CU/Green: Things Cedarville University should consider doing in order to be good stewards of the Earth.

PR Blitz

• First and foremost we should remember we toil to take care of the environment, not to promote ourselves. But the PR department should also know their promotion could be as much a public service to the non-CU-population as it is marketing. What I mean is, people need to know that Christianity wholeheartedly backs the idea that the Earth should be well cared for. People need to know that it’s not just leftist protesters but many intelligent social conservatives who love nature and want to keep it — for our progeny and for its own inherent worth. Also I think in terms of “public service” when I envision CU serving as a force for more specific education, teaching our community about how to “green” their own lives.
• That was the caveat — this is the fun part. I guarantee that if CU implements a third of my myriad suggestions over the past 8 days, our school could be featured on national news outlets. I can hear it now: The Christian University with the best student satisfaction is also the first ultra-green Christian University. If everyone has the talking points down (through lots of simple but fun internal educational materials), the media will come away with the exact story we want them to come away with. Get with Dr. Mark Gathany and Prof. Ryan Futrell, who teach the Honors Seminar “Reading and Writing the Literature of the Natural Environment” to help put together the philosophical justification about why Christians need be concerned with a healthy Earth. About how this so transcends partisan politics because it’s a Biblical mandate.  (The great thing is, that’s true — we’re not spinning it out of thin air. There’s scholarship behind it.)

• I mentioned it before, but a huge part of CU/Green should be engagement with our local community — Cedarville Village specifically, but we could also focus on Greene County as a whole. Media organizations eat this up… maybe because it’s just the right thing to do. For example, once we all learn how to weatherize buildings, we can help do it for residents of the Village and save them some money on heating and cooling bills. And we can help Energize Clinton County, in the DHL-affected zone. Look how much media attention they’ve been getting. As Quinnipiac University has become the school for polling, we can become the school that turns the tide of public opinion in regards to Christians’ relationship to the environment.