The Concordian

For those of you who were around last year, Gary Thompson’s is a face you might be familiar with.  With his zeal for all things green and his passionate activism, he earned himself the reputation as the “Eco-guy” around the Campus Beautiful.  It seemed that every time an Earth-friendly event or new Green initiative was being presented, Gary’s face or name was certainly present.  Suddenly, he seemed to vanish.

And so did his projects along with him.

What happened to the idea of trayless dining in the cafeteria?  What happened to the recycling program?  Wasn’t there an initiative to make adding and dropping classes a paperless process?  More importantly, what happened to Gary?

“I definitely didn’t just throw my hands up and quit,” he says.  “I felt a little like I was beating a dead horse.”

As time went on in Gary’s world of Eco-activism, he found more and more of the burdens falling on his shoulders: fewer and fewer people were attending meetings and projects, employees of the university seemed to be dragging their feet, and no one but Gary seemed to notice.

“You hit a wall eventually,” Gary reflects, “I mean, I just can’t make the people who work here do things.  Wouldn’t it be nice if I could?  I admit I should have focused more on the SGA initiatives I’d begun, but when one avenue clearly isn’t working, you’ve got to try something different.”

Since more of his time and focus was being consumed by all things Green, it stood to reason that something was going to have to suffer.

“I had to make a decision between what was more important to me.[It was] my academic career, or SGA related extra-curricular activities.  I made the choice to focus on my academics. My mistake was not following up with people and letting them know what was going on, but I plan to fix that.”

He means it.

So far this semester, Gary has met with Carolyn Cox, Dr. John David Smith, and Dr. Aloia. He is certain that the paperless registrar office is coming much sooner rather than later.  He is hoping to address the Senate at the next SGA meeting and get some momentum back for the Green Sustainability Committee that he chairs.

Can the Eco-guy get things back on track?

“I think I can,” he says, looking suddenly very serious, “but everybody has to care.  Everybody has to want to make things happen.  There is only so much one person can do, and I will do all that I can.”

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