Greening The Campus

Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University is a rallying cry for converting universities into bastions of sustainability, into leaders on de-globalization in their communities, and into world­-changing postmodern organizations. It advocates the radical reinvention of universities to accomplish this. Michael M’Gonigle and Justine Starke first argue why, then how and then polish it all off with a vision of a future in a changed world. It is no accident that their publisher, New Society of Gabriola Island, British Columbia, has the tagline “Books to Build a Better Society.”

The central actor in their book is the Gordon Head campus of the University of Victoria. Actually the University of Victoria has reinvented itself three times within my own lifetime—from the small post-war campus in Craig Darroch Castle where the alumni still have a room, to the dignified campus that now houses Camosun College and, finally, to the old army base in Gordon...