A community I really value is Greek Life at the University of Maine. I am a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity on this campus, but beyond my own frat, there are a couple dozen other greek organizations on this campus. While there has always been a friendly rivalry bettwen these different organizations, the inter-fraternal relations are strong and there is a bond between us that is very important. We all have the same set of values at our core; to help eachother be better idividuals and stronger leaders for the future. Exectutions will always differ between organizations, but this primary goal of self and mutual betterment is something that I value greatly, as it is something that very few other collegiate programs can offer. To lose this sense of brother an sisterhood, the life blood of our organizations would be a true travisty. Having such a strong bond and connection with those closest to you on a level that goes beyond friendship is something that would not just change what greek life would be, but would change the fabric of the college social experience. For these reasons, the Greek Life community at the University of Maine has enormous potential and is something I view as an integral part of my college experience.

Within my specific fraternity, we have 30-ish active brothers at any one time. In order to keep in touch with all these brothers and keep them updated on events, policies, and general informaiton, we use Slack. Slack is an internet mased buisness managment tool that is widely used in tech fields and small buisness sectres around the world. This application helps groups of people stay organized, stay up to date, and plan effectively. This application has no adds, does not accumulate private data, and functions in the least centralized way possible for such an application. Any real footprint that this applcation would have would be the power consumption used to run the servers and run the mobile devices running the client side. In the state of maine, we are lucky enough to have a growing renewalbe source of power of sector, however, I can imaging how such applciations as this would be less than environmentally concious in other countries where the primary producer of electricity is coal or fuel based. The servers will consume the most amount of energy at any given time, but thank to the quick adoption to cheap solar energy that has been heavily subsidized by the US government, Silicone Valley as a whole has begun to move closer to a more eco-concious mindset when it comes to data management. Besides that, Slack does not intrisically have any other environmental footprint. As for the mental health of the users, slack is very respectful and mindful of this, as its place on mobile devices is non-intrusive and only notifies you if absoutely necessary. The only other technology that TKE uses would be the appliances that are in the house. While I would gladly keep the CFL and LED lightbulbs that keep the house lit, there are certain technologies inthe hosue that I would change if I could.

Incandecant lightbulbs, being still one of the cheapest options, are still widely used in my Fraternity. There has been moves to replace them, but their usage demands a constant waste of energy in the form of heat. Speaking of heat, TKE uses oil to heat the massive house. This practice, again, is hardly eco concious, as the oil industry has destroyed ecosystems and is on its way out as it is. Oil is produced at a drastically slower rate than it is consumed so it is only a matter of time before it is at a premium comparable to gold or platnium. These two, more primative technologies used every day are things I would love to change. For starters, using natural gas, or more eco-minded methods of heating our house would be fantastic. The impact om the environment for our house alone would be staggaring. However, considering the costs of renovation to replace the outdated oil system is far outside the budget of what TKE can afford. That being said, I would love to ban oil, but economically, in a place like Orono Maine it can be hard to put money towards more eco-concious methods when the wallet is the largest concern. Of course the small things like old-fasioned lightbulbs and single use plastics are things that I would love to ban. All of that takes time and convincing, but I can imaging that I would really make an impace on my community for the better.

I believe that ethical decision should be made based on the ethics themselves. If it is a decision like vaccination, that affects everyone, it should be something decided by a nation. Where as if it is a decision about smartphone use, that should be deemed by the family, in the home. Again, it really depends.