Sat. May 12, 2012

First day in class for my MSRE degree.....

I am excited about starting on this degree... from this first class I can tell that I am going to be learning a lot more about Sustainability than I knew was out there.  There are so many aspects to Sustainability... it is more than green/energy efficient buildings.  Each  of my cohorts brought a different aspect of sustainability to the table.   Aspects like renewable energy, sustainable horticulture and sustainable transportation.  You will see more details on these topics in my blogs later.

Our instructor is Michael Wollman … he brought us a great a speaker today… Leonard Bade, MSOD,SPHR … an expert in executive Development and a great team builder.  

Together they were a great team and really opened everyone up in our class discussion.

We discussed the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility.  We looked at the step ladder theory of group dynamics and how it was leading us from where we are now to our future goals.   This discussion was parallel to the words found in the definition of Sustainability….  “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

     This really made me reflect on myself and my future goals as I move forward to complete my degree.  We discussed issues that would make you lose your step on this latter toward your goals and is was really a great discussion because it made me really reflect on a lot of issues and road blocks that could make me stumble…like simple insecurities that I never considered.   

Sustainability is really important because if forces you to take ownership of your actions and look at the future results your actions may bring.   Sometimes its easy to agree that reusing and recycling are great ideas, but the sacrifice to actually do it is a whole different story and really takes commitment.  Sustainability seems all about finding the best ways to bring  back the responsibility to society so we can all have the capacity to endure past our expiration date…because the earth will still be here long after we are gone.   I invite you all to look up Sustainability just to see what  it means to you….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability