A little while ago, I interviewed Lauren who worked on getting  American University to go KC free. In this interview with Noah from Guilford College, the “series” (is 2 blogs a series?) continues. Noah is doing really great work on his campus (read and find out!)-- Guilford is on its way to going KC free. Noah was introduced to the KC campaign as a student in the summer ‘06 GOT program, and though this is his first campaign (besides from working with the College Democrats), this fall, he decided to take the campaign home.

Ill_assist_you [IAY]: Describe Guilford College.
Noah [N]: Guilford College is a small liberal arts school; it is well known and has a reputation for being very liberal. Guilford is a Quaker school and a lot of Quaker aspects show through especially during decision making. Every angle has to be considered and discussed and then come to consensus about the issue. It’s really great though and everyone is very open minded. Plus Guilford is trying to become as green as possible so that helps.

IAY: What’s the current situation at Guilford with this campaign?
N: As of right now, the main KC campaign work is centered around compiling a feasibility report about how realistic it's going to be for Guilford to switch. We've identified Cascades as the product we're switching to and have basically been putting together a proposal to satisfy all the parties interested. The facilities department, student body, religious department, purchasing department, the board of trustees (only to determine if Guilford will publicly take a stand), and our distributor, Diamond Paper. We've been continuously updating the proposal. In the next two weeks, we'll be doing a test run in a men’s bathroom and a women’s bathroom along with an administered survey to determine the student body's opinion which hopefully won't be against it. This is the final piece of information for our report and then it will be presented to all the departments for a consensus.

IAY: You mentioned that you’ve been working with faculty and the business community at Guilford. How did you start this? How has it been going?
N: The purchasing department directed us towards our distributor and the sustainability director mentioned a few companies. But mainly it has been our interaction with Diamond Paper our distributor in determining products and prices. It was sort of frustrating getting their attention and respect though.

IAY: What have been some of the challenges running the campaign at Guilford? How are you overcoming these challenges?
N: Basically the amount of research. There hasn't been any "opposition" just a lot, a lot research. Also, satisfying everyone's stake in the matter is a challenge.

IAY: I see that you have done an action with Greenpeace in Mexico (check out Noah’s blog: http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/noah1/2006/10/11/mexico_1), and I believe that you were at Change It. What inspires you to do environmental work?
N: It’s Sexy, but besides that I want to see a greater respect and understanding of the environment at large. It’s not ours to tamper with, and the more people who understand this, the more healthy the world will become.

IAY: What are your future plans—both for the KC campaign at Guilford and for yourself personally?
N: I want to finish out the KC campaign hopefully with a good result. If it’s a negative result, I want to bring in as many new ideas as possible. For myself, I just want to spend as much time outside as possible.