He Lives What He Teaches & Teaches What He Lives Hang Ryeol Na

On Saturday October 8th of this year, on the shore of Lake Ontario,  environmental studies graduate students of Professor Jack Manno gathered at his residence . It was the second annual meeting between professor Mano and his graduate students.

I was delightfully surprised to learn how diverse we are.  Not only are we geographically from around the globe, but also equally different in our current works and future dreams. Each of us have come from great ditances; from Central New York and Washington D.C., to Jamaica, Bolivia, India, Korea and Kenya. In the midst of the variety of our projects, the common thread was sustainable development.

The night started off with a game of bocce ball followed by a potluck dinner. Before we started to eat, we all held each other’s hand and closed our eyes, thanking our Creator for food. Karen Mihalyi, one of the people who have done the ‘cooperative living’ with Professor Manno’s family, whispered at the end of the meal, “Thank you for loving the earth.” That one single remark resonated and still does in my mind. She was really grateful for each of us that we have chosen our major as Environmental Studies. She truly believes we can eventually create a better planet.

Professor Manno’s house silently revealed how he and his family have been living in a community. The pictures hanging on the wall show it all. His house has always been crowded with at least five or six people including his children. At this moment, he unusually lives in the house by himself.

Later I learned from Professor Manno that his living room, the very place where we had the dinner together with other cooperative-living individuals such as Karen Mihalyi and her partner Dik Cool was a birth place of rich cultural and social movements in Syracuse area. Dik Cool, who was having dinner right next to me has worked for the Syracuse Peace Council for more than 30 years and is now the founder and president of Syracuse Cultural Workers and also the CORA Foundation (Community Outreach and Resources for the Arts). In his everyday life, he contributes  to raising awareness for environmental issues in the hope of making them an agenda for the greater social community. Karen Mihalyi is also a founder and director of a different outreach group , the Syracuse Community Choir which gathers to sing songs of peace and social justice.

What I learned from the meeting contains more than the cultural difference I sometimes feel on campus. The message I got is that for Professor Manno at least, respect for the ecosystem and harmony with the community for social development run across his lectures as well as his life. Actually, this makes the environmental studies program stand out against other disciplines; you can physically live what you learn. You may be able to interpret the power game by using the political theories learned from the political science coursework, but you can not live by it; however, you can live by the principles of sustainable development.

Now, why am I pursuing a Ph.D. in environmental and natural resources policy? Will my life be able to tell something about it, not only my words? How faithful are my words to my deeds in terms of environmental impact? These questions arise in my mind and are not easy to answer. But still, I push onward with hope.