For as long as current S&B staff members can remember, there’s been talk of constructing windmills to carry over 80% of our electricity consumption. The project started in 1996 under the supervision of Russell K. Osgood, and since then there’s been various obstacles standing in the way each year. The logistical factors of how to build the windmills and settling land disputes with property owners all seemed to impede their construction. In an ironic twist, the economic recession three years ago allowed the college to purchase the windmills’ parts at record low-costs.

What hasn’t slowed down over the past 16 years is the student activism, raising concern with yearly campaigns to remind the administration of their green promise. It’s groups like SECC, SEG, No Limits Project, and others that fight for the future generations of Grinnellians to enjoy things like gender-neutral housing, handicap accessible buildings, and of course windmills. While we applaud the administration and President Kington for finally carrying out a project that sat in purgatory for almost two decades, it is the work of four generations of Grinnellians who fight in the name of social and environmental justice that allowed this project to come to life.