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FEATURES
It’s an outdoor classroom. It’s
an interactive museum and tourist
attraction. It’s a string of parks that
stretch from the inner city to a free-
flowing stream and forest. It’s a
major player in protecting Alabama’s
natural heritage and revitalizing urban
neighborhoods.
And it’s right here at Birmingham-
Southern.
We’re talking about the Southern
Environmental Center, which is
celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
About two decades ago, a BSC political
scientist joined up with a few students
to start planting trees and setting up a
recycling program on the Hilltop. The
project blossomed into more than
anyone expected.
“It’s gratifying to see how the
environmental community has grown,”
said Roald Hazelhoff, the SEC’s director.
“While there’s still a real need for
advocacy, there’s also a growing sense of
awareness in the public—and that makes
this a much better place to live.”
Hazelhoff, who left political science
to become BSC’s environmental
coordinator, wanted to do more to teach
about the environment beyond the
campus walls. In those days, he said,
the city desperately lacked parks and the
green spaces around Alabama that were
open to the public were often marred by
litter and treated with little respect.
“The environmental work being done
in the state tended to be high-level
academic work by biologists and others,”
he said. “I wanted to create hands-on
demonstration projects and share them
with the general public.”
It worked: the Birmingham-Southern
College Conservancy, the SEC’s precursor,
was awarded one of then-Pres. George
Bush’s Points of Light awards in 1990,
the inaugural year of that program.
That gave Hazelhoff—who was then
doing environmental demonstrations
on campus like installing low-flow
showerheads in Greek houses (“I’m not
sure they were cognizant of what we were
doing!” he says.)—the base to expand.
He figured the 11,000 schoolchildren
who visited the college planetarium
each year were a good place to start and
suggested adding a small leg to their tour
that zoomed in from the galaxy onto
lessons about our own planet. In 1993,
he started a small museum in the then-
empty basement of the college library.
In 1996, events again gave the tiny
program a boost, as Birmingham-
Southern became home to athletes
in town for the Summer Olympics.
Suddenly, there was a new effort put
towards beautifying the campus. As
administrators started to talk about
cleaning up a trashy vacant lot next to
the practice fields and planting pines,
Hazelhoff stepped in with another idea:
an outdoor classroom filled with native
plants and linked to trails through the
woods. It became the first EcoScape;
now a dozen dot the Birmingham metro
area.
The next year, the SEC moved from the
library to its new home in the college’s
abandoned swimming pool. Hazelhoff
and his team scavenged building
materials wherever they could, coming
up with a design that today would be
recognized as a LEED (Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design)
project. The former pool was covered
with a steel floor made from recycled
cars, large windows were installed to
take advantage of natural daylight, and
energy-efficient insulation made from
old newspapers was added.
“This was really ground-breaking
work,” said Dr. Bill Holt, assistant
professor and coordinator of BSC’s
Urban Environmental Studies program.
“In a state that wasn’t really known for its
environmental efforts, it was a real uphill
fight to convince folks of the benefits of
something like this.”
Today, the museum counts some
20,000 visitors a year, who learn about
everything from urban runoff and energy
issues to environmentally friendly
household products. It is the largest
SEC Director Roald Hazelhoff leads visitors
through the center’s museum on campus.