2008 Woodie Awards
Green campus club wins award
Jocelyn Orr
Issue date: 8/22/07 Section: Campus
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Mattio and members of Humboldt State's Green Campus Program and the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT) took a road trip this summer to University of California, Santa Barbara for the sixth annual Sustainability Conference.
The conference included schools from the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and the California Community College (CCC) systems, as well as some private and out-of-state schools. It is now one of the largest conferences on sustainability in the world, with over 850 people in attendance.
Among the attendees were eight Humboldt State students that traveled the 600 miles to Santa Barbara from Arcata.
Humboldt State's Green Campus Program won an award for "Best Practices in Student Energy Efficiency" within the California State system. UC Irvine's Green Campus Program won this award for schools competing within the UC system.
Green Campus is a statewide program that is funded by ratepayers from California utilities. There are twelve schools involved in Green Campus - six UC's and six CSU's.
Humboldt State was one of the original schools added to the program and this is the second time the school has received this award.
Humboldt State's Green Campus won the award for their energy office audit program, assistance in establishing a full-time Sustainability Coordinator Position, the creation of a part-time student position in the Department of Housing and Dining for an Energy Management Intern, use of energy monitoring devices, and for their educational video, "Phantom Hunter."
The short video "Phantom Hunter," is a tribute to Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, which demonstrates how to conduct a home energy audit.
Jeff Steuben, CCAT co-director and former Green Campus Program Coordinator reflected on finding out that HSU had won the Best Practices Award.
"It was funny because I thought pretty seriously that we hadn't won, so when I found out we did win, I was elated," Steuben said.
UC Irvine's Green Campus Program worked on a fume hood campaign that convinced their research-heavy, laboratory-intensive campus to shut the fume hoods, so the air-conditioned air isn't pumped out of the building unnecessarily.
Shyla Raghav, a former program coordinator, felt that UC Irvine's work on projects such as lab audits, bio-diesel conversion, a "green" demonstration room and other campus wide outreach events also helped them to win the award.
The conference took place June 24-27, and brought together administrators, faculty, staff and students from various UC, CSU, and CCC campuses to discuss the impacts of higher education on the environment.
"I was discouraged that there were no faculty members from [Humboldt State]," said Andrea Lanctot, Green Campus Program Coordinator.
Each workshop focused on a different aspect of sustainability (transportation, energy, food, waste, etc.) and allowed for different schools to present their success stories in tackling these various areas.
Carmen King, Green Campus Program Coordinator, found this really useful.
Steuben remembered being inspired by other schools.
"I love the feeling I get when I'm listening to a speaker or in a session and I realize something that we don't do at Humboldt State... Like having our vehicle fleet run off bio-diesel," Steuben said.
The event also featured several keynote speakers and honored current leaders in environmental sustainability, two of which were Eban Goodstein, Project Director of Focus the Nation and Micheal M'Gonigle, co-founder of Greenpeace.
UC Santa Barbara's Chancellor Henry Yang said the goal for the conference is to share ideas, learn from each other's expertise, build collaborations and begin a dialogue that will continue long after the conference is over.
"Together we will put ideas into action to help create a sustainable future for our world," Yang said.
Jocelyn Orr is a Program Coordinator for Humboldt State's Green Campus Program.
Jocelyn Orr can be reached at jmo32@humboldt.edu
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