This week’s interview is with Kent Blumenthal, the Executive Director of the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) in Corvallis, Oregon. Continue reading to learn more about how NIRSA is promoting sustainability, and the advice Kent has for other campus sustainability professionals. More information on Kent is available here.
If you are interested in participating in the AASHE Interview Series or wish to nominate someone to participate please email Niles Barnes (niles@aashe.org). To read past interviews, click here.

What campus sustainability initiatives are you working on at the moment?
NIRSA is currently garnering member support for the ACUPCC (American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment), and is partnering with faculty of the National School of Recreational Sports Management to better incorporate sustainability into the School's curriculum. NIRSA is also exploring how to become a Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) partner organization. To that end, NIRSA will also soon launch a special committee to work with the STARS program to include collegiate recreational sports facilities, playing fields, arenas, and stadia as potential credit criteria.

Other initiatives include developing a sustainability section of the NIRSA website, and having NIRSA's Sustainability Committee Chair serve on the inaugural HEASC committee for the 2011 Campus Sustainability Day.

What resources and training do you offer your members specifically on sustainability issues?
NIRSA offers a variety of sustainability-related educational sessions at the NIRSA Annual Conference & Recreational sports Exposition, as well as periodic webinars on sustainability-related topics. The most recent webinar was entitled, ”Choices with Purpose-How your Purchase can Positively Impact Sustainability,” led by Alex Accetta (Portland State University). Our new professional networking site, Habitat, offers members information exchange about campus sustainability and other issues. Our monthly electronic newsletter, NIRSA KNOW, includes a regular section on sustainability, which our Sustainability Committee Chair uses to communicate important information and updates on sustainability issues and initiatives to the NIRSA community.

How does being part of the HEASC network provide opportunities for learning and collaboration?
Being a part of the HEASC network offers NIRSA many advantages concerning campus sustainability that would be more difficult to realize on its own. The HEASC network allows for:
a) Sharing of practical programs and new ideas among participating groups that are transferable from one association to another;
b) Opportunities to collaborate on special projects, including education and training;
c) Updates about federal legislative and regulatory issues affecting higher education; and
d) Information on public and private funding programs for higher education sustainability initiatives.

What types of sustainability Professional Development do you offer your members?
As previously mentioned, NIRSA offers a variety of sustainability-related educational sessions at our NIRSA Annual Conference & Recreational Sports Exposition, as well as providing periodic webinars on sustainability-related topics. The new Registry of Collegiate Recreational Sports Professionals includes sustainability within its eight core competencies. Registered professionals must pursue continuing education within the eight core competency areas to remain on the Registry.

How did you get started in campus sustainability, and what campus sustainability success are you most proud of?
NIRSA joined the Higher Education Association’s Sustainability Consortium (HEASC) in its second year of operation. The contacts and collaboration that emanated from HEASC jump-started NIRSA’s involvement in campus sustainability. I’m most proud of convening a NIRSA Knowledge Community on Sustainability shortly after NIRSA joined HEASC, which was quickly followed by a webinar on ‘Sustainability and Campus Recreation,’ presented by Dr. Deb Rowe (Oakland Community College, MI) and the establishment of a monthly ‘Sustainability’ column in the online member newsletter, NIRSA KNOW.

In what area(s) do you see the biggest room for growth in the campus sustainability field?
I believe that new ideas and practical applications will continue to proliferate in the campus sustainability field, especially within collegiate recreational sports. According to Dr. Susan Komives, President of the Council of Standards in Higher Education (CAS), collegiate recreational sports reaches more college students on a regular basis than any other campus activity. Likewise, campus recreation offers a tremendous opportunity to positively influence sustainable practices.

How are you incorporating the social dimensions of sustainability into your work?
Employees at the NIRSA National Center in Corvallis, Oregon recycle paper, glass, plastics and other products, and purchase recycled or partially recycled paper products. An in-house staff committee reviews and recommends internal sustainable practices.

NIRSA offers members a chance to participate in a community service project during the NIRSA Annual Conference & Recreational Sports Exposition. More than 200 attendees paid $20 each to volunteer at the 2011 NIRSA Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana and participate in the improvement of trails at City Park, the nation’s second largest urban park that was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

We also engage in sustainable procurement practices, by certifying that sports equipment used in NIRSA’s National Campus Championship Series (NCCS) is developed using fair trade practices.

Is there a particular insight (learning experience or “ah-ha” moment) you have had working on campus sustainability?
It has become commonplace for collegiate recreational sports departments to find new and different ways to accomplish their organizational missions and objectives that directly or indirectly provide a sustainable program element. These new ways of doing business, implemented by NIRSA member institutions, raise-the-bar for sustainability in collegiate recreational sports. Examples include:
a) Bike share program (Washington State University)
b) Returning electricity to the power grid from exercise equipment (Oregon State University)
c) Solar panels within campus recreational sports center that supplements heating (University of Oregon)

How do you spend your free time?
I enjoy regular exercise (weight training & cardio workouts), reading (mostly American history), gardening, camping, fly fishing, and spending time with my family and 13-1/2 year old yellow lab, Nugget.

Breakfast is my favorite part of the day. However during the busy week I can only muster up the energy to grab a power bar on the way out.

So when it comes to the weekend I try to add the extra effort into making breakfast a little special.

Fun fact: french toast is my favorite breakfast to eat so I always try to dress it up a little to make it different.

Grilled Banana French Toast

I just made regular French Toast with two eggs and some almond milk, however I grilled a banana in a pan with some cinnamon on the side.

I have also made bagel french toast and I loved them! I just used the bagels I had on hand and dressed them up with some pecans, blueberries and strawberries.

Enjoy these two ways to make the first meal of the day a little more special!

The End is Near? The False Teaching of Harold Camping

Monday, May 16, 2011

Harold Camping is now warning the world that the Day of Judgment will begin at about 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, 2011. The 89-year-old founder of Family Radio has made such pronouncements before, most recently in 1994. He now says that he simply miscalculated then, but he is absolutely certain that he has the right calculation now. You have been warned.

Actually, millions of people in America have been warned through Camping’s radio program and by means of the more than 1,200 billboards his ministry has put up across the nation. According to press reports, Family Radio has put up 2,000 billboards in other nations, as well.

Camping is no stranger to controversy, but this one has caught national and international attention. He was wrong before, but this time he is absolutely certain that he is right. As he told New York magazine:

“God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all. There’s nothing in the Bible that God has ever prophesied — there’s many things that he prophesied would happen and they always have happened — but there’s nothing in the Bible that holds a candle to the amount of information to this tremendous truth of the end of the world. I would be absolutely in rebellion against God if I thought anything other than it is absolutely going to happen without any question.”

If you know the Bible and this statement confuses you, you are in good company. Harold Camping believes that God has revealed to him the exact dates of biblical events and the timeline of the judgment. He says that God revealed some “exquisite proof” that enabled him to determine a “finished product” timeline that ends on May 21, this coming Saturday.

As Michael S. Rosenwald of The Washington Post explains, Camping “says he came up with the very precise date of May 21 through a mathematical calculation that would probably crash Google’s computers.” Further, Camping’s mathematical formula “involves, among other things, the dates of floods, the signals of numbers in the Bible, multiplication, addition and subtraction thereof.” As many have noted, the math seems to make sense only to Harold Camping.

Yet, in a strange way, this just serves to affirm Camping in his teaching. On his website he states:

However, it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible. This timeline extends all the way to the end of time. During these past several years God has been revealing a great many truths, which have been completely hidden in the Bible until this time when we are so near the end of the world.

These “true believers” turn out to be Harold Camping and his disciples. Others, even professing Christians, will be in big trouble when Saturday comes, he believes.

The Christian church has seen this kind of false teaching before. William Miller and his Adventist followers (known, surely enough, as Millerites) believed that Christ would return on March 21, 1844. In the 1970s, popular Christian preachers and writers predicted that Christ would return on various dates now long in the past. All this is embarrassing enough, but now we have the teachings of Harold Camping to deal with. Given the public controversy, many people are wondering how Christians should think about his claims.

First, Christ specifically admonished his disciples not to claim such knowledge. In Acts 1:7, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” In Matthew 24:36, Christ taught similarly: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”

To state the case plainly, these two verses explicitly forbid Christians to claim the knowledge of such dates and times. Jesus clearly taught that the Father has not revealed such dates and timing, but has reserved that knowledge for himself. It is an act of incredible presumptuousness to claim that a human knows such a date, or has determined God’s timing by any means.

Second, the Bible does not contain hidden codes that we are to find and decipher. The Bible has been given to us in order that we might know the truth, and the truth is clearly revealed in its pages. We are not to look for hidden patterns of words, numbers, dates, or anything else. The Bible’s message is plain and requires no mathematical computation for its understanding. The claim that one has found a hidden code or system in the Bible is an insult to the Bible as the Word of God.

Third, Christians are indeed to be looking for Christ to return and seeking to be found faithful when Christ comes. We are not to draw a line in history and set a date, but we are to be about the Father’s business, sharing the Gospel and living faithful Christian lives. We are not to sit on rooftops like the Millerites, waiting for Christ’s return. We are to be busy doing what Christ has commanded us to do.

In Hebrews 9:28, we are taught that Christ will come a second time “to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” That is the faithful Christian response to the New Testament teachings about Christ’s coming. The church is not to be arrogantly setting dates, but instead to be eagerly waiting for him. Of that we can be truly certain.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Michael S. Rosenwald, “This Time, It’s for Real, Believers Say: Doomsday Coming This Month,” The Washington Post, Thursday, May 5, 2011.

“A Conversation with Harold Camping, Prophesier of Judgment Day,” New York Magazine, Wednesday, May 11, 2011.