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With the publication of the College Sustainability Report Card 2010, more than 1,100 school survey responses from over 300 institutions are now available online. In total, these surveys offer more than 10,000 pages of data collected from colleges and universities during the summer of 2009. To access surveys from other schools, go to the surveys section of the website. To see grades, or to access additional surveys submitted by this school, please click the "Back to Report Card" link at the beginning or end of the survey.
Name: Elisa Redish
Position (in student organization): Co-chair (co-president)
Date survey submitted: July 21, 2009
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
1) Please describe the student-run campus environmental/sustainability organization in which you have a leadership role.
Name of organization: Students for Ecological and Environmental Development (SEED)
Number of active members: approximately 25. Varies by a few people seasonally.
Website: http://groups.northwestern.edu/seed/index.html
Date of last meeting: June 1, 2009
Frequency of meetings: Weekly (general meetings every Tuesday, executive board meetings every Sunday)
Key issues addressed and programs implemented since August 2008:
Issues: Campus wide sustainability, climate change, clean energy, legislative process (specifically American Clean Energy and Security Act), clean cars, recycling, reducing energy and water consumption, local and organic food, religion and the environment.
Programs:
1) Fall speaker: This year we brought Bill McKibben, who discussed the urgency of the climate change crisis and the need to act on a larger scale to create change, specifically through the legislative process. Approximately 350 people attended.
2) Additional speaker: Will Steger, an Arctic explorer, talked about his travels and how what he saw showed the changing of the climate. Approximately 50 people attended.
3) Associated Student Recycling Program: A year and a half ago, prompted by an innovative SEED member, SEED worked with Facilities Management and the administration to purchase 28 outdoor trash cans with paper, can, and bottle recycling receptacles attached. Facilities placed these throughout campus. Each week, one or two SEED members use our bicycle-cart to ride across campus and pick up the recycling.
4) Sustainability Pledge Campaign: SEED designed postcards (printed on Forest Stewardship Council certified and 30% post consumer content paper) asking the new Northwestern president to hire a sustainability coordinator, assess Northwestern’s environmental impact, and create a comprehensive climate action plan for Northwestern. To date we have approximately 800 postcards signed. We will continue this campaign into October, and will present the postcards in a creative (yet to be determined) manner to incoming President Schapiro.
5) Green Cup Competition: Green Cup is a six week long competition during winter quarter between NU residences to conserve the most energy and water. Throughout the six weeks, there are various events and opportunities to learn about conservation practices in our daily lives and how they contribute to the bigger picture. The biggest opportunity for "green education" is Green Cup firesides, which take place at nearly every dorm and residential college.
6) Philfest: Philfest is SEED’s annual outdoor bluegrass music festival. This year we had a Northwestern student band, the Gentlemen of NUCO, play, as well as the bluegrass groups the Giving Tree Band, Cornmeal, and Tea Leaf Green. We added a green fair this year – we invited different environmentally related groups from both Northwestern and Evanston to set up tables at the concert.
7) Environmental Intersections: Religion and the Environment. : Last year we started Environmental Intersections, formerly known as Intersection Lecture Series. EI is a series of events and speakers exploring how a certain topic relates to the environment and vice versa. This year we chose to look at the intersection between Religion and the Environment. Our events included a screening of "Renewal," a documentary of stories from America's religious environmental movement, an environmentally themed multi-faith religious service (which we planned in conjunction with NU religious student groups), and a panel of religious leaders from various faiths who discussed the connections between religion and the environment.
8) SEED and Barney Family Organic Community Garden: This past spring, we collaborated with an Evanston family and a local non-profit organization, the Talking Farm, to build and plant a small organic vegetable garden on the Evanston family’s front lawn which they so graciously offered up to us. A few SEED members who are in the area over the summer maintain the garden currently. All food grown is donated to Campus Kitchens, a student group that takes unserved food from dining facilities on campus and with volunteer help, creates nutritious and delicious meals for seniors, youth programs and other community organizations. So far we have donated some lettuce, parsley, and kale, and will donate more food once the other vegetables are ready to harvest.
9) CarboNUtral: This past spring, we created a breakoff group of SEED members and some Oxfam America at NU members to advocate for the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act. We met to discuss the bill, what we would like to see in a climate change bill, and then wrote a petition to our representative, Jan Schakowsky, thanking her for her commitment to the environment and asking her to make sure to include certain things in the bill, such as a renewable energy standard of at least 20% by 2020. In late May, we set up three tables across campus and got approximately 500 students to sign the petition, which we delivered to an aide of Representative Schakowsky at her office hours in Skokie.
SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES AND COMPETITIONS
2) Does your group organize any sustainability challenges/competitions for your campus and/or with other colleges?
[ ] No
[x ] Yes. Please list details for each competition.
#1 - Name of competition: Green Cup Competition
Year initiated: 2005
Frequency of competition: Once a year. These past two years the competition has been six weeks long. During its first two years the competition lasted for two weeks.
Participants: All residents of dorms and residential colleges on campus.
Incentives: A prize for the winning dorm in each of the two categories (with dining halls and without). Usually the prize is a pizza party. This year we established a half point prize. We gave about 25 $3 Starbucks gift certificates to each of the two residences in the lead after 3 weeks.
Goal of competition: To reduce NU’s water and energy consumption and educate students on how they can reduce their environmental impact.
Percent of energy/water/waste reduced: Willard, the winning dorm in the dorms with dining halls category, reduced its water consumption by about 2 percent, and reduced its electricity consumption by more than 30 percent. GREEN House, the winning dorm in the dorms without dining halls category, reduced its water consumption by 70 percent and its electricity consumption by almost 27 percent.
Lasting effects of competition: The water and energy saving habits instilled in students.
Website: http://groups.northwestern.edu/seed/greencup.html
SUSTAINABILITY IN STUDENT GOVERNMENT
3) Does your student government include a specific position or committee dedicated to campus sustainability issues?
[ x ] No – although we (SEED) do have a senator to represent us in the student government.
[ ] Yes. Please describe:
OTHER ACTIVITIES
4) Please describe any additional campus sustainability activities or projects that you or your group has initiated at your school:
5) Please list and briefly describe any other student-run organizations related to campus sustainability at your school, and provide URLs if available (e.g., student groups; student government committees; student-run food co-ops, gardens/farms, bike co-ops) and provide contact information of the student leaders, if possible:
-Environmental Campus Outreach (ECO) at Hillel; www.ecohillel.com
-Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) http://msgroups.tech.northwestern.edu/esw/index.html
-Sustainability Working Group (SWaG)
-Library Environmental Committee
Questions 6 is for informational purposes only; your response will NOT be included in the Report Card evaluation process.
6) Please list any regional or national networks with which your group is affiliated (e.g., Energy Action Coalition/Campus Climate Challenge, Sierra Student Coalition, a state PIRG, a state student sustainability coalition):
-Illinois Student Environmental Coalition
____
Name: Benjamin Singer
Position (in student organization): Co-Founder and President
Date survey submitted: July 10, 2009
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
1) Please describe the student-run campus environmental/sustainability organization in which you have a leadership role.
Name of organization: Environmental Campus Outreach (ECO) at Hillel
Number of active members: 8
Website: www.ecohillel.com
Date of last meeting: May 24, 2009
Frequency of meetings: Weekly on Sundays during the academic year.
Key issues addressed and programs implemented since August 2008:
Our goals are advocating and achieving environmental sustainability within the Jewish community and throughout the campus community through grassroots efforts, so the below concerns and programs are thusly focused.
1. Waste at Hillel: We're taking many steps to make the Jewish student center, the Fiedler Hillel Center, a more sustainable place. (a) We've purchased reusable tablecloths that are used every week instead of disposable tablecloths, which has also saved Hillel money. (b) We have also purchased reusable dishes, which we sometimes use to replace disposables. (c) We're also currently testing the building's electrical system to put all the lights on timers to make sure they all shut off every night. (d) We collect compact fluorescent light bulbs at Hillel for safe disposal.
2. Improper waste disposal on campus and at Hillel: ECO has made Hillel the center of proper disposal on campus. We've created two main drop-off points for batteries and ink cartridges at Hillel and at the student center, and have bins in 10 Greek houses so far, as well, which collect revenue from their collections. Our share of the proceeds goes toward the Bright Ideas Grant (see below).
3. Environmentally unsustainable theatre productions on campus: We've taken multiple steps on this front. A very simple step to reduce the use of extremely harmful gaffer's tape was to purchase cable covers/mats, which will also save productions money. We are also incentivizing greener planning by test-driving our "Bright Ideas Grant" by financially contributing to productions that apply with proposals of how they will make their productions green. We will later likely make this grant available to other student groups who submit proposals on more sustainable operations.'
4. Awareness of environmental decisions: ECO helps educate the campus through the Green Cup sustainability firesides (which we initiated and developed). These became collaborative this year. We also just began a "This Is Green" campaign with eco-friendly, permanent stickers, which we launched in conjunction with the "Mt. Trashmore" event on Earth Day 2009.
5. Jewish awareness of environmental decisions: We held a dinner at Hillel for 60 people on a Friday night close to Tu B'Shvat, the Jewish arbor day. Because we held it on the Jewish sabbath (Shabbat), we called it "Tu B'Shabbat."
6. Environmental appreciation: We hold outdoor events three times a year to promote appreciation of the outdoors and to recruit members.
Progress made on each issue/program since August 2008:
1. Waste at Hillel: We began using the reusables more, but we still cannot do it every week because we lack the manpower to wash all the dishes without an industrial dishwasher. We collected our first CFLs this year--none were dropped off the previous year, presumably because people hadn't had them long enough to burn out yet. The lighting system audit began in April 2009 and is not complete.
2. We expanded the ink cartridge and battery collection program this past year to the Greek houses, incentivizing their collection by splitting the proceeds. We plan to expand the program further this year. We collected about 700 pounds of ink cartridges and batteries that otherwise would have ended up in the trash.
3. All of the Bright Ideas Grant work began since August 2008. We have given out 3 grants so far. We plan to continue with theatre productions for Fall and Winter, and hopefully open it up to other groups by Spring.
4. The ECO firesides of the past, which we created and presented in conjuction with other groups, this year became officially collaborative mainstays of the annual campus Green Cup competition between dorms to reduce energy and water use, as they were planned and staffed by the three major environmental groups (ECO, SEED, and ESW).
5. This year's dinner was our 2nd annual Tu B'Shabbat dinner. We plan to hold a dinner like this every quarter (three times a year) from now on, and had our first non-Tu B'Shabbat "ECO Shabbat" in May 2009.
6. We had our first kosher, organic, locally grown, vegetarian barbeque in Fall 2008, and our second in Spring 2009. We anticipate continuing during those times, as well as holding a winter snow play time in Winter 2009.
SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES AND COMPETITIONS
2) Does your group organize any sustainability challenges/competitions for your campus and/or with other colleges?
[ ] No
[x] Yes. Please list details for each competition.
#1 - Name of competition: Green Cup
Year initiated: ? Mostly organized by SEED.
Frequency of competition: Annually.
Participants: On-campus, non-Greek residences.
Incentives: Pizza party.
Goal of competition: Reduce energy and water use at a higher percentage than other residences.
Percent of energy/water/waste reduced: ?
Lasting effects of competition: Some consciousness of ways to reduce consumption.
Website: ?
#2 - Name of competition: Bright Ideas Grant
Year initiated: 2008
Frequency of competition: Quarterly (3 times a year)
Participants: Currently student theatre productions, soon all student groups
Incentives: $200-$300 cash
Goal of competition: Submit a proposal for your student group on how you plan to operate in an environmentally responsible manner.
Percent of energy/water/waste reduced: Unkown, still developing methods for accountability.
Lasting effects of competition: Consciousness of ways to operate more efficiently, and the knowledge that reducing waste saves money.
Website: http://nustudenttheatre.org/wiki/index.php?title=Bright_Ideas_Grant
SUSTAINABILITY IN STUDENT GOVERNMENT
3) Does your student government include a specific position or committee dedicated to campus sustainability issues?
[] No.
[x] Yes. Please describe: The Sustainability Working Group (SWaG) is composed of faculty, University vendors, and student environmental leaders who work together to develop sustainability initiatives.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
4) Please describe any additional campus sustainability activities or projects that you or your group has initiated at your school:
5) Please list and briefly describe any other student-run organizations related to campus sustainability at your school, and provide URLs if available (e.g., student groups; student government committees; student-run food co-ops, gardens/farms, bike co-ops) and provide contact information of the student leaders, if possible: SEED, ESW, vegan co-op--I think you will receive survey responses from them all!
Questions 6 is for informational purposes only; your response will NOT be included in the Report Card evaluation process.
6) Please list any regional or national networks with which your group is affiliated (e.g., Energy Action Coalition/Campus Climate Challenge, Sierra Student Coalition, a state PIRG, a state student sustainability coalition): ISEC (Illinois Student Environmental Coalition)
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