From a Student - Things to Keep in Mind When Thinking about a Campus

Hi, my hope and dream is that there will be free time during daylight hours on Fri at future intensives. All classes and meetings can be or are conducted indoors. Our bodies are made to move. 12+ hours of consecutive sedentary (non) activity is not personally sustainable, even for a day, especially in facilities that are increasingly inadequate for the number of people to be comfortable. For many of us, we do not have an option to move in the light of day on Thurs or Sun in addition to Fri, which leave Sat PM as the only free time during daylight hours. Combine the normal stress of travel, deadlines, and presentations with Seasonal Affective Disorder and sedentarism and we set a bad example for personal sustainability. We have to take care of ourselves to take care of others. I would submit to you that it is particularly important for us to set the example for children. PE is getting cut out of schools, the streets and communities are perceived to be too unsafe for children to ride bikes or walk to school, soccer practice, even their friends' homes. Parents, teachers, and family members who set the example of moving and eating slow food are increasingly difficult to find. A decade ago there was a direct correlation between childhood obesity and number of hours of TV watched. I haven't researched current trends, but I'm reasonably confident that TV, computers, PDAs, video games, DVDs, and the soccer minivan contribute to today's obesity epidemic and all its associated problems (heart disease, Diabetes, shorter lifespan, etc). There are few mentors to show children their bodies are made to move. Let's start personal sustainability at BGI. My hope is that free time is programmed into Fridays during daylight hours and that the many competing extracurricular meetings are scheduled later or earlier.
How we might do this:
Given the limited capacity of the cafeteria, it might make sense to have two or longer meal times. Circle time could be done earlier and CPT later. Quiet time could be designated in the rooms for those who opt for a nap or study.
Things we might do:
Bike, run, hike, ultimate, soccer, jump rope, yoga, dance, frisbee, football, music, mud wrestling, comedy sketches, some combination of the above and more...

personal sustainability at the intensives

by Mike Eddy

BGI Campus - Port Gamble

Gifford and a group from BGI visited Jonathan Rose some time last year.  Jon took them for a tour of Port Gamble and his vision for how his company could convert Port Gamble from a financial liability for his company Pope Resources to a thriving Living Learning community.   Like a Sears, Macy's or Nordstrom's might anchor a mall the idea is that BGI could anchor this community.  Last year BGI's was worrying about surviving.  This year BGI is planning where it will be in 3 and fifteen years.   I met Lisa Berntsen a C8 at the first Intensive and told her I was on this project.  She promised to introduce me to Jon and did.  Jon and I met on Wednesday October 28th at Jon's office in Port Gamble.
          What an experience.   When Jon sat me down to give me a serious presentation about his vision for the 8,000 acres of land that Pope Resources owns from Port Gamble to Kingston I asked him if I could video tape it.  He gave me this look of "so where is your camera'?  I took out of my pocket this very small Sony Cyber-shot camera that my son Evan got me to buy.  It will shoot a half hour of video.  So if you have 26 minutes to kill take a look it here.


BGICampusProject-PortGambleOption
Also see the video you can share at  Vimeo.

I know you have busy schedules so here is a brief summary.  Jon has convinced the Board of Directors of Pope Resources to turn Port Gamble in a Living Learning community.   The people he has in mind to settle in the Port Gamble community are not the type that are going to be playing golf three times a week.  They are going to be interested in continuing their education and some kind of work. (Here is a link to an article Enlarging the Academic Community - creating retirement communities linked to Academic Institutions) His dream scenario is for a University to move onto the 40 acres they have set aside for classroom buildings and dorms.  You can see the land on the right.  The site is 8 miles from the Kingston Ferry and about 35 minutes from the Bainbridge Ferry using the back roads through Suquamish.  It is surrounded by about 3500 acres of forest that will remain as forest.  It is about a ten minute walk to the town of Port Gamble.  His plan is for a developer to come in and build housing for a community.   A farm already exists with several large greenhouses.  There is a trail project happening which is connecting Port Gamble to Poulsbo, to Hansville, Indianola, Suquamish, Kingston, Keyport and Bainbridge.  Jon would love to explore how this could be the home for BGI.  He development plan for the town has a 3 to 5 year horizon.  His timing seems to match ours.

BGI Campus 2 - Other Sites

So besides the 22 acres of land I've assembled in Poulsbo Village that could be BGI's campus (see previous blog) there are other options surfacing.

Saint Edwards Monastery in Kenmore


Saint Edwards was a monastery at one point in its history.  It is now part of the Washington State Parks system.  The State is looking for a use for the 95,000 !! square foot building that is located on 316 acres on the north shore of Lake Washington.  Bill Koss, the property manager of the State Parks system thinks a school would be the best use. The building looks like the set for the Harry Potter movies.  Gary Warhaftig, who has formed an Advisory Council has done a lot of research about Saint Edwards.  There are all sorts of issues about it.  For starters it is not for sale.  We would have to lease it.  The state would require the place remains as a park which could be okay.  The building is five floors of 19,000 each and was built in the 1930's to building codes that are somewhat outdated to say the least.  It would cost a fortune and take a couple of years to bring it up to code.  The City of Kenmore, particularly certain City Council members will have a lot to say about what happens there.  So will the neighbors who stopped a plan to convert the monastery into a hotel. 

West Sound Academy
Another possibility is for BGI to partner with West Sound Academy which owns 20 acres and several buildings on an enormous track of forest and open land that includes Northwest Academy of Art.
This place is located just over the bridge to Poulsbo about 25 minutes from both the Bainbridge and Kingston Ferry.  I will be checking this out.

Port Gamble
Then there is interest by Pope Resources to develop its 5,000 acres in Port Gamble and include a school there.  I am setting up a meeting with John Rose as soon as possible to talk with him about it.  He pitched Gifford this idea a year or so ago.

Bainbridge Island
Plus there are other possible locations on Bainbridge to be explored.  For instance there are 20 acres of land I heard might  be for sale across the way from Islandwood. 

Islandwood
Finally we also have to keep in mind the possibility we partner with Islandwood itself and enter into a long term lease and as we grow are allowed to build a classroom building there.  

For me this whole thing started because of Becky Erickson's initative.  I didn't want to get too carried away with the idea of using my land to do this without talking to other board members and finding out exactly how the entire community would want to proceed about this.  The Board approved my doing this exploration.  So to get serious we need to figure out what is the minimum facility we would need on a BGI campus for starters and what the school might need ten or more years out.  It will be useful to know what is the maximum size of an class or cohort that functions (looks like 130 is the maximum);  how many students do we need for the school to be sustainable (the guess now is 600);  how many separate intensives do we need;  given the number of intensives what is the cost of operations;   how much money would we need to raise to do it all.

It will be awhile before we can move in any direction except to analyze all of this.  The strategic planning process would need to be done before we could start figuring out the campus strategy. 

BGI Campus

This blog is going to follow the BGI Campus progress.  The Board of Directors of BGI approved my chasing this down.  Does BGI want a campus and if yes where, what, and when?  Last meeting of the Board in August Gifford, our former ex-president was asked to conduct a Strategic Planning Process.   I've joined that process as a "donor member" who also happens to be a Board member and now a student.
I'll make sure that a discussion of a BGI Campus happens there.
There is a lot to report just to catch up.  I'll be posting here every date and try not to overwhelm people.

This all started for me when Becky Erickson, BGI's former CFO and currently a member of the Board, got an architech to draw up what BGI would look like on my 13 acres of land overlooking Poulsbo Village.  BTW Becky is now running for Mayor of Poulsbo.   Whether Becky is mayor or not she will be working on this project with us.  So is Linda Owens who did a lot of the grunt work which led to our accreditation.

Back to my land.

So Becky has got me going with the idea of BGI on my land.  This summer I was able to grab another seven acres from John O'Neill.  I convinced John to sell the land instead of waiting for the Harrison Medical Center to get built across the street.  I pointed out that if he took all the money he was going to get for his property now and put it in the stock market instead, he would make a much better return on his investment than having it sit there. I was right.  I hope he did.

Then Bob Von Bereghy the owner of Sunrise Properties told me he had 2 more acres of land next to the O'Neill land he'd like to sell.  I bought that too.   So now the piece is 22 acres.

Finally I'm trying to buy office condos located right next to the existing property, a place the administration could move into. These office condos are empty and in forecosure and I can't seem to find who controls them.

However the property I put together doesn't necessarily have to be the location for the BGI campus.
I'm committed to orchestrating and realizing a Campus for BGI rather than looking for a use for my land.  With Harrison Hospital building a major cancer care center across the street there will plenty of opportunities to develop it.