Ball State University; Muncie Indiana (National Wildlife Federation)
National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology Fellow Jessica Clement secured an agreement from the manager of the Ball State University bookstore (Barnes and Noble-managed) to carry products made from recycled materials in the store. The majority of products available are paper products such as notebooks and Post-it notes. Jessica set up a display to showcase the products and developed a survey, which was strategically administered to 50 students and staff on the Ball State campus, to determine the level of interest in environmentally-friendly products in the bookstore permanently. The display has shoppers taking notice and the bookstore has agreed to keep it up. Jessica also coordinated an event on campus with activities such as canvas bag painting and a recycling bottle toss. The event was well attended and educated the campus community on the simple ways to make a positive impact on the environment.
Creighton University (Sierra Student Coalition (SSC))
Patrick Sechser, Anastasia Yanchilina and their group at Creighton University in Missouri succeeded in implementing small but significant changes at Creighton this year.
Campus Wide Recycling Program
Creighton also appears to finally be implementing a campus-wide recycling program after many years of strategizing, and is composting coffee grounds and ensuring fair-trade coffee is sold on campus.
Georgia State University (Southern Energy Network)
Recycling
The Sustainable Energy Tribe convinced housing and waste management offices to expand the recycling program to include recycling drop off points on every floor of every dorm through door-to-door petitioning and meetings with these officials. This process also served as an organizing drive for the group's ongoing sustainable energy efforts.
New College of Florida (Southern Energy Network)
Recycling and Composting Program & Student Position
After two years of student project work through an independent study, New College students developed a comprehensive recycling and composting program which has begun receiving a regular budget and a student position to oversee the program.
The New School - New York, New York (NWF)
National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology Fellow Hannah Riches launched the “I Heart Slutty Paper” campaign to educate students at The New School on the importance of using paper products that contain recycled content, not virgin pulp paper. Hannah designed bumper stickers, computer lab mouse pads, and fliers with the slogan and was overwhelmed with the response she got from students on campus. She worked with school administrators to get a new policy adopted that requires 100% recycled paper in all the computer labs and all printers to be set to print double-sided.
University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Southern Energy Network)
Green Dining
The University of Tennessee's Dining Services is now making the change to more sustainable dining practices and has plans for a fully integrated green dining hall. The changes made include local produce and organic foods, more vegetarian and vegan meals, greater source waste reduction (less packaging), waste free (all waste is composted or recycled), and green seal cleaning products. This was achieved through the work of SPEAK. Aramark, the University's dining Service Company, was open to the idea, but needed a lot of prompting to get going. Students submitted proposals for a feasibility study and set up meeting to discuss, while also petitioning for green dining practices in the form of restaurant comment cards. After seeing the overwhelming support for a green dining hall on campus, Aramark began working with SPEAK to plan a "Green Dining Day", and identify local/green suppliers for Aramark. This event took place during Earth Week and incorporated all of the practices above, as well as surveys and tabling to educate students on the benefits of these changes. Because of the success of the event and positive student feed back, UT's dining services has now adopted many green dining practices, and is continuing to work with SPEAK to host more educational events as well.
Valdosta State University, Georgia (Southern Energy Network)
Recycling
By injecting messaging around sustainable energy practices and the momentum from their green fee campaign, SAVE finally won movement from the school on running their own recycling program. For several years SAVE volunteers had been collecting, sorting and hauling recycling themselves. Now VSU has committed to hiring two student interns to collect and sort and has signed a contract with the city of Valdosta to have it hauled away.
Virginia Tech University (Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN))
Student Leaders - Netanya Huska, Sara Breakiron, and Katelyn Keefe.
Recycling Program
Through student persistence, the daily recycling program is being reinstated in July 2007Further projects achieved available at http://www.facilities.vt.edu/sustainability/http://www.facilities.vt.edu/documents/ec_minutes_20070409.pdf