Strong Residential College: Environmental & Social Sustainability
This living-learning community is open to all majors and will be of particular interest to students who would like to explore issues surrounding sustainability, broadly defined. The Strong community strives to help students make connections to the larger, global landscape by focusing on ways of creating a sustainable social, economic, aesthetic, and environmental future through co-curricular programming, reflection, and learning—an approach that threads observation and analysis into intentional connections between education and social responsibility.
Strong Residential College (located in Guilford Hall) has a number of traditional programs focusing on building community through weekly teas, baking, and several other student-driven activities. Centrally located on College Avenue, the residential hall boasts a large formal parlor, recently renovated kitchen and bathrooms, high ceilings, gabled windows, and a beautiful view overlooking a paved courtyard. Students in Strong can also take classes in the classroom in the residence hall. With on-site advisors, and hosting a range of events and activities, it is a traditional hall-style residence with double-occupancy.
Signature Events
Strong Tea Sip, relax, and connect at Strong Tea — a cozy, student-led gathering where creativity meets community. At this unique event, students come together to curate their own custom tea blends using a variety of herbs and ingredients, then sit down to enjoy their creations over board games and thoughtful conversation.
Alongside the fun, we’ll also dive into meaningful discussions around sustainability — from eco-friendly tea sourcing to reducing waste in our daily lives. Whether you’re here for the tea, the games, or the good company, Strong Tea is a chance to unwind and engage with purpose.
Pizza & Pumpkins Get into the fall spirit with Pizza & Pumpkins — a festive, hands-on event where students team up to carve creative, creepy, or downright hilarious pumpkins! Whether you’re a carving pro or just here for the vibes (and the free pizza), this event is all about creativity, collaboration, and seasonal fun. We’ll provide the pumpkins, tools, and plenty of pizza — you bring the imagination. Prizes awarded for the best designs!
Student COMMITTEES
Play a key role in welcoming the next generation of residents into our Residential College. Through campus tours, admissions events, and creative outreach, Ambassadors share their authentic experiences, answer questions, and help prospective students and their families envision what it’s like to live, learn, and thrive in Strong. As storytellers and official representatives, they build connections that reflect the spirit and values of our Residential College.
This committee helps to present tea for Strong’s weekly tea. Students on this committee work to make sure that supplies are ordered from the program manager for each tea. They ensure that tea and snacks are set out before 5 pm on Tuesday when tea begins and help to make tea engaging by coming up with games or conversation starters for students to engage with when attending tea.
The committee meets weekly or biweekly to bake goods and to socialize. Students on this committee are responsible for planning meeting times, scheduling what will be baked during the semester, and ensuring that items are ordered from the program manager in a timely manner. Gatherings center around skill-sharing, community-building, and conversations about food, accessibility, and sustainable practices. Whether you’re an experienced baker or just learning to measure flour, all are welcome at the table. Together, we believe that even small bakes can make a big difference.
The Sustainable Futures Committee promotes initiatives that support environmental responsibility, social equity, and long-term community resilience. Committee members are responsible for planning initiative and events to make the Strong RC community and living space more sustainable. They will coordinate efforts with the Strong Program Manager. Through education, advocacy, and collaborative programming, the committee fosters awareness of sustainability challenges and empowers action at the local level. We work to create inclusive spaces that support environmental justice, ethical practices, and sustainable lifestyles.
Fosters community connection and environmental stewardship through sustainable gardening practices. We maintain shared garden spaces, promote ecological awareness, and support local food systems by growing fresh, seasonal produce. Our work emphasizes inclusivity, education, and hands-on engagement with the land as a way to build resilience and cultivate care for people and the planet. From seed to harvest, we explore how gardening can be a tool for sustainability, wellness, and social impact. Everyone is welcome—whether you’re a seasoned grower or planting your first seed
The Leaf-Lit is Strong Residential College’s student-run newsletter, dedicated to sharing stories, creative works, and campus happenings that reflect our community’s commitment to sustainability in all its forms—social, economic, aesthetic, and environmental. From highlighting weekly teas and student-led baking nights to showcasing sustainability initiatives, artwork, and reflections, The Leaf-Lit weaves together the voices and experiences that make Strong unique. By joining the committee, students gain hands-on experience in writing, editing, and design while helping to document and strengthen our vibrant living-learning community.
Sure, we are what we eat… But these days, who can afford to pay attention to where our food comes from and who grows it? How much awareness should we have about the environmental, economic and social conditions under which our figurative and literal daily bread is produced, processed and distributed? Who’s out there thinking about better ways to do it? In this MAC Oral Communication course, we’ll explore these and other compelling food ethics questions together, paying special attention to how food and food systems are marketed and politicized in urban and rural America, but also transnationally. As we discuss intriguing questions in food ethics, we will also practice oral communicative strategies that can be applied to a variety of contexts beyond the course. Texts for the term include Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Forrest Pritchard’s Gaining Ground: A Story Of Farmers’ Markets, Local Food, And Saving The Family Farm. Some field trips to Piedmont-region farms, alternative growing facilities, and food markets planned.
In this course we explore the “human-animal” divide as it shapes our beliefs about and attitudes toward the natural world in general, and toward non-human animals in particular. We consider the ethics of myriad personal, political, and industrial activities involving non-human animals, and share points of view on any “rights” such creatures do or should possess. Finally, we delve into the use and representation of non-human animals in artistic works. I look forward to working with students who wish to engage with complicated questions for which there are no final answers.
MAC Global and Intercultural (MGIL)
Instructor: Angela Bolte
Imagine the following: You are presented with a button that, if pressed, Yosemite Valley will be blown up. What philosophical or ethical reasons would you appeal to in order to justify not pressing that button? Are there any such reasons? Is it morally wrong to destroy something we (humans) deem beautiful? Would it be enough to appeal to the idea that you might deprive future generations from experiencing such beauty? What if you were the last person on Earth and you do not care about Yosemite Valley, would it still be wrong for you to press the button? Imagine that if it you press the button, Yosemite Valley will be blown up, but in doing so, you save some number of human lives. How many lives saved would justify blowing up Yosemite Valley? What if those lives are the lives of people you will never know or meet? Does it have to be a human life? What if those lives are non-human animal lives? What about an ecosystem? Why should humans be concerned about the environment at all? Why think that environmental concerns are genuine moral concerns? This course will attempt to answer some of these questions and to conceptualize the central notions in environmental ethics.