Minutes April 2, 2009
Campus Sustainability Council
Thursday April 2, 2009, 2:00-3:00 pm
Minutes
Attending: Steve Arndt, David Barnhill, Almut Beringer, Joe Blohm, Jim Feldman, Brian Klinger, Mike Lizotte, Maureen (Moe) Muldoon, Marty Strand.
Guest: Tom Sonnleitner
Approval of the minutes of the March 12 meeting.
The minutes were approved as written.
Director’s report.
The Director has been working principally on three top priorities of the Council
1. Transportation
Almut has been working with Dick Hackbarth on the issue of carbon offsets for the use of airplanes by faculty/staff for professional conferences. Are carbon offsets the best means, and if so which ones, and would the institution pay for them in its efforts to gain greater carbon neutrality?
Almut is working with Oshkosh on the bike/pedestrian plan. It is important that we coordinate our transportation plan with the city’s. One issue is whether and how much to use the Oshkosh’s consultant.
Tom stated that the Campus Master Plan Update is proceeding rapidly. There will an open forum on the plan on Monday, May 4. We have a consultant working with us on the plan. The name for the transportation dimension of the plan may be changed from “Parking” to “Transportation.”
2. Procurement
Almut found ethical guidelines for procurement and sent them to Brian Klinger for his information and consideration.
3. Curriculum
Almut has been pursuing the issue of how we might define for ourselves the notion of “sustainability literacy.” She has a volunteer from the local community who is doing a literature review on the topic.
Almut plans on making an initial designation of what courses currently in the bulletin could be considered a “sustainability course.” The list could be put on the sustainability website. A volunteer is looking through the bulletin, and Almut has been looking at the courses in the Economics Department. It was noted that faculty should be consulted about the way they are designated, and this should be done directly with those teaching the course, rather than the chairs. Almut noted that our search for sustainability courses in the beginning should be broad and inclusive, and later we could narrow the list as appropriate.
Communicating our sustainability efforts
Tom Sonnleitner noted the need for us to be more systematic and coordinated in getting the word out about our sustainability efforts. We also need to keep in mind the balance between operations and curriculum.
Tom raised the possibility of the office of sustainability producing a campus sustainability newsletter, or whether we should rely on the IMC’s weekly updates.
Tom noted that currently we don’t have a systematic way of reviewing the reports about sustainability. Perhaps all reports concerning sustainability could go through the Director.
Mike stated that changes have taken place since IMC was developed following the departure of Frank Church. He feels that there is, for instance, very little reporting of faculty research, and there are fewer news releases appearing in the local media.
Adding members to the Council
The Council discussed the possibility of inviting a representative of IMC to either be part of the Council or at least attend meetings. The Council voted to invite a representative of IMC to become part of the Council, with Mike dissenting.
The Council discussed whether we should add an additional faculty member to keep a balance between operations and academics. This would also be a way of gaining broader representation among the faculty by including representatives of colleges other than COLS. As there was general consent to this idea, the Council discussed possible ways to add a new member: (1) invite someone who has demonstrated strong interest in and commitment to sustainability; (2) invite someone who is beginning to show interest in sustainability; (3) ask the dean of a college to nominate someone; (4) put our a call for faculty who would like to be considered for the position.
There was general agreement on the benefits of adding two new faculty, one each from COB and COEHS. Steve suggested we not send out a call; this method would be more appropriate to seek unit coordinators in the future.
The Council discussed the issue of how new members should be added to the Council. As this is an issue of proper procedure, the Council decided we should wait for the establishment of Council by-laws.
CASPER grant
Tom noted that CASPER has received a grant from the federal stimulus plan. Tom, Almut, and Steve Dunn met to discuss launching the new initiative. In order to make CASPER more clearly a university-wide effort, Almut will be P.I.
Director’s report, continued
Almut reported that she has joined the NEW North group as part of connecting with the broader community and coordinating our planning.
Almut is working with Jim Simmons to conduct a campus survey on sustainability ideas and attitudes concerning sustainability. Almut knows of a survey model, but she needs to translate it from the German.
Almut is working with Marty Strand on the waste stream of Dining Services.
She reported that she participated in the UWO panel at the Wisconsin Renewable Energy Summit on March 26. She will be attending a Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference in Maryland, March 31-April 2. There is a pre-conference workshop on carbon neutrality.
Transportation, continued
Almut stated that UWO could tag onto the city of Oshkosh’s transportation planning. Steve noted that the university has done something like this in the past. It was noted that some of the activities currently assigned to the Oshkosh consultant, which have a substantial price tag, could be done by those on campus.
The was a discussion on the relation between planning for bicycles and pedestrians and the campus master plan. Steve suggested that planning for bicycles and pedestrians needs to follow the basic structure of the master plan. Almut argued that bike and pedestrian planning needs to be considered from the outset so it is not marginalized as an afterthought.
As the time allotted for the meeting expired, the Council agreed to adjourn and continue this discussion at the next meeting,
Items for next meeting
v Continue discussion of transportation
v Consideration of by-laws.
v Adding additional members to the Council from IMC and colleges other than COLS.
v Community garden.
