A small college in Kansas City, Kansas, wants climate justice at the center of everything it does...

Donnelly College students learn about environmental ethics both in class and in their community. Adding solar power to a new building and growing neighborhood gardens, the college is trying to lead by example.
Joe Multhauf is an avid gardener, but even he was thinking that a chilly day with wind gusts up to 20 mph was less than ideal for putting seeds in the ground.

Still, there he was in late March, kneeling on the ground in a courtyard at a low-income apartment complex just west of downtown Kansas City, Kansas, teaching college students the proper spacing for lettuce and other seeds.

Multhauf, an assistant professor, is the longest-serving instructor at Donnelly College, a small, Catholic college a few blocks from the Wyandotte Towers Apartments. He’s taught science courses for 30 years. The one that brought him to the garden — environmental ethics — is in its second year, and it’s quickly become one of Multhauf’s favorites.