expense to students in the form of “sustainability fees.”
Philine Qian, the Undergraduate Student Government Sustainability Advocacy Director said the rally was a shift in focus towards a bigger goal for a club whose only accomplishments include small victories such as getting plastic straws banned from the dining halls. According to Qian, the students are facing an undeserved responsibility to make the university more sustainable.
“It’s more effective for us to rally together for a bigger long-term goal,” Qian told The Daily Trojan. “Students shouldn’t have the responsibility and the pressure and the stress of coming up with creative ways for the University to reduce their carbon, water and waste footprint.”
