Minutes February 24, 2009

Campus Sustainability Council
Meeting, Wed. 2/24/09
Minutes

Attending: Victor Alatorre, Steve Arndt, David Barnhill, Almut Beringer, Joe Blohm, Brian Klinger, Mike Lizotte, Maureen Muldoon, Cassandra Nagle,

Welcome

1. Introduction of our Campus Sustainability Director, Almut Beringer.

Reports

2. Review of the Northwestern editorial of Feb. 20 and the responses from UW Oshkosh.

Mike Lizotte’s letter to the editor was published in the Northwestern today. Chancellor Wells submitted a response, which is likely to be published next Saturday. Almut also responded.

3. Priority focus groups

David reported that Dining Services has put Fair Trade chocolate in some vending machines in high traffic areas.

The group has not yet met. Recyclemania continues. We are currently #3 in Wisconsin.
There is interest in electronics recycling, something we don’t currently do but need to start.

It was noted that SEAC has shown interest in a free bike program on campus.
Mike noted that there is interest in increasing the use of bikes on campus, but we lack infrastructure: bike lanes, bike co-op, and a bike club. It is hard to make an ambitious bike program work without these. Also, our narrow sidewalks make riding bikes on the sidewalks a problem.
Also, it is unclear whether students need bikes. Students usually have bikes but choose not to use them as much as we’d like, in which case a free bike program would have little impact.
A bike map of campus might help, as might special bike parking areas. The new car ramp might be used as a place to park bikes out of the rain.
Joe Blohm said that a few years ago, UW system told him that a free bike program was a liability and rejected the proposal.
Once we get a bike plan implemented on campus, we could go to the city and ask for strategic bike lanes into the city of Oshkosh.
Parking management is another issue we need to consider.
The semester goal for this group is to have a draft of a transportation plan.

The group met last November. They focused on the idea of a green move out day in May. There is concern, however, about over-taxing the residence life staff.
Victor suggested that Residence Life staff should be involved in a marketing campaign.
The group needs to talk with Dawn Dettlaff, who oversees recycling in Residence Life.
This group and solid waste need to get together.

The next brown bag discussion of sustainability is scheduled for March 4. We will discuss the definition of stability given in the Campus Sustainability Plan. Subsequent meetings will work toward a metarubric for the essential learning outcome about sustainability.
A D2L discussion of sustainability will be started soon.
The next faculty college on sustainability will take place in May.

4. Almut’s review of her focus for the next few months.

She will work on getting it known that we have an active Director and a campus sustainability office. This includes meeting with the deans and the CSC members.
She is pursuing grants, especially for student interns, who could help with the many tasks of campus sustainability.
She will be involved in the marketing campaign about sustainability, including Campus Vision. We need to make it very visible our commitment to sustainability.
She is considering a student self-guided sustainability tour of campus. We also could have sustainability field trip guides that faculty could use to help them integrate sustainability into their courses.
She will be working with Steve on the university’s climate plan.
She is involved with bringing a new biofuel facility onto campus.
She plans to be involved with the STARS self-assessment plan that AASHE sponsors. Steve, however, noted that some of their guidelines are too strict and absolute, and thus fails to recognize some significant initiatives.
She plans to get to know and work with student groups SEAC and Community Gardens.
She is participating in the Campus Sustainability class.
She is on the sustainability planning committee of the city of Oshkosh.

5. Other business

Mike raised the question of the best location for Almut’s office. Currently she has space in both Swart and Facilities Management. It might be better if she was in Dempsey with the other top administrators.
Almut stated that she wants only one office. At the moment, being in the Environmental Studies area is helpful.
Steve noted that the university is remodeling Elmwood, and when that is done, space in Dempsey will open up.
This issue will be on the agenda for the next meeting.

--Muldoon, Barnhill