Sustainability Committee: Current Minutes

April 30, 2018

Present

Craig Houghton, Brad Kendall, Beth Brantley, Kim Herrman, Freya Qually, Staci Grimes

Announcements

  • May 23: Commonwealth Campus Sustainability Forum at Great Valley. Administrators, faculty, staff encouraged to attend. We'll carpool from campus.
  • June 25 - 26: Sustainability Curriculum Consortium in Pittsburgh

Old Business

  • More tidbits for summer into fall: water bottle usage, Career Closet (timed to support event), and request for audience to recycle.
  • We need to ascertain cost of installing nice labels on outdoor waste receptacles, directing recyclables inside to recycle bins

New Business

Green Paws

Requirements for different levels of the program are evaluated. Will request that the S.I. share the levels in Excel spreadsheet format so that the committee can adapt it for our campus. Color coding should help:

  • Green for what the campus does / participates in
  • Pink for what individuals cannot control
  • Yellow for homework
  • Initials when complete
  • Add links for more information

Sustainability Award

This award has been given for years - next year we'll formalize the process. We'll add an online form and invite the campus to make nominations, then evalutate the nominations as a committee to recommend a recipient to the Chancellor's office.

Open Forum

The committee decided to meet monthly during common hour on Wednesdays for the fall semester - in the Art Studio, so the space should always be available. Exception to this is the first meeting of the semester, September 10: this will be a PAWS session, open to the whole campus, in the General Studies auditorium.  The Sustainability Committee would like to see enhanced participation from all different types of campus citizens. If there is an student Environmental Club next year, we should invite representatives to work with us. Also, there is room for any administrators, faculty, staff, and students who have an interest.

Ideas to explore

  • Eat locally? Perhaps we can partner with the Mill to do an activity like this for a week in the fall.
  • Better promote / participate in apple harvest gleaning?

Adjournment

Next Meeting will be on September 10 during common hour (12:20 - 1:10 PM) in General Studies Auditorium, 105. This meeting is open to all the campus community and will be counted as a PAWS session. Several key members of the Sustainability Institute at University Park will join us!