The Residency, David Korten and Sustainable Connections

It isn't just because it's the end of October that things are spooky. For instance, I'd just returned from the fall residency for Goddard College's Socially Responsible Business and Sustainable Communities (we really need to figure out a shorter title) when Michelle from Sustainable Connections here in Bellingham invited me to a meeting of her development committee. The discussion there made me think about how we define sustainable communities--not just in terms of energy conservation, waste reduction and our "buy local" initiatives, but in how we create unique cultures that become self-sustaining because people think they are worth visiting, saving, supporting. Of course, one of our main guest lecturers at this residency was David Korten (The Great Turning, from Empire to Earth Community and Yes! magazine). Korten suggests a similar idea to what Michelle Clark was talking to me about after the S.C. meeting, creating a model or organization that supports and improves sustainability so much that other people want to copy it. My brain looped back to Goddard and discussions there. Goddard, you remember, was the model for progressive education from which most of these adult degree programs spring. It's still doing what its always done, but for a time, found itself teetering on unsustainable. One of the questions a couple of us were asking now that we are once again ready to innovate is what changes should we be making now to keep the college relevant, unique, worthwhile--no different than what we were thinking about our town--and to take a page from Korten's book, our earth community. Naturally, all this thinking didn't produce any answers, but I'm hoping to blog my way through to some ideas from which some answers may come. And I could use some help, so let me know what you think.