{"id":102059,"date":"2016-06-13T12:51:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T16:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=102059"},"modified":"2024-07-01T15:12:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T19:12:17","slug":"mount-david-cleanup-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2016\/06\/13\/mount-david-cleanup-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the student-led Mount David cleanup a model for a litter-free hill?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"From<\/a>

During the May 21 cleanup of Mount David, from left, Oliver Farnum ’19 of Marshfield, Mass., Jeremy Mack ’16 of Brooklyn, N.Y., and George Fiske ’19 of West Hartford, Conn., grapple with old sections of chain-link fencing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

If the party vibe isn\u2019t quite right, a Bates student can exit the back of a Frye Street house and, 3 minutes later, discover a quiet place above it all.<\/p>\n

Mount David, an historic campus spot<\/a> rising 381 feet above its surroundings, is a curious amalgam of nature, Bates, and Lewiston, a fluid identity that holds both charm and challenge, says Dana Cohen-Kaplan \u201916, a campus environmental leader who led a Mount David cleanup this spring.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The hill is a gateway experience for Bates students “just beginning to get outside.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the one hand, Mount David is one of those valuable “neutral spaces\u201d that doesn\u2019t feel “owned by any one campus constituency,\u201d Cohen-Kaplan says. It feels open to the community, too. “I\u2019ve watched a lot of sunsets with friends up there. And I\u2019ve had great conversations with Lewiston residents up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hill is also a gateway experience for Bates students “just beginning to get outside,” he adds. “And if a student enjoys a trip to Mount David, they might feel inclined to check out Thorncrag”<\/a> and similar offerings.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, this neutral Bates space just might need a stronger ally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful spot, but people treat Mount David poorly,\u201d Cohen-Kaplan says, with students and residents being equal-opportunity litterers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey treat it poorly because other people treat it poorly. People don\u2019t take their litter away because other people don\u2019t take their litter away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Project<\/a>

EcoRep leader Dana Cohen-Kaplan ’16 (left) and Bates sustainability manager Tom Twist confer during the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

A leader of the student EcoReps organization, Cohen-Kaplan graduated in May with a geology degree and a minor in teacher education, and he spent part of his final Short Term planning and leading a significant cleanup of Mount David, one of four on- and off-campus EcoService Day projects on May 21.<\/p>\n

He and his team of EcoReps with support from the college\u2019s Facility Services staff and the Sustainability Office, hauled out trash and broken glass from the hill, removed graffiti, and generally tidied the place up.<\/p>\n

Working behind several Frye Street houses, they also removed about 100 feet of derelict chain-link fencing, a vestige of mid-1900s approaches to campus security.<\/p>\n

Back then, Bates stewarded Mount David the old-fashioned way. Topped with barbed-wire, the fencing ran around the base of the hill from Rand Hall to Frye Street, with strongly worded \u201cNo Trespassing\u201d signs at intervals.<\/p>\n

\"Dana<\/a>

Dana Cohen-Kaplan ’16 holds an old sign that reads, “Private Property: No Admittance Without Permission, Trespassers will be prosecuted, President and Trustees of Bates College, Owner.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Besides being a safety issue \u2014 the fencing, pushed over in places, was topped with barbed wire\u00a0\u2014 it also \u201crepresented boundaries between Bates and Lewiston,” Cohen-Kaplan says, “and that was in our heads as we worked. The fencing is a boundary that\u2019s a remnant of a time that was different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, \u201cwhen you look up toward the mountain from most of the Frye Street houses, you can\u2019t see any fencing, which is cool,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Now the challenge is to keep it clean. As that famous \u201970s \u201cKeep America Beautiful<\/a>\u201d TV commercial intoned, \u201cPeople start pollution, and people can stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\n\t

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Adam Auerbach '16 (left) of Silver Spring, Md., and James Pardo '18 of South Salem, N.Y., dig a water bar that diverts runoff to prevent erosion along a Mount David trail during the EcoService Day project on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Jeremy Mack '16 of Brookly, N.Y., rolls up old chain-link fencing during the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21, 2016. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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During the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21, Tim Kivus of Facility Services clears leaves from the base of a metal pole holding chain-link fencing before cutting the pole down with a grinder. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Rachel Minkovitz '19 of Wilmington, Del., picks up trash on Mount David during the EcoService Day project on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Bates sustainability manager Tom Twist estimates that about 100 feet of fencing was removed from behind the Frye Street houses during the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t

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Yet stopping bad behavior takes more than posting \u201cno littering\u201d signs, says Tom Twist, the college\u2019s sustainability manager. \u201cYou can\u2019t beat people over the head with what they should or shouldn\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Twist says, a goal might be to change a \u201ckeystone habit\u201d among hill users, a simple change that might have \u201cmany other positive repercussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

One keystone habit that Cohen-Kaplan and Twist would like to change is the use of glass bottles on the mountain, which is linked with the bad habit of tossing them off the hill. \u201cIt\u2019s super-laborious to clean up broken glass,\u201d Twists says. \u201cBroken glass begets broken glass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we can be creative and engaging\u201d with the signage, says Cohen-Kaplan. \u201cSomething that speaks to students: \u2018Hey, don\u2019t be that<\/em> guy. You use this mountain, so do other people.\u2019”<\/p>\n

Along with some signage, there are plans to install an information kiosk near the trail behind 280 College St. residence (the old Rand Field).<\/p>\n

Mount David is one of two \u201cwild\u201d pieces of land on the Bates campus proper, the other being the approximately three-acre parcel of woods near Merrill Gymnasium.<\/p>\n

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Take a quick hike up Mount David on the path that starts behind Pierce House on Frye Street.<\/em><\/p>\n