Our view: Between an environmental philosophy course set to begin next spring and environmentally focused lectures and panel discussions, some professors are working to make conservation a priority in the community. Now it’s up to students to participate and finish the job.

While the Earth Day festivities this year are decidedly less prominent than the year before, the environment-centric academic programming on the horizon gives us hope that conservationism may find more of a home in Wichita Falls.

The university is in a unique position to be at the forefront of the shift toward a greener Texoma, and with courses like environmental philosophy being added to the catalogue next spring, that change seems all the more inevitable.

Lucy Schultz, assistant philosophy professor who will teach the new course, hit the nail on the head when she said, “We all need clean air and clear water to drink, and this is something that should unite us.”

This is something that should unite us as a campus community, and beyond that, as a citywide community, and it starts with the students.

Students should urge the housing department to make recycling a part of everyday life for MSU residents, with recycling bins on every floor. We have already implemented low-flow shower heads and faucets in the residence halls to cut down on water usage, but that mission of conservation should extend beyond the shower curtain and into our everyday lives.

With two panels on environmentalism planned next week and an actual course being added next spring, it really is up to students to engage with these efforts and show that Midwestern State University—and the city at large—isn’t part of the environmental problem, but rather the solution.

Related: Professors hope to advance environmentalism locally