Mercyhurst Green Team | Green Team Projects




	Projects and Activities: Get Involved Recycling Green Energy Fund Energy Conservation Solar Scholars Earth Day 2009 Ecodemia President’s Climate Commitment/Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Sustainability Studies Minor Recycling: Guidelines and Suggestions Recycling saves energy, resources, and waste, and it reduces pollution. Although we have retained separate bins in hallways of academic buildings, all recyclable materials may now be mixed into single containers for disposal. This is especially important in student housing and in offices, where we have only a single bin for recyclables. Students are required to collect their recyclable materials in the single bin provided to them and deposit them in nearby recycling dumpsters marked “RECYCLING ONLY.” Students: see your RA for bags for your recycling bin. Employees: call Larry Kerr at ext. 2045 if you need a recycling bin. The following materials are recyclable: Glass bottles and jars: clear, brown, and green. Rinsed and unbroken. DO NOT include window glass, drinking glasses, or light bulbs. Metal food or beverage cans: all types, rinsed. Crushed or uncrushed. Plastics: numbers 1 through 7 (look on the bottom), including lids. Rinse thoroughly, crushed or uncrushed. NO styrofoam. Newspapers and Magazines Cardboard Paperboard such as cereal and food boxes, beverage cartons, egg cartons and paper bags. NO wax coated boxes or pizza boxes. Paper: all grades and colors, such as junk mail, envelopes, writing, typing, wrapping and computer paper. NO paper towels or napkins. Consider establishing a compost container for coffee grounds and vegetable waste in your area. Recycle ink jet cartridges: separate boxes are located in the following areas: Preston Mailroom, Hermann Student Union, Hammermill Library, Zurn 1st Floor, Hirt second floor. Please use them. The Green Team earns up to $4 for each ink jet cartridge that is recycled. Recycle phone books from November-January. Separate bins provided. Feel free to bring your phone books from home. This is a great project, as it earns money for the Second Harvest Food Bank. In addition, Erie Energy Products converts the phone books into home insulating material. Faculty: Whenever possible, use Blackboard, email and Library Electronic Reserve as a means of reducing paper use. Students: We need you to help make the program a success. Let us know if you can help, or if you have ideas on how we can strengthen the recycling program at Mercyhurst. Green Energy Fund During the 2006-07 academic year, student Green Team members successfully campaigned for the passage of a Student Green Energy Fee. Through petitions (with over 1,000 students signing) and a 2-1 student referendum vote, students overwhelmingly approved a $5 per student, per term fee that allows Mercyhurst College to strengthen an already impressive commitment to renewable green energy. With four geothermal buildings, 1kw solar panels, and a 30% commitment to wind energy, this has become a hallmark of sustainability at Mercyhurst. The Green Energy Fund is administered by a Green Energy Review Fund Board (GERFB), consisting of two students, two faculty members, Ken Stepherson, director of the physical plant, and the executive vice president for administration, Tom Billingsley, and one at large member. The GERFB meets periodically to review green energy proposals, which may be submitted by any student or faculty member. The Guidelines for submission of a proposal are available here. In the spring of 2008, the GERFB approved the first two projects: purchase of a solar safety-emergency lighting system, and increasing the percentage of campus electricity coming from wind farms from 10% to 30%. For more information on the Green Energy Fund, please contact Dr. James A. Snyder, Chair of the GERFB, at jsnyder@mercyhurst.edu. Energy Conservation In the fall of 2008, Green Team students will be working closely with the physical plant staff and administration to kick off an energy conservation campaign. More information will be forthcoming on that effort, but for now all members of the Mercyhurst Community should abide by the following guidelines aimed at using our energy more responsibly: Always turn off lights, stereos, TVs, and computers at night Turn off lights and computers when leaving the classroom, office, dorm, or apartment for an extended period or at night In classrooms with excellent natural day-lighting, consider going with less artificial/electric lighting. Solar Scholars In 2006, the Mercyhurst Green Team applied for and received a $15,000 grant through the Solar Scholars program to install a 3-kilowatt solar panel system on campus. The funding was provided by the Sustainable Energy Fund of Central Eastern Pennsylvania. During the summer of 2006, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Ron Brown, along with two of his students, traveled to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania to receive training on the installation and monitoring of the panels. With assistance from the physical plant staff of Mercyhurst College and North Coast Energy Systems (a local company with expertise in alternative energy installations), the panels were installed in November 2007. From the time of their installation through July 2008 the panels have produced over 2400 kWh of energy for the College and have reduced Mercyhurst College carbon dioxide emissions by over 5,000 pounds. The panels are used for special projects in classes and student research. To see the solar panels in action, go to: http://view2.fatspaniel.net/NorthCoastEnergySys/mercyhurst/HostedAdminView.html To see the solar panels in action, go to: http://view2.fatspaniel.net/NorthCoastEnergySys/mercyhurst/HostedAdminView.html Ecodemia Ecodemia, the Green Team semi-regular newsletter,was launched in 2000 (see past issues here. The submission of stories, photos, features, poetry is always welcome. Please contact Dr. Marnie Sullivan, Visiting Professor of English, msullivan@mercyhurst.edu. President’s Climate Commitment In October 2007, Mercyhurst College President Thomas Gamble signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment , which has now been signed by several hundred university and college presidents in the United States. Driven by the international scientific consensus that addressing the worst impacts of global warming necessitates a minimum goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050, the Climate Commitment obligates all signatories to a goal of carbon neutrality for their institutions. It immediately compels each institution to conduct a comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gases emitted—by the institution itself and by their employees and students. It further requires each college or university to develop a thorough, methodical and incremental plan for reducing greenhouse gases. Mercyhurst’s greenhouse gas emissions study will commence in the fall of 2008. Sustainability Studies Minor Background For centuries, institutions of higher education have played an integral role in recognizing, understanding, and developing solutions to the central challenges facing human societies. Over the past two decades, colleges and universities all over the world have directed increased intellectual energy and resources toward meeting what is perhaps the central crisis of our age: the long-term unsustainable trajectory of human civilization. At hundreds of institutions, including Mercyhurst, scholars, students, administrators, and physical plant personnel have together begun to chart a course toward a more sustainable future, one that would balance social and economic development with the urgent, entwined needs of restoring the health and ecological integrity of the planet’s living systems. Menacing, ponderous issues such as global warming and peak oil will be central to the world our students enter. After several years of discussion among Green Team faculty from a wide range of disciplines, the interdisciplinary Minor in Sustaainability Studies was established in the spring of 2007. The Sustainabiluty Studies Minor introduces students to the concepts, principles and ethical and moral issues underlying the global movement toward sustainability which they apply to their future employment, consumption decisions, and lifestyle choices, as well as to the improvement of communities in which they live. . Environment and nature are quintessentially multi- and interdisciplinary topics that invite a probing, wide-ranging, dynamic investigation of the nature of the modern world. The path to sustainability touches every realm of academic endeavor, as our faculty and students increasingly demonstrate. A minor in Sustainability Studies complements a wide range of career-oriented degrees at Mercyhurst, including the Ecosystem Conservation concentration in Biology, Political Science/Environmental Politics, Archaeology/Anthropology, Business Management, Interior Design, Hotel/Restaurant Institutional Management, and Education, as well as liberal arts degrees in Sociology, History, Religious Studies, and the Arts. In addition, the 4-credit Introduction to Sustainability Studies satisfies either the Western or non-Western World Perspectives requirement of the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum. Sustainability Studies Minor Total of Seven (7) courses must be taken Courses Required Introduction to Sustainability Studies (new course, 4 credits)—get number This course is taught by two or three rotating faculty members from a combination of the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. The course satisfies either the Western or non-Western World Perspectives requirement of the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum. Senior Field Experience in Sustainability (new course)—get number In this 3-credit capstone senior experience, the student, working with a faculty member and in collaborative consultation with a community organization, a business, governmental agency, or on the Mercyhurst campus, will engage in a substantial and meaningful service project designed to help advance the principles of sustainability in the region. Procedural details: In the junior year, a student pursuing the minor in Sustainability Studies initiates a discussion with the coordinator of the minor (Magoc willing to serve this role for now) about potential projects that would satisfy this requirement. Depending on the student’s major and particular area of interest, a committee of two or three faculty members, to include the Sustainability Studies Coordinator and faculty from the student’s major, shall meet to discuss potential projects. The student shall submit to the committee a two-three page proposal for the project that: applies significant multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary dimensions of sustainability studies gleaned from the students’ learning in the classroom; results in a work of service-oriented applied scholarship directed to some specific problem concerning the human relationship with the environment; requires research beyond the students’ knowledge base to date—the type and extent of research (primary data gathering/generation, secondary sources consulted and read, etc.) will be defined in consultation with the student’s committee, contingent on the nature of the project. Students may satisfy both the senior capstone requirement for the Sustainability Studies minor while also fulfilling a major senior requirement such as an internship or field experience. For example, the first graduate of Mercyhurst to minor in Sustainability Studies was Dustin Hankinson, a marketing major, who fulfilled his marketing internship and senior sustainability studies experience by spearheading the campaign to win passage of the student Green Energy Fee. . Electives: Students choose 5, no more than 2 from each school: Zurn School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics World Geography Plants and People Energy Science Field Ecology Restoration Ecology Environmental Problem Solving School of Social Sciences Environmental Politics Global Environmental Politics Environmental Philosophy Environmental Law U. S. Environmental History Global Issues Contemporary Environmental Issues Human Needs and Global Problems Haffenmaier School of Education and Behavioral Sciences Environmental Design The School of Arts and Humanities Religion and the Environment Asian Cultures

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