Personal Project Update #3

So, I am still waiting to get data about the Energy Challenge results and if the programming we conducted in Teter had any effect at all on resource consumption.

While I am waiting on that, I have begun to work with an RA from the Collins Living-Learning Community on methods for tying sustainability with the residential life experience.  As mentioned in my previous posting, I will be presenting sustainability in the context of Residential Life with an RA for Residential Programs and Services Winter Training. We have discussed presenting sustainability through the lens of the Residential Experience, a set of four pillars that RA's must program around each month for their individual floors or their entire residence hall community. Here is what we are thinking to tie sustainability in with the four pillars. Please feel free to suggest other ideas you think residents would respond to:

Academic Initiatives
We would like to discuss the university's interest in infusing sustainability in the general curriculum of the institution at IU. The RA I am working with, Stone, has also mentioned the possibility of sustainability becoming a major selection in the near future. We would like to also highlight the sustainability and sustainable design concentration within the MPA program in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs for RA's who may have students interested in graduate school. The overall focus of this section would be to reiterate that sustainability touches every aspect of our lives and this can be seen through its application in all parts of IU's curriculum.

Exploring Beliefs
We would like to frame this conversation around the positive contributions of sustainability to one's life and how changing your behavior to enhance sustainability can also enhance your life, not detract from it. Stone and I both agree that the environmental or sustainability message so often espoused is one of deprivation. We want to re-frame the conversation around how much more healthy you can live by riding a bike or purchasing food locally when you have the opportunity. We would also like to discuss briefly what environmental justice means and how their actions affect not just themselves but the broader community, state, country, and globe.

Community Development
We would like to actually compare the idea of keeping their money in the local economy through local purchasing to their residence hall community. All residence halls have budgets they pull from to help support the happiness and well-being of their hall through programming and the like. If residents of a larger community, like Bloomington, could look at the money they earn as money given from a community budget, to be used within the community to promote happiness and well-being, how much better would we live as a whole?

Personal Development

This is the section we would like to culminate the presentation with because we would like to recognize sustainable behavior this group is already practicing and give them some new one's they can implement within their lives and with their residents. This could include using reusable coffee cups or bags, public transportation or riding their bicycles rather than driving to relatively nearby locations, turning off lights when they are not being used, etc. We would like to encourage them to broaden their horizons by looking at reusing products for other functions before throwing them away and taking an extra moment to think about recycling their waste before throwing it in the garbage.

Finally, we would like to round out the presentation with the presentation of a "Sustainability Cheat Sheet" they can take with them outlining resources they can contact if they have questions about sustainability on campus and how they can talk about sustainability with their residents. The cheat sheet will also include ideas for sustainability-focused programs like a trip to the Hilltop Garden, documentary or TedTalk recommendations to infuse in weekly movie nights, and the Green Room Certification through the Office of Sustainability.

What other ideas do you have for us as we move forward with this presentation? We would be happy to hear any and all recommendations or even things we have proposed that you do not think would work so well.

Living in Transition

In the Roseland reading for the week, the concept of "Transition Towns" was introduced as a way for citizens of a community to catalyze change. Specifically, these communities strive to become "self-sufficient and resilient" while moving toward reduced dependence on oil (Roseland, 2012). The movement begins at the grassroots level, as opposed to the traditional top-down scheme utilized for so many years, although these activated citizens are encouraged to "engage local government" in their efforts to effect the change they want to see. Here is a great introduction to the movement and the methods they hope to employ:

Did you know that at this moment, as you are reading this, you are part of the transition? It's true! In 2010, the city of Bloomington announced their intention to reduce their dependence on oil and become a transition town. Interestingly enough, the announcement of the idea and movement to the larger community was conducted by the Mayor of Bloomington and several council members at the time, after motivated and vocal residents of the area demonstrated their concern to the local government. The announcement was accompanied by a day-long town meeting in which citizens were invited by the local government to join them in brainstorming ideas to achieve the goal of reducing oil reliance in the city of Bloomington. For more information on the set-up for the day, click here for the formal press release.

The Transition Town movement, often seen as a product of the UN's Agenda 21 we read earlier in the semester, is not without its detractors. Enjoy this video expressing concern about some of the land use and zoning issues coming up due to the movement:

Fascinating viewpoints emerge regarding some of the best practices Transition Towns encourage and which we have learned this semester. The charming host of the segment refers to "high-density prison cities" in reference to the encouragement of higher-density housing in urban areas. A Georgia man's death is attributed to the demands of the movement.

Normally, these types of videos seem to be distributed amongst a small group of extremist factions. Unfortunately, this video has been online for about a year, has garnered over 20,000 views, and was prominent on many Tea Party websites I visited when researching this issue. Especially when considering the participation of the Tea Party, an influential and real political movement, it is possible that the detractors would gain traction against sustainable community development. How real do you think the threat of opposing opinions is on this movement?

References

Roseland, M. (2012). Toward sustainable communities: solutions for their citizens and their goverments. New society publishers: Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada

http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/viewDocument.php?document_id=4902

Personal Project Update #2

Since my last update a lot of progress has been made in Teter Quad and with my personal project. My intent with the personal project was to interface with residents in regards to sustainability to find out what they already knew and to challenge them to go deeper in their understanding and practices.

What started out as an idea to run a series of practical skills workshops quickly fizzled as I realized the magnitude of coordinating the series and a general lack of interest. In just the informal discussions I had with residents, it didn't seem like they had any interest in learning more about bicycle repair, sewing, etc. which was pretty shocking for me. At a previous institution, I had participated in events like those I had proposed to generally enthusiastic student response. Not so much here. However, what did seem to resonate was programming that slyly integrated sustainability as an educational component of the event. Which is what I had proposed in my last blog. This included plans to show an outdoor movie while encouraging students to turn their lights off in order to see the movie. We also planned to plug the IU Energy Challenge at this event and provide food from a local vendor that sourced fresh, local ingredients in their products. Well, I am happy to report that we held the movie event at the end of October to enthusiastic response. We had approximately 60 students come out to watch Wall-E, a movie with environmental stewardship undertones that was also accessible to the general student population. The Director for Environmental Affairs and I led a discussion regarding the IU Energy Challenge and sustainable practices residents of Teter Quad could implement or may be already doing. We also administered an exit survey of students at the event to determine their knowledge level of sustainability as a result of the program. We had 11 responses to the survey, with overwhelmingly positive response that students had learned new skills they could implement in their lives to save resources. They also agreed that they were more likely to use those skills and that they would like to see more sustainability programming in the residence halls.

This program was extremely encouraging and motivated me to host another sustainability event before the end of the IU Energy Challenge, to feed off of the energy of the first program and give one last push in the hopes that Teter could pull ahead and win the challenge. So two Fridays ago, in conjunction with a small group of RA's, I hosted an ugly sweater party/competition to increase the visibility of the Energy Challenge and encourage students to layer up to stay warm instead of cranking the heat in their rooms. As laid out in my previous posting, our group hung eye-catching posters advertising the competition and provided prizes to the top two winners. The event had about 20 participants, all of whom took the same survey as the outdoor movie participants to gauge student knowledge and behavior around sustainability. This time around, because the connection to the IU Energy Challenge wasn't as strong as the movie, it was hard to articulate how turning off your lights and taking 10 minute showers related to wearing sweaters in the colder months. I believe the general idea was lost on a lot of the participants as I only had two students from the survey say they actually learned new skills around sustainability and that they would implement those skills in their daily lives. Teter ended up in fourth place out of five buildings in our residential neighborhood for the Energy Challenge, which made me realize just how hard it can be sometimes to get people to care about something they are unfamiliar with. Or just plain don't care about.

Moving forward, I am preparing a sustainability training/workshop with two RA's from other residential buildings to present at the Residential Life winter training in January. We hope to explain sustainability through the four pillars of the Residential Life Experience: 1. Academic Initiatives, 2. Personal Development, 3. Exploring Beliefs, and 4. Community Development. We are taking this approach in the hopes of connecting the explicit values of the department with our sustainability value. Additionally, we want to create a sustainability reference guide for RA's to utilize when looking for programming ideas. That way they have something quick and easy (speaking to the values of busy undergraduate college students) to do with their floors that revolves around sustainability.

I am contemplating how I would like to round out this experience for the end of the semester. If anyone has ideas for taking this project to the next level, let me know! I'm open to feedback and would love to look at this project from a different angle.

Land Use Planning and College Campuses

As a Higher Education and Student Affairs student in a Public and Environmental Affairs course, I constantly challenge myself to make connections between what we discuss in V515 and my other courses. Admittedly, the challenge is not difficult, especially when I have the living laboratory of IU from which to glean information and connections. Sustainability in higher education is increasingly gaining attention with over 50 sustainability officer positions created on campuses from 2000-2008.



Source: AASHE, Higher Education Sustainability Officer Position and Salary Survey, January 2008

As such, universities now have another expert in their arsenal to look at the overall impact of decisions and land use planning within the microcosm of college campuses. These institutions are major consumers of natural resources and greatly effect their surrounding environment. Many have integrated the natural environment into their overall master campus plan in an effort to preserve the larger ecosystem they participate in.

 

University of Virginia

 

 

The University of Virginia's Master Land Use Plan takes into strong consideration the natural systems they recognize that their campus is a part of. In the plan they stress the importance of the natural services, such as air and water filtration, that the land provides. Additionally, they discuss the fragmentation and degradation of the land in previous decades due to irresponsible land use. Moving forward, their land use plans include remediating and restoring these degraded natural areas for their inherent positive qualities.





 





University of Virginia topographic map of campus.
Source: University of Virginia Grounds Plan

 

 

University of Denver

   

The University of Denver has long held sustainability in high regard in their general operations. When the institution decided to update their land use plan, they made sure to include a sustainability section. According to the document, there are several standards that the University of Denver holds itself to when considering their land management strategy. This includes efforts such as:

• Consolidation of the University's primary educational facilities on one campus, thereby maximizing the efficient use of its land.
• The reduction of the number of small surface parking lots by consolidating parking to strategically located structured facilities to both increase the amount of green space on campus, and curtail convenience short trip driving within the campus.
• The plan encourages the continued development of the University’s shuttle bus program, it advocates strengthening the pedestrian linkages to the recently completed RTD University of

  Denver Light Rail Station, and it highlights the importance of developing the Promenade

  concept so as to provide efficient and attractive bicycle and pedestrian movement across the

  campus.
  

 

Clearwater Christian College

 

Some institutions are still trying to find their way in integrating campus expansion and environmental stewardship. Clearwater Christian College recognizes the importance of expanding amenities offered

on their campus as a way to attract and retain students. However, in order to do so in the manner they proposed, the plan is to expand into priceless marshland surround campus, literally draining the land of water and wildlife habitat. Here is a news clip explaining the proposed expansion (sadly, the video is not embeddable):

 

http://www.wtsp.com/news/science/story.aspx?storyid=139997

 

The way forward for Clearwater Christian College is not clear as they are currently still trying to find an appropriate area to expand their campus without damaging the fragile surrounding wetlands.

 

 

These types of dilemmas are ones that are good to have, if anything because they force universities and other large entities to consider land health before constructing or planning. More universities need to be taking this route and hiring experts to plan in more sustainable ways. There are best practices all around our country, universities must take advantage of the wealth of sustainable land use solutions already in place as a benchmark for future planning.

 

References

http://www.aashe.org/resources/pdf/sustainability_officer_survey_2008.pdf

 

http://www.wtsp.com/news/science/story.aspx?storyid=139997

http://www.du.edu/architect/documents/Appendix_A.pdf

http://www.virginia.edu/architectoffice/GroundsPlanWebsite/GPNEW/Introduction/GPForeword.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personal Project update

Student's attitudes toward sustainability in IU's campus have surprised and excited me. In the conversations I have shared with students in my residence hall, many of them are interested in sustainability and demonstrate their interest by discussing preferential purchasing and their affinity for shaming their friends for failing to recycle.

However, there do seem to be sustainability myths permeating throughout the knowledge of our student population that I hope to address in my personal project. Two of these myths that I have heard repeated over the last weeks include the rumor that Environmental Services staff does not actually recycle anything that is placed in the recycling bins and that the energy challenge is biased toward newer buildings or buildings with no increased energy usage based on external factors like weather. In order to address these concerns and generally increase the idea of sustainability in Teter Residence Center, myself and a handful of willing residents have developed programming for the Center.

We have three programs we would like to host in the upcoming months with a correlating pre- and post-survey of student's attitudes toward sustainability:

1. Energy Challenge Movie Night
The residents working on this project with me made it clear that they wanted to bring back this popular Energy Challenge program from years past. They would like to encourage residents to turn off the lights in their rooms on one evening in order to project a movie (seasonally appropriate Hocus Pocus) onto the side of the building. They would like to address the crowd before the movie about the significant impact turning off their lights when not in use can make. Lighting contributes to over 40% of our total energy usage in the residence halls so turning the lights out can make a HUGE impact if done consistently. We will also generally discuss the energy challenge at this event and dispel the rumor that newer buildings or buildings without air conditioning have an advantage (Teter won a few years back; those other buildings couldn't have had an advantage!)






Hocus Pocus was chosen as the movie because of the time of season and because it is wildly popular amongst Teter Quad residents.

2. Recycling Race
The residents want to set up a recycling race in the lobby of our residence center to allow students the opportunity to compete against one another in sorting a pile of waste into recyclable and unrecyclable materials. We decided it would be beneficial to have them use the actual bins they would use in the residence center or dining center for the race to familiarize them with the process. We will also use the take-out containers and common items purchased from dining centers as part of the waste piles as that is the majority of recyclable waste we tend to see from residents. Finally, we will address the myth of Environmental Services not recycling items that are placed in recycling bins.

3. Ugly Sweater Competition
We're considering doing an ugly sweater competition as the weather turns colder to promote residents layering clothing instead of turning the heat up in their rooms. We like this idea because it is low key and fun but also educational and something that is not always considered when you think about sustainable lifestyles.

 

Flyers for the event should be eye-catching and enticing for students to get them to the event. We hope to use pictures like this one to get students interested in the event.

For the latter two competitions, we will have incentives in the form of prizes, hopefully from local vendors who utilize sustainable practices in their operations. Additionally, because all three events are public and highly visible for the whole community to see, we hope that the participation of these students will spur them to continue their sustainable practices upon completion of the activity. We are additionally considering having a sign-up at the recycling race for students to sign if they want to commit to thinking about recycling when throwing away their waste.

To measure whether these activities have impact on students and their values and knowledge around sustainability, we will be administering a pre-survey and post-survey for all students in Teter. Here are the questions we would like to know:

1. What year are you in school?
2. What floor do you live on in Teter (please include building and floor)?

Using a scale of 1-5, 1 being not at all important to you and 5 being very important to you, please rank the following:

• Recycling 
• Water conservation
• Electricity conservation
• General reduction in use of nonrenewable resources

Using a scale of 1-5, 1 being you know nothing about the topic and  5 being you feel very knowledgeable about the topic, please rank the following:

• Sustainability
• Recycling in your residence hall
• Recycling in the dining halls
• How to monitor your water use in the residence halls
• How to monitor your electricity use in the residence halls
• How to monitor your use of nonrenewable resources
• Resources on campus specifically pertaining to sustainability

Please share any thoughts or ideas this survey generated for you.

To incentivize students to take this survey, we are also offering small prizes (most likely gift cards) to maximize response. The survey will be set up via survey monkey and administered via the floor RA's in an email. Overall, based on previous experience RA's receive pretty solid response from floor-wide emails (approximately 60% response or 28 students per floor). The survey will be administered again at the end of the semester to gauge whether students were affected by the sustainability programs hosted in Teter. We will add questions specifically about the programs we host to gauge how the programs affected sustainability values if at all.

An update will come shortly after our first program, the movie night, at the end of October.

At the Farmer's Market

Bloomington farmer's market produce and flowers

Last Saturday, I journeyed to the Bloomington Farmer's Market with a group of students from two floors in my residence hall. I fondly recounted for the residents my days of working the farmer's market for an apple and peach orchard my mother worked for when I was in middle school. The long afternoons battling bees to pick the sweetest peaches you will ever taste, the endless boxing of half pecks of enormous heaps of fruit, the 5 a.m. wake-up to haul the peaches out of the cooler and into the truck, the half-hour drive to our stand where we set up our tent and unloaded all of the peaches, and of course the hours of conversation and sampling and selling of the fruit - it all came flooding back to me with one little trip to the market.


As I walked around, I spoke with a few sellers about how their morning had gone and how they were faring around 10 a.m. Most answered with a "great" or "good", with the occasional "tired" or "sunburnt" mixed in. Their replies, and their worn-down appearances, introduced the realization of just how labor intensive nurturing, harvesting, and selling our sustenance for each day of our lives really is and how much of that grueling work is displaced on other people. How easy is it to step into your local Kroger and not give a second thought to the hours upon hours it took to get that food to your cart? I didn't work to figure out what type of produce would grow well on my land, how much water and sunlight that plant would need, when I would have to harvest the salable part of the plant, how long it would take to bundle for market, and then how I could store the product before I could even get it to market for sale. But someone like the sellers at the market did and I am grateful.

I believe in order for society to take interest in their personal well-being and the well-being of others (especially in relation to food), they should befriend a local food products producer. It doesn't have to be much, a simple conversation should suffice, but that conversation could very well change attitudes around where that person chooses to spend their dollar when feeding themselves. Personally understanding the sources of our food and the producers of the food connects us in a way that McDonald's never can. If I could, I would choose to spend every one of my dollars for food on locally sourced products. Sadly, coffee is not grown here in Indiana, so I can't locally source that. In all seriousness though, I do hope to return to the farmer's market in the hope of not only eating more healthfully but to assist the local growers of the delicious apples, peaches, and peppers I have enjoyed every day since my trip.

Alternative Energy in College

Colorado State University's Wind Farm at Maxwell Ranch retrieved from www.ext.colorado.edu

Living in the residence halls, I often feel like I have little to no control over my resource consumption when it comes to energy or water. Although I think often about how I can reduce what I use each day, there are aspects of my life that are out of my control. I don't have a thermostat to regulate the temperature of my room, I am not able to affix low-flow fixtures in my bathroom, and I definitely can't choose to heat, cool, or source electricity with alternative energy sources.

I firmly believe in the statement made by Kerr & Hart-Steffes (2012) that  "higher education has a unique 
opportunity to impact global sustainability initiatives. As centers of research and scholarship, and hubs of activism and action, institutions of higher learning can, will, and are propelling the United States sustainability movement forward in multiple dimensions." Many universities have risen to the challenge by creating room in their budget for sustainability coordinators or creating an office dedicated to sustainability. A large chunk of american colleges have publicly committed to taking sustainable measures via the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). This commitment entails developing a plan and deadline to becoming carbon neutral as well as committing to at least two measures to reduce energy consumption or source energy from a renewable energy source. Many universities have taken this pledge, including my alma mater, and are using it to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable measures. One creative way Colorado State University decided to demonstrate their commitment is the creation of a wind farm not too far from campus. The former president of Colorado State University, Larry Penley, explains the many reasons why this was chosen:

http://www.colostate.edu/media/green-power.aspx#movie  (I apologize for the link, I could not for the life of me figure out how to embed the video)


In conjunction with the wind farm, Colorado State University (CSU) offers each incoming student residing in the residence halls the option to select wind power as their energy source over traditional coal-powered options. Although the program only covers 4% of the overall Housing and Dining Services energy consumption, the gesture has earned CSU the recognition of the Environmental Protection Agency as a Green Power Partner. The EPA Green Power Partnership recognizes public and private institutions, including colleges and universities, that have taken significant steps to utilize green power to provide energy for their daily operations. For an additional $17 a semester, approximately 300 of the 6,000 residents on CSU's campus have chosen to utilize wind power as their energy producer. Although this does not seem like much, the number of residents signing up has grown since its inception in 2004 and the initiative in itself demonstrates CSU's dedication to alternative energy on campus.

Aspen Hall, an energy-efficient hall at Colorado State University, where students are encouraged to choose wind energy for their energy needs. Retrieved from askjohncummings.com.

Although not every university can move toward providing alternative energy to their on-campus residents, measures can be taken to reduce consumption through retrofitting old fixtures and installing energy efficient lighting. As institutions that society look to for innovation, higher education institutions can have a major impact on the future of alternative energy use.

References

http://www.arizona.edu/features/solar-cats-transform-dorm
http://www.colostate.edu/media/green-power.aspx#movie
http://presidentsclimatecommitment.org/about/commitment
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118345800.html