Creating a Night-Sky-Friendly Campus

Smith College professor James Lowenthal can’t pinpoint the exact moment when he became a dark sky advocate, but over time, his interest in reducing light pollution has evolved into “a labor of love and a calling.”

“I see myself as a public scholar,” says Lowenthal, who is the Mary Elizabeth Moses Professor of Astronomy.  “My professional life has been more and more about this.”

For two decades, Lowenthal has been teaching, writing and talking about the negative impact of artificial outdoor lighting to anyone who’ll listen, whether that’s students, government officials, or news reporters.

Light pollution—which includes “the “artificial brightening of the naturally dark night sky due to excessive and poorly designed outdoor lighting”—can have harmful effects on wildlife, human health, energy conservation, and a community’s overall quality of life, Lowenthal says.

As for views of the night sky, studies show an estimated 99% of North Americans can no longer see the Milky Way due to increased artificial lighting—a situation that Lowenthal warns is only growing worse.

A founder of the Massachusetts chapter of DarkSky International and Northampton City Lights, Lowenthal has also been active on campus. Last fall, he founded a Smith chapter of the Campus SHINE (Safe Healthy Illumination for the Nighttime Environment) program, a new initiative designed to curb light pollution at colleges. (Information at iCampusSHINE.org ). So far, 35 students, faculty, and staff have signed up for the group’s email list.

Una Fonte ’26 is among the students who have been “inspired by Professor Lowenthal’s enthusiasm.” On April 20, she and her fellow Smith house EcoReps will be hosting the college’s fifth annual LightsOut event, where outdoor lights in the Quad are turned off from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. to make stargazing possible.

“Having a night without light pollution is a powerful reminder of the actions that we as a campus can take to enhance our ability to perceive the more-than-human world,” says Fonte, who is also a member of Campus SHINE. “That includes the night sky and the illumination it naturally provides.”

Here’s what Lowenthal had to say about light pollution and the aims of Campus SHINE.

How big a problem is light pollution?
“You could say Thomas Edison invented light pollution with that first usable light bulb. Starting 40 or 50 years ago, astronomers began talking about the problem, and taking steps to protect views of the sky. Since then, there’s been an inexorable rise. More than half of all observatories are now affected, as artificial light has spread into more remote areas. Things also changed dramatically in 2019, with the launch of Starlink [Elon Musk’s huge space satellite network]. But astronomers know we can’t solve this just by saying, ‘Stop because we can’t see the sky.’ We have to find shared values, and make arguments that link to broader environmental concerns, human health, safety, and culture.”

What is the link between wellness and light pollution?
“Excess lighting can have profound effects on sleep because it interferes with our circadian rhythms. And there are studies that have linked light pollution to a number of serious diseases including breast cancer and diabetes. That makes sense because in the presence of artificial light at night, our natural production of melatonin can be almost completely suppressed, and melatonin is essential for healthy immune systems. It’s also been well documented that spending time in nature is good for our overall health; doing that under a blanket of stars is one of the most joyful experiences you can have in nature.”  

What is the mission of Smith’s Campus SHINE?
“Campus SHINE is a natural outgrowth of the dark sky movement that has been gaining traction, but until now didn’t do much on college campuses. A great majority of the lighting installed at colleges is done with no plan or awareness of the importance of preserving natural darkness at night. Smith’s Landscape Master Plan has a short section on lighting, and the Campus Planning Committee unanimously endorsed in 2024 the IES / DarkSky Five Principles for Responsible Outdoor Lighting. Those include using only the amount of light that’s needed, using downward-facing lights and [shorter wavelength] amber-colored LED lights. Now, we need to make those principles operational.”

How will the group help the college do that?
“First, we want to include education about light pollution in relevant classes such as landscape design, environmental science and policy, and biology. We have a whole slide deck on ‘light pollution 101’. Second, we want the college to conduct a full lighting inventory of all of our outdoor lighting. We need to step up the level of regular communication with facilities, planning, and safety departments at Smith—to build those relationships so that a changing culture around lighting informs policy.”

What do you say to those who worry that reducing outdoor light will make the campus less safe?
“Safety vs. darkness is something that people perceive, but it’s a false dichotomy. Smith probably has some of the best, most night sky-friendly outdoor lighting of all the Five Colleges—subdued, warm-colored, and downward-facing. And it’s also one of the safest campuses. Another important safety issue is preventing traffic crashes because blinding glare from poorly shielded light fixtures is a major hazard on the roads.”

What keeps you hopeful? 
“We know how to fix the problem and we have made progress. A good example is Smith’s new library. The designer worked to install warm-color, mellow, not-too-bright, downward-facing lights and control the glare from the building. On the state level, we’ve built a coalition with groups like the Sierra Club and the Massachusetts Medical Society. We have a dark sky bill pending in the legislature (H3494 now before the Telecommunications and Energy Committee).  A lot more people are getting involved.”