Keck, continued

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    As someone who is concerned about environmental issues, I attended this special City Council meeting in order to learn more about the controversy surrounding the EIR for the Keck project. I was one of over 160 Claremont residents who attended this six-hour meeting in a packed room at City Hall. Forty-eight people entered their comments into the public record during the three-hour public comment period. While approximately ninety percent of the citizens made statements that passionately opposed the Keck project and supported the appeal of the EIR, the CST "community and administration" issued a public statement expressing our approval of the Claremont University Center's plan to build KGI on the Field Station.

    Last year I worked for an environmental non-profit organization on habitat protection and restoration, and I chose Claremont School of Theology for my theological education in part because of its reputation for integrating ecology and theology in its curriculum, facultypublications, and campus activities. I was, therefore, surprised to hear Spencer's public statement at the City Council meeting; I would have expected the CST community to oppose the location of the new KGI facilities on the biologically sensitive site located within the Field Station. After touring the Bernard Biological Field Station, attending community meetings, talking with faculty and students at CST, and meeting with Vice President Spencer Bates and President Bob Edgar, I have realized the complexity of this issue goes beyond the dispute over the quality of the Environmental Impact Report. The process of learning about the Keck project's environmental impacts has raised some larger issues that I have been struggling with since beginning my theological education at CST. My concerns center around four main themes:the CST community voice, the stewardship of God's creation, the ethics of KGI, and the relationship between leadership and citizen outcry.

    First, as a member of the Claremont School of Theology community, I would like to publicly voice an alternative opinion to the one expressed by Spencer at the City Council meeting; I OPPOSE the construction of the Keck Graduate Institute on the Field Station. I also know that I am not the onlymember of the CST community who believes that KGI should not be built on the Bernard Biological Field Station. The issue of who speaks publicly for our CST community is one of the larger questions that has resulted from the Keck debate. Clearly, faculty and students were not consulted before Spencer entered his comments into the public record. However, as President Bob Edgar pointed out, there has not been any significant outcry about the Keck project on the CST campus. The environmental review process has been going on for over a year, and it has been a very public one.

    President Edgar did acknowledge that more discussion on campus about the Keck project might have helped members of the community learn about the relationship developing between KGI and CST. According to President Edgar, CST's official position is, "The President and Trustees are in support of this (KGI) being a neighbor. The word community may have been too broad a use of the word, but that was the intention. It has not been a secret."

    The administration did brief the Trustees about the North Campus Master Plan, which includes the Keck Graduate Institute and new graduate student housing. The Trustees voted to approve the North Campus Master Plan, even though not all board members were in full agreement. "The Chairman of our Board is a member of the Sierra Foundation's Board, and he is very concerned as a Claremont native ... He's got mixed feelings about moving forward with the Keck Center. So I can't say there is total unanimity. But there is enough unanimity that the Board decided to support the Keck Center in their efforts," stated President Edgar.

    The issue of who speaks publicly for our community does not only apply to the KGI situation, but the official CST statement was particularly surprising to me when I thought about it in the context of the theological writings of several former and current CST faculty members. For example, at the end of his book, Is it too Late?, Professor Emeritus, John Cobb, Jr., challenges Christians to repent of our silence as a community regarding environmental protection and urges us to act differently in the world, "Belief in the Spirit is no ground for complacency. There is no guarantee that men will respond to the Spirit's promptings in sufficient numbers and with sufficient sensitivity to begin the healing of the planet. But there is a possibility. The future can be different from the past. Therefore there is hope. Where there is life there is hope."

    While it is important to recognize that the ecological crisis exists on a global scale, it is even more critical to act locally to protect and preserve the environment that is directly within our care. Therefore, as a community of people struggling to live as stewards of God's creation and to act upon our theological understandings, I question how we could support the destruction of more habitat within the City of Claremont. In particular, the Field Station contains thirty-six acres of relatively undisturbed coastal sage scrub, a native plant and animal community that is fast disappearing in Southern California. The construction of KGI on the Field Station would lead to the destruction of 30% of the Station's coastal sage scrub ecosystem. Furthermore, the Field Station is not the only possible location for the newest addition to the Claremont Colleges; the Colleges also own the golf course and a gravel pit, which is adjacent to Colleges on the eastern side. Both alternative sites are environmentally superior, because they would have a much smaller impact on native habitat loss. Even President Edgar acknowledges the importance of protecting habitat within the City of Claremont, "I'm not sure I wouldn't, at one time in my life, be in the position that you guys are in, in being in opposition to the Keck Center."

    In addition to the environmental impacts of the Keck project, many citizens have publicly voiced concerns that KGI will not have the same ethical standards as the rest of the Claremont Colleges. KGI does not plan to grant tenure to its faulty members, and its research will be largely driven by the needs of industry. The tenure issue is a particularly sensitive one for other faculty at the Colleges. In fact, four of the Colleges' faculty bodies have voted to oppose the KGI project as presented by the Claremont University Center (CUC). On the KGI web site, the nature of the institution is described, "KGI's mission, objectives, and curriculum have been and continue to be well informed by extensive counsel from industry, particularly pharmaceutical, agribusiness, biotechnolgy, instrumentation and medical device companies. A Corporate Roundtable composed of senior executives from these industry segments meets regularly with KGI's faculty,administration, trustees, and advisory council to assure con-ruence between the long term needs of industry and KGI's curricular and research agendas."

    President Edgar said that he is not worried about the tenure issue at KGI and is confident that they will be good neighbors. His vision is that the School of Theology would be able to develop new partnerships between science and religion by engaging KGI students and faculty in discussions about ethics, "My feeling, is, as we go into the 21st century, we need to engage scientists in the conversation on ethics. We need to engage scientists on the issue of religion." Edgar looks forward to the possibility of having some joint professorships with KGI in the areas of ethics and the connection between religion and science. He also would like to see joint convocations and the sharing of some classroom facilities. On the other hand, this kind of collaboration between scientists and theologians is not dependent on the Keck Graduate Institute's location on the Field Station. It might make is easier, but it is certainly not the only way to approach a science/religion dialogue.

    Finally, I would argue that the three topics I have discussed so far, community voice, stewardship, and ethics, are really just signs of how we, as a theological community, exercise leadership on difficult issues within the context of the larger world. In the case of the Keck Graduate Institute and the Bernard Biological Field Station, I question whether we, as a community of faith, have been listening to the "Spirit's promptings" that can be found in the passionate pleas of Claremont residents who refuse to give up their efforts to preserve the Field Station for the enjoyment of future generations. Have we been leaders in protecting some of the last remaining acres of undeveloped, native Southern California habitat in Claremont? Have we been role models for how to be good stewards of God's creation? Have we wrestled with the possible ethical dilemmas that might arise from an educational institution that does not grant tenure to its faculty and that relies heavily on advice from executives of the pharmaceutical, agribusiness, and biotechnology industries? Have we been earnestly listening to the voices of hundreds of concerned Claremont citizens who do not want the City of Claremont to allow KGI to build on the Field Station? How are we showing leadership within the Claremont community on these issues? What do we want the voice of our community to be? It is my hope that these are the kinds of questions that will shape our community discussion about the proposed construction of the Keck Graduate Institute on the precious habitat next door. While the City Council did vote last Tuesday to deny the Friends' appeal of the EIR, the project itself has not been approved. There is still time to engage in a serious discussion about how we want to show leadership on environmental and ethical issues such as this one. My biggest disappointment has not been that I disagree with the position that the Trustees and Administration have regarding the Keck project. Rather, I have been surprised by the absence of serious community discussion surrounding the question of what kind of neighbors we want to be to the citizens of Claremont and the struggling ecosystem next door. In conclusion, I would strongly encourage decision makers at the City Council, KGI, Claremont University Center, and CST to devote adequate resources and energy to work together to create an alternative solution that would help preserve the unique environmental and educational resources of the Field Station for future generations of Claremont residents.