For the eighth year St. Lawrence students gave up a day of their weekend to focus on how to become better leaders. This year’s Leadership Conference had a twist, students were learning about “Sustainable Leadership for a Sustainable Life.” In a time when the realities of climate change and human environmental impacts are increasingly obvious the theme could not be more appropriate.

Dr. William Vitek a philosophy professor at Clarkson University opened the conference with a presentation on the fundamentals of sustainability. Providing students with his personal definition he stressed that sustainability is not just about the earth, it is about people. “Sustainability is a strategy for living well in a world that is alive, interconnected, and crowded and that is limited by ethics, ignorance and net primary production.” Dr. Vitek assured everyone that sustainability is not about “freezing in the dark.” Limits, he said often push us to find creative solutions to our problems. Although it is not the American way to embrace limits, we must learn to if we have any hope of reducing our impact on the earth.

Students spent the afternoon learning about sustainable leadership from their peers, professors, SLU administrators and staff. The sessions they attended varied in theme from time management to creating trust. As a powerful conclusion to a productive day, Dr. Vitek reminded students that new technologies take a minimum of fifty years to become a way of life; however, we have the ability make change and form new behaviors on a much shorter timescale.

Ray Anderson, Wes Jackson, David Orr and Vandana Shiva have all changed their minds about how we should live and Dr. Vitek encouraged students to use their strength, creativity and leadership to do the same making this the ‘Age of Sustainability.’ He presented attendees with the challenge of “dismantling their current beliefs about the world before their beliefs begin to dismantle the world.” Not wanting to leave students with any questions as to how they might prove that they have dismantled their beliefs Dr. Vitek provided tangible actions from “reducing the industrialized world’s carbon footprint 80% by 2050 to devising viable models of happiness and success that do not require economic growth and increased consumption.” We can only hope that all who attended were inspired by what they learned and find the role they can play in moving us all toward a more sustainable future.

For students who are looking to learn more about issues related to environmental sustainability Dr. Vitek has recommend the following resources.