Posted by Trevor Lovell

 
Of all the green fund campaigns we’re involved with this semester, Texas A&M’s has proven the most challenging so far. The group has amassed over 1,600 members on its Facebook group and has the blessing of administrators, but still faces a serious challenge organized by a group know as Texas Aggie Conservatives (might be more relevant to visit the Facebook page).

In response to the sometimes vitriolic and often misleading criticisms leveled at the Aggie Green Fund, pro-green-fund group members put together this video to explain why the fund is needed and how it will benefit the campus:

 
So make sure you visit their Facebook group and leave them a friendly comment. These students are keeping it positive and moving forward with their vision against an outspoken minority that is willfully misleading the student body about both its motives and the impacts of the green fund. They deserve a great deal of gratitude for defending sustainability on the front-lines.

Posted by:
- Patrick McAnaney, Rice senior & Student Association president
- Carl Nelson, Rice junior & SA Environmental Committee Chair

 
“As students, do we want to lead, or simply to follow?”

That’s the question Rice University students asked themselves during the Student Association General Election last week. When polls closed on Wednesday evening, the answer to that question was a resounding vote for leadership. With 71% of students voting to pay an extra $9 per year to create the Rice Endowment for Sustainable Energy Technology (RESET) it’s clear that students recognize the many personal opportunities and community benefits of campus sustainability.


While we’re excited about the many environmental improvements we expect from RESET, it wasn’t the environment, but rather the economy, that sparked the three-year effort culminating in last week’s victory. Inspired by the example of the many other universities with similar funds (at least 70 in the US and Canada), we began to look at Rice’s budget and were amazed at what we found. Over the past eight years, energy costs for Rice have quadrupled! Furthermore, over the last three years, on-campus housing fees have risen 20 percent, with a portion of these fees representing higher energy costs being passed along to students. When we also learned about the various efforts the university administration has taken in recent years to reduce energy use we knew it was time for students to stand up and do their part to keep costs low at our university!

Beyond the economic and environmental benefits, the successful RESET vote is also a victory for Rice students in fields ranging from engineering to biology to public policy. By allowing students and faculty to propose projects to a RESET committee, the endowment promotes student innovation by providing a unique opportunity to collaborate with professors, peers, and professionals to design and implement large-scale projects with a tangible impact in their community.

While RESET will be a much-needed tool for financing campus sustainability in this time of budget cuts and economic uncertainty, RESET alone won’t be enough. Luckily, administrators and staff from all over campus have demonstrated strong interest in providing matching funds for RESET projects. They hope it will provide students with as much as two dollars of benefit for every dollar contributed, marking an exciting new chapter in student-administration collaboration where student-proposed projects will receive financial and operational support from their university at a sustained (pardon the pun) and unprecedented level.

While Rice is hardly the first university to create such a “green fund”, it is the first school in Texas to create one since Texas State students established the Environmental Service Fee in 2004. With so many economic, environmental, and personal benefits to students and their communities, we certainly don’t expect it to be the last!

 
Posted by Eric Bremer

In a resounding show of leadership amongst Texas universities, The University of Texas at San Antonio has joined in the initiative of many top universities to put the Think Green Fund to a vote by the general student body. The vote will occur on Earth Day (April 22nd), giving students a chance to decide their energy future. The Think Green Fund initiative was placed on the ballot after the UTSA Student Government Assembly heard debate for it last Thursday and voted to have the issue placed on its own special ballot.

There is strong support for the Think Green Fund at UTSA, and it has become the top initiative of several student groups including ReEnergize San Antonio, The Green Society, Young Democrats of UTSA, and Students for John Sharp to educate their fellow students of the benefits of this fund. It has been amazing to see these groups all come together, with one common goal, to make UTSA a leading University in Texas through sustainability projects.

The Think Green Fund is a $5 fee paid by each student every semester, and this money can go to whatever renewable energy, energy efficiency, or other sustainability projects students choose for their campus. The goal of this fund is to allow students to become actively involved in providing a cleaner energy future for their university, lower energy cost to combat rising tuition rates, and educate students about creative ways to look at our future energy needs as they move into their professional lives.

Posted by Trevor Lovell

 
Most places we go to talk about the green fund idea, the biggest sticking point for administrators and the Student Government folks is charging students a fee.

“Don’t you realize tuition is rising? People are paying enough already!”

This is very true. Tuition is rising and people are paying more than enough already. We’re just not convinced that an environmental services fee of $5 a semester has to make college less affordable.

The first thing to understand is scale. While it is certainly true that paying $3,505 for a semester at a state university is by definition more expensive than paying $3,500, it’s not enough to change anyone’s decision-calculus about getting an education. That’s why the question rarely comes up when we talk to regular students about it.

But the scale argument really isn’t good enough, and here’s why. If you let a university charge you an extra $5 every time it wants to, the fees will start to add up. And they have. That’s why the UT System Board of Regents has frozen fees during these difficult economic times.

We want to make our campuses greener without compromising the ability of anyone to get an education, but we have to figure out how to do it.

It turns out the answer is simple – invest in green college affordability.

Here’s an example. Use green fee dollars to improve energy efficiency on campus. This will lower operating costs and reduce pressure on the rising campus budget.

Not good enough, you say? Ok, how about creating environmental service jobs for students? Hire a part time student to help manage the campus bicycle program. Hire several students to help make sure waste is getting recycled. Set up a biodiesel conversion station on campus and hire students to convert the waste oil from on-campus dining facilities into low-emission biodiesel. Then put the biodiesel in campus vehicles (like trucks and buses) and start saving the university money, killing two birds with one stone (editor’s note: we are not advocating that you use your green fee to slaughter birds, no matter your stone-to-bird-death ratio).

Here’s another one – have an essay contest. Ask students to submit their best idea about how the campus could make a bigger contribution to sustainability, and award the best essay a $1,000 prize. Or make it an annual project proposal, providing seed money to the best campus sustainability project.

Now let’s be honest, which has a bigger impact on college affordability – charging an extra $5 per semester to all students, or providing part-time work and scholarships/prize money to a handful of students who contribute to campus sustainability? The vast majority of students won’t notice that the $5 is even missing, but the ones who get those jobs that help them make ends meet most definitely will.

When you think about it that way, if college affordability is really you’re thing, you’d kind of have to support a green fee, wouldn’t you? Here’s an opportunity to make a real difference in someone’s education.

So we are calling on all our organizers, advocates, allies, and anyone else who is reading this – get the green fee on the ballot at your campus and get it passed. And when you do, make sure that some of the money goes to students who need it and can contribute to greening the campus. Let’s make this thing a win-win for everyone involved.

Posted by Jacob Bintliff

 
“The world’s largest human power plant” may evoke creepy images of The Matrix, but think again!

Last December, student leaders at Texas State University used funds from their Environmental Service Fee to turn 30 elliptical machines in the Student Rec Center into individual-sized power plants. Now students can go green while getting in shape!


A 30-minute workout generates enough electricity to power a light bulb for over 2 hours and a computer for 30 minutes! Think about how many students work out every day on your campus…now do the math. The answer?  A BUNCH of renewable energy, and that much less energy your campus will have to get from dirty old fossil fuel sources.

On top of that, the new program has provided a great leadership experience to at least one Texas State student. Blair Hartley, a recreation management grad student has been put in charge of the program. Yet another example of Green Funds providing students with hands-on, cutting-edge experience for the growing green-collar economy!

The energy and C02 savings and the leadership opportunity aren’t the only benefits, though. “It’s more about changing the mind-set of the 30,000-plus students on campus,” Hartley points out. That’s right, Green Fund projects can build environmental awareness in ways that your typical administrative project (e.g. revamping the heating & cooling system) just can’t.

Does this sound like something you want on your campus? Never fear, the Texas Green Fund campaign is here! If you’re a student on any of the campuses where Green Fund campaigns are currently underway you can make this a dream come true for you and your fellow students.

To see a full(er) list of successful Green Fund projects from across the US & Canada, check out this amazing list.