Fall 2011 Res Hall Plug-In Device Inventory

This fall, one of the projects of the Eco-Reps Program was to visit different residence hall rooms around campus and to count the number of plug-in electrical devices. Below are the results. Note that rooms range from single occupancy to multi-room suites. Next year we'll remember to count the number, gender, and major of the rooms' residents.

Building	Spinner	North House	Hill Hall	Schillhammer	Quarry
Room 1	10	8	25	6	24
Room 2	7	29	12	14	27
Room 3	9	10	21	6	12
Room 4	9	8	13	5	18
Room 5	8	11	21	10	18
Room 6	5	10	12	8	23
Room 7	9	9	12
Room 8	7	19	18
Room 9	6	11	9
Room 10	8	14	14
Average	7.8	12.9	15.7	8.2	20.3

Going on now: Better World Books collection

Have some books that are lying around your room/office? Donate them to a good cause: Better World Books collects and sells books online to donate books and fund literacy initiatives worldwide. With more than 8 million new and used titles in stock, we’re a self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders. Learn more here. Books that can’t be sold are recycled.

What can go in the bins:

• College Textbooks and Study Guides (clean and legible condition) with copyright dates from the past 10 years
• Workbooks (with no missing pages)
• Basically any book used in a college classroom (highlighting or writing in books is fine so long as the text isn’t obscured)
• Accompanying CDs
• Hardcover Fiction/Nonfiction
• Paperbacks (must be in like-new condition with copyright 1980 or newer)
• Former Library Books
• Travel Books (with copyright dates from the past 5 years)

Please do NOT put in bins:

• Dirty, Moldy, or Water Damaged Books
• Books with Damaged Binding or Pages
• Books with Missing Covers or Pages

You can find collection bins in: MIC entryway; Joyce, Freeman, Hauke entryway, IDX, and Ireland main lounge. Questions? Contact cerickson@champlain.edu

Intervale Food Hub Spring Student CSA Share at Champlain College

It's time to sign up for your Spring Semester Student Share! The share begins the week of January 23rd and runs through the week of April 30th. The sign up period will close January 9th, 2012. Receive delicious, fresh local food delivered weekly to campus throughout the semester. The pick-up spot will be Aiken Hall on Wednesdays during the Spring Semester.

Share options for students include: vegetables, eggs, cheese, pesto, bread, yogurt, meat and more! Visit our website to view the share options and sign up!

Be in touch with Food Hub Coordinator, Brianna Farver with questions: brianna@intervale.org, 660-0440 x111.

Save Some $$$ This Winter!

Last week, Sustain Champlain hosted a weatherization workshop geared to those who live off-campus. In case you couldn't make it, here's a quick summary of some pretty easy steps to take this winter.

Heating: You can save 5% of your annual heating costs for every 5 degrees you set your thermostat back (make sure to always keep heat above 55 degrees to avoid frozen water pipes!). Turn heat down during the day when you are out of the house.

Weatherization: A lot of heat escapes through leaks. Ask your landlord if you can weatherstrip doors and windows. Installing plastic sheets on widows can improve insulation noticeably. Do-it-Yourself Kits that cover up to 6 windows are available for $12-16 in most hardware stores.

Lighting: Turn off all unnecessary lights. By replacing five of the most frequently used light bulbs in your home with compact florescent bulbs; you could save $60 in energy costs per year! Did you know that landlords in Burlington can receive 16 bulbs FREE from Burlington Electric Department? Let your landlord in on this tip...

Cooking: Use a microwave or toaster oven when preparing small portions. Keep all pots covered and refrain from opening conventional oven while in use (25 degrees of heat escapes each time an oven is opened!).

Appliances/Electronics: Many things consume electricity even while they are “off” - TV's, computers, etc. Save energy and money by unplugging these devices while they are not in use (putting them on shared power strips/surge protectors makes this a lot easier to do!).

Water Use: Heating water accounts for approximately 15% of an average household energy bill. To save hot water, take quick showers and replace shower heads with low flow units. Use washing machines and dishwashers with full loads only. Use cold water when using a washing machine; it is equally effective at getting clothes clean.

For more info on energy efficiency and weatherization contact Efficiency VT, VT Gas, or Burlington Electric.

Want even more? Attend a Button Up Workshop -- hosted in various locations around the state this fall.

Thanks to the UVM Office of Student & Community Relations Office for content for this posting.

Trash Bash 2011 Results

Ah, one of my favorite activities of the year... picking through trash. While it might sound gross, and to be fair, it can be pretty gross, it is also pretty enlightening to see what winds up in the pile destined for a hole in the ground (ie landfill). Thanks to Eco-Reps Kayla, Grace, and Skye for playing along.

The results: The good news? Better results than last year (see comparison graphs). The bad news? Still a lot of clearly recyclable items (soda cans & newspapers) in the trash. We also noted several rolls of toilet paper that still had a lot of paper left on them. The work continues…

Announcing: the fall 2011 Eco-Reps! Coming soon to a Res Hall near you...

I am very excited that the pilot year of the new Eco-Reps Program at Champlain College is officially underway. On Monday, I met with the six fabulous students who are the new Eco-Reps: Grace vonRabenstein (Spinner), David Bender (Quarry), Kaylin Beauregard (North Campus), Kyle Judd (South Campus), Allison Markowitz (East Campus), and Schuyler Ogren (West Campus).

In general, Eco-Reps are expected to model environmentally responsible living behaviors and conduct education and outreach to fellow residents. Eco-Reps are trained and coordinated by the Sustainability Director who connects them to appropriate campus personnel and resources. Eco-Rep activities are generally focused within the residential areas of campus, but can spill out into broader campus issues when most applicable.

The Eco-Reps are just getting acquainted with the program, their expectations, and their domain. I hope you’ll all welcome them to your residential areas as they get to know the buildings. The Eco-Reps may be contacting the RAs of the buildings that they are responsible for, for a building walkthrough and/or to set up a time when they can meet your residents at a floor meeting or other gathering.

As a paid position, the Eco-Reps are expected to work 4 hours per week completing various tasks such as:
*regularly maintaining and updating a bulletin board or other communication channel
* building walkthroughs to inspect recycling areas, including bins and signage
* talking with residents about how to recycle, conserve energy & water, etc.
* co-sponsor at least one event/program/activity per semester with a Res Hall staff member or PA
* attend weekly meetings with program coordinator (Christina Erickson)

If you have any questions or feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact me or the Eco-Reps.

Top 10 reasons to park at Lakeside and ride the shuttle to campus

10. You can stop at Cumberland Farms and fill up your tank – routinely the cheapest gas around. ($3.46 on 8/24)

9. You can check out the new Champlain Compass on the TV panels and track the bus as it comes toward you.

8. Play foosball with a friend in the Cantina while you wait.

7. Get to know our favorite bus/van driver Christie.

6. Skip circling around campus looking for a parking place.

5. You get dropped off right by centrally located Alumni Auditorium.

4. Take care of business with one-stop with folks in Marketing, Human Resources, Information Systems, Emergent Media Center, Center for Digital Investigation, Continuing Professional Studies, Campus Planning Finance, or Graduate Admissions and CRM.

3. Enjoy some art by Anna Zalewski on the walls of the Miller Center.

2. Avoid expensive parking tickets.

And the number one reason…
1. Fifteen kinds of coffee and a half-dozen flavors of tea – free every day at Lakeside’s Cantina!

from Stephen Mease Public Information and News Director

Payday savings

Did you know that the mailroom spends almost $50 every other week (or $1,300 a year) mailing out paychecks to faculty, staff, and students? And that’s just the postage! There’s the printing of checks and envelopes and the staff time to process them. But there is an easy to reduce this number: by signing up for direct deposit through the Human Resources department. Simply contact Leslie Carew and ask to sign up. Your check will be directly deposited into your bank, which means one less errand for you as well. Savings abound! Do it today, if you haven’t already. Thanks to Linda in the Mailroom for bringing this to our attention.

Top Ten Eco-Tips for Graduating Seniors

Hey Seniors! Getting ready to depart from Camp Champ? Here are some suggestions on how to make your transition from college life to life-after-college a totally eco-savvy one.

10. Sign on to the Graduation Pledge. While not an official effort here at Champlain, this is something you could do as an individual. The Graduation Pledge of Social & Environmental Responsibility states:
“I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.”

9. Move out Mindfully. Make your trash someone’s treasure by bringing unwanted clothing, furniture, unopened food, books, and more to not one, but two locations for the annual Spring Move Out Project (SMOP) on Wednesday, May 25th from 11am-3pm. Loomis St. and Bradley St. More info on the Chittenden Solid Waste District's website.

8. Find Greener Pastures to Perch. Looking for a new place to live? Be sure to ask your landlord (even if it’s your parents) about the efficiency of the building. Any upgrades to insulation coming up? It’ll keep your heat or AC bill a lot lower.

7. Speaking of bills, keep yours lower by flipping the switch. Power down, use a smart strip, unplug, and the like. Need to make a purchase? Look for Energy Star ratings or the lowest kilowatt usage (kwh) on the yellow energy usage tags. You’ll see the savings add up quick.

6. What kind of wheels? Two is best, four is ok (if they are skateboard wheels). Come on… ditch the car if possible and grab a bike, a long board, your roller skates, and just your pretty flip flops. Gas at $4 a gallon? No thanks! If you are moving to an urban area, acquaint yourself with the local mass transit or car sharing options. You might also base your housing location based on how you can get around town. Check out the Walkscore website to find your best non-polluting commuting options.

5. That’s some good grub! You can’t get much better than fresh, local ingredients. You can make it affordable to by buying in bulk, buying straight from the source, or even lending some muscles to a farm in exchange for some veggies. Use the Local Harvest website to find nearby farmers’ markets, CSAs, community gardens (where you can grow your own) and more, all over the country.

4. B-Y-O. Just because you’re graduating doesn’t mean that you can’t still hang your mug or water bottle from your backpack. Most cafes give you a discount on coffee and tea when you bring your own mug and bottled water is just so past tense. We’re over it. While you’re at it, bring a grocery bag with you too. The trees/dolphins/babies will thank you.

3. Talk trash. Or rather, how to cut the trash. Find out the local recycling rules for your new home and follow ‘em! Save those food scraps for compost or even let some wriggly critters into your life.

2. Still on the search for the ideal job? Check out some of these sweet sites that offer jobs that can be good for your conscious, the planet, and your pocket: Idealist.org, Environmental Career Opportunities, and Sustainable Businesses.

1. Do Something. Transitions times can be busy and hectic, but there’s always the opportunity to get out there and make your family, your neighborhood, your community better in some way or another. Whether it’s through your work or while you plan life’s next steps, get out and do something, and let us know about it. Make us proud.

Final Words Before Summer

As we neared the end of our final exam in Secular and Sacred, our teacher reminded us to keep our intellectual hats on even after we left the class room. He urged us to keep looking for connections and to remain opened minded. I suppose I should say the same to you as well. Keep your Mindful Hats on well after your car pulls away from campus. Even if you don’t notice it, we are so lucky to live in a state where sustainability is important and there are all these grass root movements and organizations that are willing to fight the good fight for a better planet, better life, and better wallet. Not every state is like Vermont. I encourage everyone to take that extra moment to think before you throw or consume. And I challenge everyone to look beyond recycling and simple reduction as environmentalism. People don’t like to accept the negative or wasteful things they do, but we cannot pretend we live in a world anymore where we can leave a mess and hope someone cleans up after us. Sorry, but we are the cleaners right now!

Now I don’t mean you have to go out and join Green Peace or denounce everything non-organic or local (although it wouldn’t hurt to incorporate more local and more organic in your life), but I think we need to be more active. Practically every area in your life can be taken in a more sustainable direction. If you love food look at the environmental impacts it creates in your state and work toward making changes. If you love exercising see if you can run to work once a week to cut down on gas. Surround yourself with people who are interested in the same things you are so you can further your pursuits; I know it can feel awfully lonely to be around be people don’t care the way you do. Play with ideas while you’re home and then come back here to implement them. We are a small school, so there is a better chance you can make changes and that those changes will be felt by nearly everyone. They call us the lazy generation, but let’s prove them wrong! Let’s give a damn.

This summer I will continue to post periodically, so check out the blog every now and then for updates. You’ll probably find a lot of them are related to the community garden that will hopefully be all a bustle this summer. Have a great, great, vacation, make lots of money, make only a few bad decisions, and KEEP BEING MINDFUL!

You + leaving your car at home = Champlain wins the Way to Go! Challenge

Champlain Employees: Here is the first official reminder to sign up for the annual Way to Go! Commuter Challenge.

Whether you try leaving your car home for a day or for the week, your participation matters! Already take the bus, walk, or carpool? Still sign up for the Challenge. We want to recognize your efforts.

We are hoping that Champlain can reign again as champions in our class of large size employers and bring home the Carbon Cup! Signing up for the Challenge is quick and easy, and you’ll be registered for a number of raffle prizes through WTG. In addition, David Provost is sponsoring an internal Champlain raffle with three great prizes:

1) a one year individual CarShare Vermont membership,
2) a $50 gift certificate to The Ski Rack, and
3) a Sustain Champlain sweatshirt & water bottle.

In order to get into the Champlain raffle, simply let me know (via email) when you’ve signed up and I’ll enter you. There will also be an opportunity to register and get into the raffle during our May 11th employee retreat. I’ll hold the drawing on May 16th.

So please, consider giving the bus a try, put your name into the CATMA carpooling database, or get that bike tuned up for a sweet (and potentially sweaty) ride to campus (showers are available in IDX and Lakeside!). The WTG website has lots of resources on finding different ways to get to work. And while you’re at it, be sure to register with CATMA (Campus Area Transportation Management Association – of which Champlain is a member) to be included in their monthly drawings and find out more about programs like their emergency ride home from work and bike/walk benefits program.

Questions? Send ‘em my way!

~Christina

Spring Meltdown Green Team Shout Out

It's official. Having someone stand by the trash/recycle/compost bins makes a HUGE difference. It is even ok that I overheard someone calling me the 'compost nazi'. If that means less stuff going to the landfill, so be it. The only items that went to the trash: plastic forks, plastic straws from the smoothie guy, and plastic wrappers from the sunglasses. Not bad. But can we do even better??? We saw a lot of food waste going straight from the food line into the compost bin after just one bite...

A special shout out to the Spring Meltdown Green Team members: Rachel deSimone, Anne Orr, Jacob Frankovich, Annie Granthan, Sarah Irish, and Becky Peterson. You all rock. Check out more photos on our facebook page.

Community Garden Work Pary #1

In between rain drops, several hardy souls turned out to start laying out plots in the new community garden. The soil was wet, heavy, and getting wetter and heavier by the shovel full. But we made good progress!

Before: tilled only

After: plots surfacing...

Things to do in Montreal - Earth Day Edition!

From our Champlain friends up north... Check out their blog for more information.

Friday is Earth Day, and there is a lot going on in Montreal!

[ROOFTOP GARDENING] Lufa Farms, the world's largest rooftop gardening project, will be producing fresh produce to customers this spring in Montreal. Another option is to join Equiterre's CSA (community supported agriculture). By paying a a weekly amount, a local farmer can guarantee to provide you with fresh produce all summer long.

[COMPOSTING] Students in the environmental science class have created a worm composting bin at the Montreal campus. Last semester, three Champlain students built an indoor vermi-compost bin as part of their activism project. This semester, game designer Eric Campbell acquired red wriggler worms, shredded many newspapers, and added fruit and vegetables scraps from home to start the compost. To continue the compost bin over the summer, the bin will be donated to Dans la Rue, a grassroots community group that helps street kids and at-risk youth.

[BIOSPHERE] In celebration of Earth Day, the Biosphère will be hosting a talk with Mikael Rioux and Sylvie Van Brabant along with a screening of NFB documentary EARTH KEEPERS. Admission to the museum will be FREE, which is a perfect opportunity to visit (or re-visit) ONE Outfits from a New Era, an exhibition featuring 16 outfits fashioned from garbage!

[Art + Music = Artic!] Fill your Friday evening with ´Buddha and the body´, an art exhibit by Lauren Trimble, musical musings by members of Lubo & Kaba Horo, and featuring herbal teas, oils and treats from Sustainable Healing available for purchase and tasting. $7 admission to the event at ahisma yoga.

[WINDOW GARDENING] Want to try your own garden, but don't have the garden space? Setting up a hydroponic indoor garden can let you grow your own vegetables. One option is to order an indoor gardening kit from Windowfarms Project.

Knocking Down Doors

I admit that I was one of the many college students who saw the green voting signs that read Kesha Ram and immediately thought of the blonde, hot mess, Jack Daniel swigging, sounds terrible without auto-tune singer Ke$sha that we all know and love. Folks, I'm sure you can guess that Kesha Ram, who went on to become the youngest state legislator, is a bit more talented than our much beloved party anthem singer.

A California native of Jewish and Indian decent, Kesha was taught by her parents at a young age to embrace diversity, give back to the community, and be a determined individual. While she was a student at UVM, Kesha was voted in as a State Rep. in 2008. She also was the president of the UVM student population, majored in Natural Resource Planning and Poli Sci, and graduated magna cum laude; and she is still such a humble person!

A few weeks ago she came to speak in Perry Hall to my class, encouraging us to ask questions and "knock down doors." Kesha is known for going to the houses of people she represents (anyone on the other side of Main Street Burlington), sitting in their living rooms, and talking to them about their needs, frustrations, and desires. She is a person college students can feel comfortable talking too, and she noted that although make up a large percentage of the country, we are so hugely under represented. Despite being of color, and a democrat, she was able to forge connections with older, republican members of the community who might have come from a time and place when diversity was not exactly an encourage concept. But don't get me wrong, she is way more than "the" female of color serving office.

So why is this important? Well, the other night I was at the CCM Excellence Award Ceremony and had the chance to be surrounded by lots of motivated men and women. Kesha too started off as a highly motivated college student who looked around her community and saw that things could be altered. She wasn't that different from many of us. So I challenge all of us, whether you were at the dinner or not, to start making a difference. Start making changes on a community and town level where you will be able to better connect with the people and interact with them. Work to better the environment, improve school quality, encourage sexual awareness, anything. We are still considered "kids" is so many people's eyes. Show them otherwise. Show people we are young, motivated, and won't be complacent with the way things are going. Show them we aren't generation "lazy" and aren't afraid to get our hands dirty.

Education for Sustainability

Recently, the President of Bennington College, Elizabeth Coleman gave an address at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) annual conference on February 25, 2011. According to a colleague of mine, Wynn Calder, "It is a scathing critique of higher education's failure, in general, to address the challenges we face. It is also a powerful endorsement of education for sustainability, though she never uses that word. More admirably, much of what she recommends she is earnestly trying to put into practice at Bennington." The speech is available online at http://www.nais.org/files/ac/2011/11AC_ElizabethColemanSpeech.pdf. So how are we doing at Champlain? Our official college values include: Distinctive Excellence * Sustainability * Innovation * Human Touch * Global Engagement * Diversity and Inclusion Are we seeing this is our curriculum? Outside of the classroom? In our policies and practices? What do YOU think?

War and The Environment

“In a state of war the environment is one of the first things that suffers,” Iraqi ambassador Samir Shakir Mahmood Sumaida'ie says to a room full of attendees. It’s not something I often think about when hearing of times of war. Instead my mind goes to broken towns, refugees, crying faces, and desert sands. I didn’t really know what the Middle East looked like before 9/11 and the invasion, but according to Shakir, agriculture was a huge part Iraq’s history. The country had a sophisticated system of irrigation which allowed them to sustainably farm and maintain their water sources.

After the coups, which lead to Saddam becoming the dictator, the country saw a steady decline in leisure time, women’s rights, and open information. The biggest ecological disaster occurred when people targeted by Saddam started escaping into the Mesopotamian Marshes (which some biblical scholars believe to be The Garden of Eden) of southern Iraq. For upwards of three thousand years, the marshes had sustained Iraq and been an important environmental asset. Much like the swamps of the south, the marshes were dense and people who managed to make it to them were difficult to find. So, Saddam had the marshes drained and poisoned, which set off a chain of ecological disasters. Many species were put on the endangered list and some went extinct. Birds that normally migrated there were forced to change their ways which had been the same for thousands of years. In 2001, only 10% of the marshes remained, but hope is on the horizon as the Iraqi people have been restoring it.

When a war is going on, nature truly does take a backseat. There are people going hungry who need to be feed, and there are people dying who need medical attention, but as soon as the war started to slow down the Iraqis’ were already working on saving their environment. We can really take a lesson from there. Although war has yet to come to our home front, our ecological well fare is not in the best state. There are some areas in the country where the water wouldn’t be considered drinkable, and the air quality causes asthma in small children. We have several luxuries that Iraq doesn’t have, yet the appreciation for nature and the ecological services it provides us isn’t fully there. Shakir and Iraq still wants our help in rebuilding their country. Hopefully we can work together and maybe their appreciation for restoring their environment will rub off on us, and we still start to do the same on our soil.