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New Sustainability Committee Website: Coming Earth Day

Millersville’s new Sustainability Committee will make its debut April 22 with the launch of its website.

From the thin client computers on campus to dining services’ recent partnership with Oregon Dairy Organics and Edie Waste Systems to develop an organic-waste recycling program, the campus has been deploying many sustainability ideas. While these many initiatives helped put Millersville University on “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges,” there has not been a unified force for sustainability on campus – until recently.

Millersville University’s new Sustainability Committee will make its debut April 22 with the launch of its website, blogs.millersville.edu/sustainability/, to coincide with Earth Day.

Garner is nearly hidden by more than 400 pounds of bottle caps that fill her office, which will eventually be donated to raise money for a local charity. Garner started this sustainability initiative in 2009 with two sections of her Development of the Child and Adolescent course. Because caps are not usually recycled in conventional recycling facilities, this project diverted the caps from ending up in the waste stream. Garner continues to receive caps that people drop off to her office.

“Sustainability involves everyone. It is being mindful of environmental as well as social justice issues,” said Dr. Nadine Garner, associate professor of psychology, who proposed the idea for a Sustainability Committee and an accompanying website to President Francine G. McNairy in the fall of 2007. Garner now chairs the Website Committee portion of the University’s Sustainability Committee.

“College campuses should serve as models of sustainability, in which all facets of the institution are integrating sustainable practices as an intentional and ongoing process, versus an isolated set of finite activities,” she said.

The new Sustainability Committee adopted three objectives, which now serve as the committee’s tenets:

  • Recognition and Promotion.
  • Education.
  • Enhancement, Initiatives and Maintenance.

The Sustainability Committee will recognize all efforts – faculty, staff and student – through the committee’s website. In addition, the website will promote new initiatives and announce events, upcoming workshops and conferences.

Faculty and staff who participate, contribute and/or endorse sustainability initiatives on campus, whether inside or outside the classroom, are encouraged to contact Garner. Also, faculty and staff should encourage students to contact Garner if they are taking strides to make the University more sustainable.

The Sustainability Committee includes the following members: Roger Bruszewski, finance and administration, who is serving as committee chairman; Garner; Elizabeth Karevicius, finance and administration; Michele Bote, registrar’s office; Fred Eddinger, facilities; David Errickson, purchasing; Veronica Longenecker, information technologies; Edward Nase, dining and conference services; Tom Richardson, student affairs; Dr. Kathleen Schreiber, geography; Patrick Weidinger, human resources; Dr. Daniel Yocom, biology; Dr. Joseph Revelt, institutional research and two Millersville students, Sarah Darling and Sara Bowman.

“I am excited that with the formation of the Sustainability Committee and the website, we now have a way to begin including all campus stakeholders in the conversation of sustainability,” said Garner. “I am looking forward to recognizing and celebrating all of the sustainable actions that the campus already practices.”

For more information about the University’s Sustainability Committee, or to share your contributions, contact Garner at Nadine.Garner@millersville.edu or 717-872-3097.

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