Since branching off from the Office of Sustainability, the Student Sustainability Center prides itself on student involvement and accessibility to related issues.
Friday marked the center’s deadline for accepting student proposals for sustainability projects, which, if approved, will ultimately be granted money from the Student Sustainability Fund, a fund that contains $35,000. The center received dozens of proposals.
Steve Mital,@@http://uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/Steve*Mital@@ sustainability director at the University, created the Student Sustainability Fund six years ago with the hopes of involving students in creating sustainable projects on campus.
“I worked with students to create the Student Sustainability Fund. The program was reasonably successful — some really neat ideas bubbled up and got money to implement — but 12 proposals was the most received for a given funding cycle,” Mital said. “I transferred (the fund) to the new Student Sustainability Center.”
The SSC, located on the basement level of the EMU, was launched on Earth Day 2010 with the hiring of Louisa de Heer.@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Louisa+de+Heer@@ De Heer oversees the center in an advisory position to help student advocates navigate the intricacies of the University. She hires student interns to promote the center in different capacities.
“We have an eight-student board of directors, and each of those students focuses on a different issue areas,” she said. “From food and landscapes, to buildings and zero waste, to equity justice and health, they are able to be more focused on those different specific areas.”
In the past, projects that received funding included buying a LED system for the stage at the Willamette Valley Folk Festival, buying 250 mugs and saucers for the International Students Association Friday lunch and installing a variable frequency drive at the EMU to save energy. Last year, the SSC funded 11 different projects with budgets ranging from $500 to $22,000.
The money is allocated among the different projects as deemed necessary by the student board. The board reviews the proposals and votes on which proposals are worthy of funding.
“Being awarded a grant is a really great learning experience for them,” de Heer said, “and seeing all that through has been really positive all around. I’d love for more students to have that experience.”
Nick Berardi,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Berardi@@ a University senior majoring in planning, public policy and management, was awarded a grant last year to install a meter on the HEDCO solar water system to learn about how the University uses solar energy.
“We take the readings and see how can we get that information out and what is the best way to do it,” Berardi said. “So we decided to get some quantitative numbers and show people not only how much of solar energy that is available, but also what that solar energy equates to in terms of monetary savings.”
He teamed up with Sam Thompson,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Samuel+Thompson@@ a fellow University senior in the PPPM department, for the proposal and project. Berardi hopes their project will be a springboard for people who are interested in similar subjects.
“I hope that students will look and say ‘Let’s go to the dorms, and let’s talk about shower use. Is that something that we should be thinking about?’” Thompson said.
The board will begin reviewing the proposals in the upcoming weeks and will decide which projects they want to fund.
“It’s an energetic place and an excellent resource for students looking to get more involved with local environmental issues,” Mital said. “I’m hopeful the number of proposals will increase under SSC’s management.”