VISIONS OF THE GOLF COURSE
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In 2025, Vassar is set to renegotiate it’s contract with the company currently leasing the golf course. While the Climate Action and Sustainability Committee (CASC) and Students for Equitable Environmental Decisions (SEED) have discussed more sustainable alternatives for the immense golf course acreage, the future of this carefully mowed expanse remains uncertain. As a substantial portion of the western side of campus, the land of golf course is geographically significant despite its limited use by students, and the vassar community at large. Yet there is no shortage of golfable terrain nearby. Within a three mile radius of campus there are three other golf courses to choose from. Keeping in mind Vassar’s own institutional goal of carbon neutrality by 2030, is the apocalyptic suburban ecology of the golf course really so essential? Throughout the 1920s students, faculty, and alumnae eagerly fundraised and planned the construction of the golf course we know today as a welcome campus amenity. Yet nearly 100 years later as effects of climate catastrophe loom, the continued maintenance of bourgeois leisure athletics no longer seems to be the most pressing matter in campus planning. As the campus community continues to ponder the future of the Vassar campus, and where its institutional ideals lie, 21st century visions for the golf course are desperately needed.
CPM.
In 2025, Vassar is set to renegotiate it’s contract with the company currently leasing the golf course. While the Climate Action and Sustainability Committee (CASC) and Students for Equitable Environmental Decisions (SEED) have discussed more sustainable alternatives for the immense golf course acreage, the future of this carefully mowed expanse remains uncertain. As a substantial portion of the western side of campus, the land of golf course is geographically significant despite its limited use by students, and the vassar community at large. Yet there is no shortage of golfable terrain nearby. Within a three mile radius of campus there are three other golf courses to choose from. Keeping in mind Vassar’s own institutional goal of carbon neutrality by 2030, is the apocalyptic suburban ecology of the golf course really so essential? Throughout the 1920s students, faculty, and alumnae eagerly fundraised and planned the construction of the golf course we know today as a welcome campus amenity. Yet nearly 100 years later as effects of climate catastrophe loom, the continued maintenance of bourgeois leisure athletics no longer seems to be the most pressing matter in campus planning. As the campus community continues to ponder the future of the Vassar campus, and where its institutional ideals lie, 21st century visions for the golf course are desperately needed.
CPM.