Minutes for Sustainability Council Meeting 9/19/2014
Pre meeting (For councilmen and councilwomen)
It was decided that some basic by-laws would be appropriate for the selection of council members. The
source of members will remain the same. The council members will be selected by the deans or heads of
division, and each member will serve 2 years. Terms will be staggered. For those that already served last
year, their term will end at the end of this year. It was also decided to add two “at large” members from
faculty or staff. These members will be selected in a vote by subscribers to the Go-Green listserv.
It was also agreed that a mission and vision should be formulated. This mission and vision will essentially
be the same for the Center of Sustainability and the Sustainability Council. The Council is here seen as
the governing body of the center.
Following from the above, it was agreed that the current website (www.westga.edu/green/) will be
changed to be the website of the Center for Sustainability at UWG, and from there a prominent link will
lead to the Sustainability Council.
The chair, Hannes Gerhardt, agreed to formulate bylaws and mission/vision statements.
A council member pointed out that, as opposed to a council, a center may receive its own line in the
university budget. The possibility of establishing such a line is to be explored in the senate budget
committee.
Full meeting (For everyone)
Roughly 30 people came to the meeting, making up a mix of faculty, administrators, staff, students (SGA
president), and community (Keep Carroll beautiful).
President Marrero’s charge for the SC was presented (this charge has now been emailed to Go-Green).
The root of this charge is for the SC to help in fulfilling the sustainability commitments made in the
strategic plan. Hannes Gerhardt went over the KPI for sustainability – improving UWG’s score on the
yearly AASHE Stars assessment (environmental report card) - explaining how the details of improving
UWG’s score still needs to be worked out. There are dozens of measurable sustainability items in the
AASHE Stars assessment. See:
(http://www.aashe.org/files/documents/STARS/2.0/stars_2.0_credit_checklist.pdf).
It makes sense to focus on the low hanging fruit first. The SC will work towards identifying these as well
as longer term efforts in a sustainability plan by the end of the academic year.
Next, taskforces (subcommittees) were formed. These are intended to get into the more detailed
planning of particular initiatives based on items that have already been identified as priorities or areas
of potential. The various task forces are identified below:
1) Website: The website was discussed and how the website will serve as a go-to site for all things
sustainability related, including initiatives and efforts at UWG, metrics and analyses, as well as
general information on sustainability within higher education more generally. Interested parties:
Hannes Gerhardt (hgerhard@westga.edu), Minna Rollins (mrollins@westga.edu), Blake Adams
(badams@westga.edu).
2) Institutionalizing practices and Reporting: As indicated in the Sustainability Roadmap offered by
Incite Directives, there is a need to further institutionalize sustainability commitments, record
benchmarks, track progress, and report results. This taskforce is aimed at moving UWG in this
direction. Interested parties: Hannes Gerhardt (hgerhard@westga.edu), Ineke Abunawass
(Ineke@westga.edu). Jacqueline Dost of Keep Carroll Beatifull also said she could be of
assistance in these effort.
3) Bike Share Program: The president has expressed clear interest in establishing a bike share
program and Mark Reeves (Auxiliary Services) indicated that they had already begun to analyze
ways of making the campus more bicycle friendly. There was a clear sense that establishing an
environment friendly to bicyclists is the first key step before making bikes widely available in a
bike share program. Ben Steere mentioned the League of American Bicyclists Bicycle Friendly
America program as a great resource for planning a bike share program. The issue of cycling
conditions between UWG and the square was also raised. Jacqueline Dost mentioned that a
traffic analysis of the square is taking place (City Council) and will eventually be extended to
include Maple Street. Such an analysis could also consider plans for better bicycle accessibility,
for instance the creation of a Green Belt spoke to the square. Jacqueline said that UWG
involvement in the planning stages of Maple Street would be helpful, and she promised to keep
the council abreast of developments. Once the campus is deemed friendly enough for bicyclists
the next important decision is on what kind of bike share system will be used. Mark Reeves will
be actively involved in this task force and he will organize meetings moving forward – check his
Go-Green call for participants. At the meeting 6 people expressed interest.
4) Education and Engagement: Many of the AASHE credits are in education and student
engagement. This task force will look at these credits and see how UWG can improve. It was
mentioned that workshops could be organized, with experts from the outside, that focus on
incorporating sustainability into the curriculum. Interested parties: Cher Hendricks
(cher@westga.edu), Leanna Defoor (ldefoor@westga.edu), Dustin Killpack
(dkillpac@westga.edu), Melanie Hildebrand (mhildebr@westga.edu), Doris Kieh
(drkieh@westga.edu), Shea Rose (srose@westga.edu).
5) Farming: The possibility of expanding local, organic farming at UWG was discussed. Currently
UWG has a functioning garden, tended by facilities and grounds and the student group Green
Elite, advised by Shea Rose. The current garden is small but takes a lot of work. One big
challenge is when students are on break. Expanding farming to be able to supply UWG
cafeterias, similar to what KSU does, is an ambitious goal. Mark Reeves stated that such a move
could be negotiated at any time with our current food vendor, Aramark. Besides negotiating
with Aramark, such a project would require paying for student labor, hiring a farm manager, and
purchasing supplies and inputs. Furthermore, care would have to be taken that laws are not
broken in terms of “unfair competition”, which mostly means that food produced would have to
be sold to the cafeterias and could not be donated. There is much to look into here, first and
foremost a much closer look at the established system used at KSU and elsewhere. Interested
parties: Hannes Gerhardt (hgerhard@westga.edu), Leanna Defoor (ldefoor@westga.edu), John
Lyons (jlyons@westga.edu), Ineke Abunawass (Ineke@westga.edu).
6) Solar: the potential of solar is constantly shifting, and generally getting better. Although a
proposed electric car share program, which was to have a solar component, did not work out in
terms of finances, the president has expressed interest in continuing to look at the possibilities
of solar on campus. Currently UWG has very limited solar presence, with one experimental array
on top of the Geosciences building. The solar group will look to reach out to various solar
companies to get analyses of the solar potential at UWG. These analyses can then be presented
to upper administration to see if solar is a viable investment. One thing to keep in mind in terms
of investment in solar is that it is not just a matter of return on investment with regard to
electricity bills, but also a matter of advertisement. Establishing significant solar capacity could
be a point of pride for UWG, which can help in student recruitment and overall positive
publicity. Interested parties: Hannes Gerhard (hgerhard@westga.edu), Shea Rose
(srose@westga.edu), Mark Henley (mhenley@westga.edu).
If anyone not at the meeting would like to actively be engaged in the work of these task forces, then
please contact Hannes Gerhardt (hgerhard@westga.edu).
In other issues, Patrick Erben went over the Environmental Awareness Week sponsored by COAH. That
schedule was posted to Go-Green on Spet 18th. There will be many exciting and fun events. There
was some discussion on getting some of the plastic bottles from recycling to do art sculptures. These
would be recycled when the art work is dismantled. It was asked whether the SC would like to
sponsor an event. The SC could be present for some events: we still have t-shirts to sell and business
cards to hand out. It was also suggested that the SC could sponsor a frisbee golf tournament on
campus. Contact Hannes Gerhardt if interested in this (hgerhard@westga.edu).
Lastly, Stanley Carress pointed out that the EPA region 4 is interested in collaborative work with
interested institutions, and that there could be significant potential in reaching out to them for
assistance (both financial and expertise). One area of potential collaboration would be to enhance
UWG’s integrative pest management techniques.
The next step will be organizing the various taskforces via email and meetings and getting to work.