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Voting yes makes huge success
Students choose to make campus greener
4:00 am Mar 11 - by Alexandra Morgan – buzz Writer
Eight dollars goes a long way. It pays for a movie ticket, and it helps energy efficiency. It pays for a good six-pack of beer, and it also helps plant local produce. In the recent sustainable campus referendum, 77 percent of votes voted for an extra eight dollars to turn the Illinois campus into a new shade of green.
“It’s very exciting,” said Anthony Larson, president of Students for Environmental Concerns. “It’s been a solid effort.”
The organization has been working tirelessly since this past fall to promote the referendum, which proposed increasing the current student sustainability fee or “green” fee from $5 to $14. For the Student Sustainability Committee and its partner organizations, the increased green fee is a tree-hugging victory.
“Fundamentally, it’s to make the campus more sustainable,” said Suhail Barot, chair of the committee.
In spring 2007, a $5 per-student refundable fee was approved to finance various sustainability-related initiatives across campus. Three years later, after positive project results, the new fee increase will continue to finance projects. Ideas range from green buildings to more energy efficiency and further education about sustainability.
The Student Sustainability Committee has already stamped its carbon footprint around campus. Its projects include ultra-efficient LED lights installed at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and occupancy sensors regulating lights in campus buildings, among others.
One of the current programs that will continue to benefit from the newly-increased fee is the student sustainable farm. The student-run farm, located on the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Windsor Road, sells produce to the university’s dining halls.
“They’re one of our best programs,” said Barot.
The farm is relatively new, celebrating its first full harvest year. The increased fee will help plant new seeds for future farm projects.
Samuel Wonsover is a student who works extensively on the farm. He’s excited about its future, as he plans to intern there this summer. To him, the farm is a key step to growing greener pastures on campus.
“To have a school grow food for its students seems like a very sustainable and local decision,” said Wonsover.
The farm grows more than 40 varieties of plants, including onions, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. The farm is helping the residence halls go local at a good price.
“Instead of a tomato traveling all the way from Mexico, it came from not even a mile away,” explained Wonsover.
There are a lot of other ideas to use the extra green to make campus even greener, including roof-mounted wind turbines on certain campus buildings. The turbines would be a daily reminder of an alternative energy source right here on campus.
“It would be cool to have that on campus where students could see it,” Barot said. “And it would pay for itself over a decent amount of time,” he said. Larson commented on energy cost.
“The energy cost rise that has occurred in the last 10 years is extraordinary,” Larson said. The cost is a financial burden not only for the university, but also for its students: these energy costs are included in the raising tuition rate.
“These are real, pertinent issues for the fiscal health of the university, not just for the sustainable health of the university,” said Larson.
Campus recreation is going greener too by becoming even more energy efficient.
“They are interested in putting in a solar thermal hot water system for the pools,” Barot said.
Not all the projects shine the limelight on saving energy. Other projects include the campus-composting project, whose focus is all about reusing and recycling food waste.
“It’s really small scale right now,” said Barot. “We’d like to be able to set up a facility that could handle all the stuff [food waste] that comes out of the dining halls.”
The sustainability projects at Illinois influence people outside the campus confines.
“What we do here will have an impact on what other universities do and what the state does,” said Amy Allen, secretary of Students for Environmental Concerns.
The referendum is a huge step in securing a sustainable future for Illinois, but it doesn’t stop there. Others see that there’s a lot more to be done.
“Many students and faculty have mentioned the need for the university administration to begin serious investment in campus sustainability instead of relying on the students,” said Larson. “The time for our university administration to step up is now.”
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