Terrain V01 - Journal - Page 18
16 | Sterling College
Photo: Mark Washburn
Green Bikes Program
Bryan Emery ‘22
Photo: Class Four
Alpine Luddites
John Campbell, Adjunct Faculty
A new course, Gear Design and Repair, is a collaboration between faculty
in Outdoor Education and Environmental Humanities—specifically the fiber
arts program—and a local boutique gear shop, Alpine Luddites. Together they
taught skills related to gear repair and students completed approximately 56
unique repairs that were solicited from the community. This approach to gear
keeps damaged items out of the landfill and puts them back into use. Repairs
utilized parts and materials off of other broken equipment instead of adding
new materials in the process.
The course was featured in Adventure Journal this past year where adjunct
faculty John Campbell and owner of Alpine Luddites said, “I think the fouryear model of education is broken. I don’t think it actually works for today’s
world. The skills that people are going to need due to climate change and
other things that are on our radar aren’t taught in four-year schools and they
aren’t taught in high school pretty much anywhere. Sterling is one of the few
colleges that really takes that head-on.”
“This [course] allows us to support our community [by] keeping things out
of the landfill, and at the same time, gives my students a chance to do real-life repairs and feel the impact it has with a real customer,” said faculty in
Outdoor Education Josh Bossin when interviewed by the Christian Science
Monitor. Building on the success of this course, Sterling now has a new Work
Program position as of this fall: Community Gear Repair Specialist. This student fixes and maintains gear for the College and the community at large and
will offer workshops and classes so that folks are empowered to complete
their own repairs in the future.
Bryan Emery ‘22 is up to his pedals on his Senior
Year Research Project (SYRP) to better understand the ins and outs of bike sharing programs
using Sterling’s Green Bikes Program as the beta.
Bryan’s SYRP, Updating and Professionalizing
Green Bikes, will revitalize and expand the Green
Bikes Program, leaving a legacy of new shared
bikes on campus, policies and procedures for
sharing, and an updated bike shop space to keep
bikes operational and out of the landfill.
Since 2001, Sterling’s Green Bikes Program has
been promoting human-powered transportation.
Inspired by a Global Field Studies trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, the basic concept is to provide shared bicycles for the Sterling community.
According to the Transportation Sustainability
Research Center, each mile someone rides on a
shared-bike instead of driving a car means about
one pound of carbon dioxide is kept out of the
atmosphere. Through the Work Program, Bryan
serves as the Bike Baron, overseeing the maintenance of a small fleet of bicycles as well as providing expertise, tools, and a bike shop for repairing student and staff-owned bicycles at no cost.
Friends and fans of retiring faculty John Zaber
‘85 made generous gifts last year to the John Zaber Green Bikes Fund in celebration of his deep
love for bikes and to honor his decades of service
to his alma mater.