Among amenities awaiting 乐播传媒 students as they arrived on campus this month was a bicycle built for two — just the thing for taking a spin downtown with a close friend.

Donated anonymously by a 乐播传媒 alum, the tandem bike is part of the college’s Bike Coop fleet. Launched in 2007, the program gives participating students an easy, healthy and environment-friendly way to get around.

The tandem bike and 14 new Marin cruiser bikes expand the coop fleet to 25. Julie Rosenbach, 乐播传媒 environmental coordinator, increased the number of bikes to get more students pedaling, and eliminated a small fee for taking part, making the program free.

The program is now at full capacity, with 150 students signed up.

According to the 2001 National Household Travel Survey, 48 percent of all vehicular trips were three miles or less, and 24 percent were one mile or less — about five minutes by bike.

“The bicycle is the ultimate clean-air, zero-emissions vehicle,” says Rosenbach. “Access to bikes will offer an alternative to that car culture.”

The coop is part of the Sustainable 乐播传媒 program, designed to encourage changes in individual habits. The idea, says Rosenbach, “is not just to ask people to live differently, but to also provide the tools for people to act with.”

The 乐播传媒 coop is a simpler version of the large-scale bike-sharing schemes in major cities like Paris and Montreal. Coop bikes are dispersed around campus, and participating students receive a key that will unlock any bike in the fleet. They can take a bike wherever and whenever they need to go, and just lock it up again when they return it.

Rosenbach has helmets for students who need one.

Her office was also instrumental in bringing the national Zipcar car-sharing program, with two Toyota Prius hybrids, to campus. “Students can leave their cars at home entirely,” she says. “They can use our Zipcars for longer trips and in bad weather, and the coop bikes for around campus and town.”

乐播传媒’ wide-ranging portfolio of sustainability initiatives has sparked a recent spate of national publicity, including mentions in the Sierra Club magazine, The Princeton Review and The Huffington Post.

This year, the college asked its 470 arriving first-year students to join together in researching and taking action on carbon emissions and climate change. They were given suggested summer reading that relates to climate change, and the annual orientation period included a presentation by Franke James, an artist known for her environmental activism.

In October, the first-years and other 乐播传媒 students will take part in the International Day of Climate Action sponsored by the advocacy organization 350.org.

In recent years 乐播传媒 has built new eco-friendly housing and a campus dining hall; contracted to virtually all its electricity from renewable Maine sources; and joined a national consortium of higher-educational institutions working toward carbon neutrality.

In addition, 28 percent of the food and beverages offered in the dining hall are locally grown or sustainably harvested, and the dining operation keeps an impressive 80 percent of its solid kitchen waste out of the local refuse stream through conservation and recycling.

Behind the Ben Ayers 鈥�99鈥揔irsten Walter 鈥�00 farmhouse, barn designer and friend Brad Morse 鈥�99, along with neighbor Bruce Bell, was cutting beams from hemlock timbers that Bell and son Nat had milled. On Morse鈥檚 T-shirt was the phrase 鈥淢easure twice, cut once.鈥� An understatement, actually, said Morse with a smile. 鈥淚鈥檓 pretty picky about everything, so I do it more than twice.鈥�

There were a few concessions to modern convenience 鈥� the whine of Bell鈥檚 Big Foot circular saw represented one 鈥� but other sights were pure Americana. Graybeard neighbor Ian Ormon, seated at a shaving horse, was using a drawknife to shape oak pegs. The next day, a huge wooden maul (鈥渃ommander鈥�) would be used to bang the pegs into place to fix the mortise and tenon joints.

Metaphorical 乐播传媒 pegs abounded. All the wedding guests 鈥� including 35 乐播传媒 alums 鈥� would etch their names into the transom鈥檚 stained glass, created at the Maine Art Glass Studio in Lisbon Falls, co-owned by Jim Nutting 鈥�76. Wedding guests would enjoy a meal prepared by L鈥橝cadie Catering, owned by Jon Weislogel 鈥�94. His goal is to create 鈥�100-percent Maine, organic…food that supports the emerging green and fair-trade economy.鈥�

The fare reflected Ayers and Walter鈥檚 social mindset, as each is wise to the ways of social entrepreneurship. After graduation, Ayers founded Porters Progress to help Nepali mountain porters and says he fueled it with high-octane idealism. Recently, he found it hard to build a sustainable management structure for the nonprofit, one that didn鈥檛 depend entirely on his vision and direction. The lesson learned? 鈥淪ometimes you have to renegotiate your idealism.鈥�

For Ayers, this renegotiation has yielded a balanced, rewarding life. While his current work is with dZi Foundation, supporting social programs in Himalayan communities, Ayers is also involved in Maine forestry (he logged the timbers for his barn). Settled in an old farmhouse, and looking ahead to restoring it with Walter, is 鈥渟omething I thought I鈥檇 be able to do only when I was an old man.鈥�

When writer and illustrator Eric Sloane wrote An Age of Barns in 1967, he thought that the American ethos behind great 18th- and 19th-century timber-frame barns had eroded. Gone were farmers (who were also woodsmen, teachers, artists, weavers, farriers, and more) who executed diverse tasks with a 鈥渞everence for excellence.鈥� The term 鈥渟ustainable鈥� wasn鈥檛 available to Sloane in the 鈥�60s, but when he bemoaned the erosion of excellence, he was lamenting the loss of a sustainable ethic.

A new timber-frame barn now stands beside a circa-1800 farmhouse in Leeds. Its physical and ethical construction reflects Sloane鈥檚 revered principles 鈥� the triumph of experience grafted to idealism 鈥� and it was built by 乐播传媒 people who live that ethos.

Barns, Sloane wrote, are shrines that 鈥渙ught to be remembered.鈥� The barn of Ben Ayers and Kirsten Walter is a shrine all right. It鈥檚 a monument to what Sloane believed was fading, but has not.

By H. Jay Burns, Editor