SSC seeks new Faculty Member-Advisors for the 2018-2019 academic year. Advisors can expect to commit one-hour per week to SSC, including:

Attending a biweekly one-hour meeting.
Attending two three-hour voting meetings per semester.
Providing students with insight & expertise from your professional & research experience.

If interested, please contact Cathy Liebowitz, the SSC Coordinator at cwl1517@illinois.edu or 217-300-6429

SSC convened on April 4th to vote on two micro grant proposals and one scope change. The committee also discussed potential bylaw changes and takeaways from two conferences.

On April 3, 2018, Evan Delucia thanked the Steering Committee for the Sustainability Minor for their guidance and support. He gave them the end of semester update and shared the demographics for the Sustainability minor (see the attached pie chart).

As shown in the graph, currently there are 85 students enrolled in the program. The first cohort finished their capstone research projects this past semester.

Hello everyone, The International Freezer Challenge is in full swing thru April 30th. Help the University of Illinois compete while receiving recognition, and a certificate of leadership in Environmental Stewardship.
Registering to participate in the Freezer Challenge is a fun way to stay up-to-date with the latest in sample management, receive recognition for your efforts, and have fun while helping the University of Illinois maintain our world-class standing.
Take 20 sec's Register today!
All lab practices since May 2017 are eligible for points and can be added to your score card.

Benefits Webinars, Best Practices and Resources

• Reducing energy consumption, costs, and environmental impact of the lab
• Learning and applying proper cold storage maintenance techniques to help avoid future failures
• Removing unneeded or unviable samples from cold storage units, allowing space to be consolidated or eliminated.
• Reducing costs associated with maintaining extraneous cold storage units.
• Improving researcher access to and security for viable samples.
• Developing ongoing cold storage management practices that support efficiency and maximize lab space utility.
• Awards & National recognition at the I2SL conference for the winning labs in each category

Increasing grant eligibility is another benefit according to How going green can raise cash for your lab a Nature International Journal of Science article, this quote shares an interesting perspective; Ramirez-Aguilar argues that implementing energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable lab practices can be a smart way for researchers to make their grants stand out. It might seem a small detail, but having such procedures in place could make all the difference to the success of your application. “If it makes your proposal look better,” she says, “you’re more likely to get funding.”

For more information contact Paul Foote @ gfoote2@illinois.edu F&S Energy Services

This student-led project provides awareness about pollinators around the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus. Students will design and install signage inside and outside of campus buildings, giving facts about native plants and pollinators. This signage will be approved by the University Board as well as Facilities & Services. This project contributes to the campus goal of becoming Bee Campus USA certified and meets Illinois Climate Action Plan objectives. Students will learn more about pollinators and pollinator efforts on campus. The allocated funding will go towards the signage costs.

This proposal directly funds:

1. Signage

The Student Sustainability Committee allocated $3,500 to the Zero Waste Woodshop.

This proposal directly funds:

1. Table saw
2. Dust collector kits
3. Storage containers