2. FGCU Campus Walk

Today I went on a long walk of the campus at Florida Gulf Coast University.  After watching the Colloquium video and hearing the story on the founding and construction of the university, I wanted to see for myself whether or not even they were keeping with the standards they set for this site.  I have to admit, at the end of the day, I liked what I saw.  The college is point blank in the middle of this beautiful preserve.  The first place I went was down the nature trail on the east side of campus.  While I felt like they could do more with what was there, I encountered all different types of life, mostly pertaining to wold birds, insects, and small mammals such as squirrels and armadillo.  The only disappointing thing I witnessed was an overwhelming amount of litter which is to be expected on a college campus.  I just thought it was too much for environmentally based university to have.  Besides that, I felt as though FGCU belonged in the middle of this sanctuary.  Yes, it's weird that an environmentally renowned college built in the middle of this natural habitat, but what they've done to keep the surrounding environment flourishing is evident by the number of animals and plants that are unaffected and almost unaware of the school's presence.  Projects are happening all over campus to keep the ecosystem empowered and sustainable and if someone else took one walk-through of campus, I know that they would feel the same.  Having a degree in Biology and taking classes bent on the sustainability of environments and their wildlife such as Evolution and Ecology, I'm almost predisposed to taking the negative stance and viewing everything as something that could hurt the balance in an ecosystem.  However, the FGCU campus has done so much to keep it preserved as well as just making Colloquium a mandatory class that I don't think they are an eco-hypocrite in the least.