The Student Sustainability Committee convened on August 30th for its Fall 2017. The new executive board and working group chairs were elected and two scope changes were made.

Cathy Liebowitz, the SSC Coordinator, and Morgan Johnston, the F&S sustainability liaison met today to discuss the Student Sustainability Committee.  Cathy will get access to the iCAP Portal, to be able to provide key updates about the SSC.

This project funds an opt-in bike tracking system for all registered campus bikes working toward two goals: 1) Collecting useful data on where cyclists are biking on campus for more accurate and timely information than the perennial bike census; and 2) Providing incentives for people who bike to campus, in the form of points toward or drawings for gift certificates for local dining options near campus. When students and faculty of the University register their bikes, they will each receive a tag for their bike with a personal ID number. With the data collected about their individual biking habits, students and faculty will be able to track how often they bike and earn rewards through an online interface and incentive system. The interface will show the number of times biked, the rewards an individual can earn, and offer the ability to submit reports since bikers often see needed improvements before planners and engineers. This system is being developed entirely in-house by a team of women engineers. This proposal directly funds: 1) Supplies for creating the system 2) Two interns to assist with logistics 3) Mounting equipment and RFID tags.

Since 2010, The Bike Project has been collaborating with the University of Illinois to provide an educational space on campus. Bicycle education taught through that space encourages the campus community to ride bicycles for transportation because the bicycles sold and worked on at the Campus Bike Center are reliable and safe. While some people are willing to volunteer to teach advanced level bicycle repair classes at the Bike Center, few are willing to teach very basic entry-level classes addressing such issues as adjusting brakes, lubricating chains, and fixing flat tires. This project funds two semesters of stipend for an instructor to teach classes at the Bike Center covering these topics. Combined class capacity over the two semesters would exceed 200 new cyclists. This proposal directly funds: 1) Two semesters of labor for a beginner-level bicycle class.

This project is a significant expansion of the current local food partnership existing between the Student Sustainable Farm (SSF), Multifunctional Woody Perennial Polyculture (MWP), FSHN Pilot Processing Plant (PPP), and UIUC Dining. Presently the Sustainable Agriculture Food System grows, processes, and serves on campus a variety of tomato sauces (pizza sauce is served across campus) and hot sauce. Soon, the Sustainable Agriculture Food System will add a whole wheat flour milling line. It have a very successful and growing program to provide quality, sustainable, and local food products and education to the UIUC students. This particular project will focus on the addition of a fresh juice processing line that will be able to handle a wide array of fruits and vegetables, packaged into an array of containers from single serving to bulk. As with the other projects, this partnership has no funding for large capital equipment expenditures, and relies on grants to increase its capacity. Dining Services is a strong partner in this project and has agreed to provide a grant to help with the purchase of items needed to produce fresh juice products including a harvester for fruit from the MWP site. The full proposal requested both juice extraction and juice bottling equipment. This phase of funding covers remaining bottling equipment costs. All bottles will feature messaging urging students to recycle and spotlighting sustainable goals and outcomes This proposal directly funds: 1) Bottling equipment 2) Some associated supplies.

The Science Policy wants to educate students how to effectively interact with policy makers, as well as advocate for continual science research funding. Funding is an inherently policy-based process as it is determined by legislators, but conversely it is the lifeblood of fundamental research and academic innovation. Sustainability, and therefore its funding, is at the heart of science policy, as it relies on the intersection of science for developing new technologies and the public sphere which determines its implementation. A workshop will allow direct engagement with STEM students on how to prepare themselves to speak with policymakers and lobby on behalf of academia as a whole and science and research specifically. This proposal directly funds: 1) Room rental costs 2) Honorarium for speakers.

The Lincoln Avenue Residence Hall Living and Learning Community (LLC) is aware of the interest in increasing the number of campus locations with native plants. They would like to join the effort to plant Native Plant Species in selected areas around Campus. The goal of this project is to locate plants in places like the unused space between Allen Hall and Lincoln Ave. Residence. There are several other locations around these residences that are suitable for planting near the buildings and in areas where mowing is difficult because of corners and the placing of equipment like large compressors. By selecting a variety of plants that bloom over the growing season, this project provides habitat and food resources for a wide range of butterflies, bees, and other pollinators as well as birds. This proposal directly funds: 1) One Student Internship 2) Site Preparation Costs 3) Soil Supplies and Plants.

The Business Instructional Facility (BIF) was constructed with a separate raw water system that conveys non-potable water for the purpose of flushing toilets. While the system is in place, it was never connected to an outside source of non potable water largely due to current non-progressive plumbing codes. Metering the raw water system at BIF would provide data about the temporal total and non-potable water demand in a typical class/office building. F&S installed a temporary meter to measure flow to the raw water system and operated this meter for approximately one month between April and May 2016, which yielded promising results. In particular, for the month that the meter was in place, results indicated about 2/3 of the water used in BIF was for the non-potable lines. Because building usage can vary dramatically during the year, it is recommended to install a meter permanently. Once the meter is installed, the data is intended to be used to support changes to plumbing codes, allowing raw water to be used more easily, as well as changes to the campus construction codes, requiring that separate raw water systems be installed in new buildings and during major renovations of existing ones. This proposal directly funds: 1) An additional meter for the BIF Raw Water line 2) Installation costs.

At the heart of iSEE’s mission is training students to become the next generation of sustainability leaders. To help fulfill this mission, iSEE will develop a “collaboratory” — a new classroom, conference, collaboration, and communications space next to our offices in the National Soybean Research Center (NSRC). This new complex will include space for experiential learning, a collaboration incubator, and a communications laboratory. Two major facets to iSEE’s instructional mission include a new undergraduate minor in sustainability and a new undergraduate environmental writing certificate. Together, these activities will involve up to ~500 students annually. To serve these students, as well as to provide space for student sustainability groups and other RSOs, we will develop, for the first time, a central Collaboratory designed to facilitate group activities, with state-of-the-art communications capabilities for research, collaboration, and conferencing. By providing advanced teleconferencing capabilities, the collaboratory will also provide access to virtual conferences and webinars for professional development, thus reducing campus carbon emissions derived from travel to offsite conference. This proposal directly funds remaining costs needed to begin the design and renovation process.