More than 60 University of Kentucky students, faculty, and supporters rallied earlier this month to demand that the school change its cozy relationship with Big Coal.
At the rally, UK Beyond Coal activists shouted, “Ho, ho, hey, hey, Wildcat Coal Lodge needs a new name!” The rally garnered media attention and raised a campus-wide debate over the school’s energy choice: a clean-energy strategy that invests in the state and creates jobs, or the status quo that sickens people.
“The coal industry has had a profoundly negative impact on the lives of countless Kentucky citizens, and it is embarrassing that the flagship university of this great state continues to stand so closely aligned with such companies,” UK Beyond Coal Co-Coordinator Sam Beavin wrote in the Kentucky Kernal, the student newspaper.
I nearly died when I heard the LEEDS certified wildcat lodge had a new name with COAL in it. I gagged! Everytime I follow up on my team and I see that word in the name, I cringe. Shit’s got to go!
