ACUHO-I News Blog

A selection of college housing and student affairs headlines from InsideHigherEd.com. Look for these on a weekly basis in the ACUHO-I news blog.

REACHING STUDENTS WHO DON’T REPORT DEPRESSION: Study at 20 colleges suggests that screening those seeking primary medical care, combined with new type of case manager, can yield huge gains in treating those who might never get help:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/29/depression

PAYING FOR CAMPUS HEALTH CARE: At college health gathering, a packed house hears encouragement for the idea of requiring all students to be enrolled in a single insurance plan:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/28/health

IN GLOBAL RECESSION, GLOBAL ED STILL GROWING: At international educators’ conference, panelists discuss the impact of the financial crisis on student mobility.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/29/international

CLIMATE REPORT: About three-fourths of colleges are meeting their reporting deadlines under a national pledge to reduce carbon emissions:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/28/climate

THE DISTANCE ED TIPPING POINT: Community colleges consider: What happens when your online enrollments hit 50 percent (or some other level that changes nature of the institution)?
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/26/distance

No, we’re not talking about golf; a post in Green, Inc., a New York Times blog about environmental issues, discusses some institutions’ addition of a “green fee” that will pay for environmentally friendly development or energy offsets. In a strange twist, there are student groups campaigning for this fee at colleges and universities. Most of the fees are well south of $10 per semester or quarter, though a few triple or quadruple that.

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (put more sustainably, AASHE) has a page devoted to news about green fees. Students at institutions featured on the page voted largely in favor of mandatory green fees.

Depending on the state in which an institution is located, a fee can be easier or harder to institute. In Florida, for example, legislators must vote on any state university fee increases. (Legislators, likely not wanting to be known for rising student costs, voted down green fees.)

As you can imagine, green fees don’t have fans in every corner.

Do you think Green Fees are a good idea or not? How much leverage does your institution have regarding its fees?

The May+June 2009 issue of the Talking Stick magazine is now out, available through the postal service or in its online format. The cover story, this time, is a photo essay from the ACUHO-I study tour of China as well as the ACUHO-I Global Housing Summit. Some amazing photos taken by ACUHO-I members as well as written reflections from those who were there capture the experience and shares it with the membership at large.

Other stories this issue include a piece co-written by ACUHO-I president Norb Dunkel and ACPA president Tom Jackson that addresses how campus housing and student affairs departments must work together to further the “international” missions of their campuses. Luke LaCroix shines the light on sophomore programs. Tonie Miyamoto looks at LEED. Plus much more news from ACUHO-I and the college housing profession.

Read the latest issue and share your thoughts about it either in the comments below, or in the forum of the ACUHO-I online network.

The Snuggie as a sustainable practice. ‘Nuff said.

The fact that students are also using the Snuggie as a pub crawl theme; perhaps not as beneficial.

Read more about the phenomenon here.

The New York Times today picked up on the trend of campus dining halls ditching the previously-common place cafeteria trays. With their disappearance, campuses report a reduction in food waste as well as saving water and energy consumption.

The article quotes the Sustainabble Endowments Institute (which issues the College Sustainability Report Card) that says 126 of 300 tracked colleges and universities “had curtailed use of trays, some of them banishing trays only from certain dining halls, and some introducing, for example, ‘trayless Tuesdays.’”

The article also quotes Dr. Joseph H. Spina, executive director of the National Association of College and University Food Services, who explained that another benefit of going trayless is the, “preparation for the cocktail-party circuit. You eventually have to learn how to hold your hors d’oeuvre and cocktail in one hand while making animated conversation with the other. So it’s a life lesson.”

…Low on the food chain, that is. As environmental baddies go, it doesn’t get as much attention as SUVs or even computers left on overnight, but low-carbon eating is a great way to positively influence the environment. That means eating less animal-based, processed foods–meat and cheese–and more plant-based foods: vegetables, fruits, grains and beans. Fish and poultry are okay too, in moderation. When grain is fed to cattle, who are later slaughtered for food, it’s not as efficient a way of feeding humans as people eating the grain themselves. And of course, there’s the production costs involved: getting the grain to the cattle, the cattle to slaughter, the meat to stores, etc. Of course, any eating involves some transportation costs (unless you have amber waves of grain in your backyard, next to the Suncast garden shed) but those costs are usually lower.

On Wednesday, Earth Day, some college and corporate dining halls recognized the day by not serving beef or cheese. Others didn’t wait for Earth Day to show off low-carbon eating. Of course, many who advocate for low-carbon eating don’t expect complete abstinence from meat and cheese from most Americans. But if everyone treated meat as a special-occasion food, and ate locally when possible, it would make a difference. At least as much as powering down the laptop at the end of the day. And it makes a lot more sense than being a Level 5 Vegan.

Yesterday was Earth Day and ACUHO-I asked members to send in reports from their campus about programs and events that commemorated the day. We heard from a couple of you, and details are below. Feel free to use the comment feature to add reports from your own campus as well.

Penn State University: To commemorate Earth Day – and Earth Week here on campus – Penn State Housing and Residence Life partnered with the university’s Office of Physical Plant and the Environmental Stewardship Office as well as Eco Action and several other campus-based environmental groups to present the My 20 Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to get Penn State students, faculty, and staff to reduce their resource consumption by 20 percent during Earth Week by changing some of their every day habits. Penn Staters are encouraged to pledge their support for the initiative online. Our goal is  to collect 2,009 pledges by Saturday, April 25.

University of Florida: Along with many programs and lectures, the campus The University of Florida Office of Sustainability presented nine trophies and several honorable mentions to a wide variety of organizations and departments across campus for their contributions to sustainability at UF. The awards recognized staff and students in the categories of waste reduction, energy conservation and water conservation.  A complete listing of winners and honorable mentions, as well as detailed descriptions of each project, can be found online. Finally, the day also marked the beginning of the 19th year for the housing department’s Spring Check-out Recycling Program.

We’ve all heard of green roofs. Well, a new photo feature by National Geographic magazine takes a look at exactly how much room for growth (pun fully intended) there is in this practice. These sprawling images show buildings like Chicago’s City Hall or the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo that are oases in their urban deserts as well as more rural scenes in Switzerland and Germany.

Check out the full photo gallery and then use the comment section to discuss if you’ve implemented green roofs on any of your campus buildings.

A selection of college housing and student affairs headlines from InsideHigherEd.com. Look for these on a weekly basis in the ACUHO-I news blog.

BUILDING CAPACITY, SLOWLY: New federal data show small increase in number of Americans enrolled in college in 2007 — with fastest growth in for-profit sector.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/11/enroll

SUSTAINING STUDY ABROAD: Campuses are going green and going international. With air travel as the elephant in the room, how to reconcile the two?:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/12/studyabroad

IS THE LAPTOP LOVE-IN OVER? Colleges that helped provide students with computers were once celebrated. But as budgets tighten and more students come with their own machines, institutions are rethinking the value of laptop requirements:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/12/laptops

Everyone has seen it. Not just on campuses, but also at at airports, conference centers and about any place recycling bins stand next to trash bins. An observer can see harried people approaching the bins and stuffing a trash into the recycling and recyclables into the trash. It seems like there’s an obvious distinction between the two bins, but after several people make the same mistake within a few minutes, the observer might conclude that something is amiss, and it’s not necessarily the cognitive abilities of the passers-by.

This is the crux of what Southern Polytechnic State University, in Marietta, GA wrestled with when they took a sample of the waste generated in a week on campus, spread it out on the campus green and started sorting. Considerably more than half of the “trash” was not trash, but recyclables and compostables slipped in with the refuse. Now they’re trying to figure out what to do about it–how to change a pervasive mindset of “one bin for all purposes.”

Have you tackled this problem on your campus? How did you approach it?

A selection of college housing and student affairs headlines from InsideHigherEd.com. Look for these on a weekly basis in the ACUHO-I news blog.

TRANSPARENT BOYCOTT TARGET: After Washington U. in St. Louis bans the sale of bottled water on campus, other anti-bottle campaigns gain momentum.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/19/water

NEW CHALLENGE TO GUN LIMITS ON CAMPUSES: Suspension of student at Western Oregon U. leads to calls to end firearms ban at colleges and universities in the state.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/16/guns

THE BUZZ AND SPIN ON 3-YEAR DEGREES: Idea of shaving a year off of college completion time gains attention. Some see ideal way to cut costs for students and institutions, others see a gimmick, and — to date — students haven’t embraced it.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/17/three

BAD BUDGET THAT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE: As California leaders end impasse, plan to close huge gap cuts hundreds of millions in college operating support, but spares student aid and funds community college enrollment growth.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/20/california

THE NEW REVERSE TRANSFER: Part of the enrollment boom at community colleges comes from those who have left four-year institutions. Their choices — surprising to some — are saving money and may improve their odds at earning bachelor’s degrees.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/18/reverse

So you’ve probably heard something about a stimulus package that Congress is concocting, and you might have also gathered that some parts of it benefit higher education, specifically renovation of facilities (not new-build) in higher education.

But how can you educate yourself on how this legislation could benefit you and take advantage of these opportunities?  First, pay attention to ACUHO-I’s announcements and e-mails in the coming weeks.  Second, check out these Web sites, which make the legalease a bit easier to digest.

National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities NCEF has put together a great site on how the stimulus package affects school facilities. They neatly explain how the funds are allowed to be used.

Shovel Ready SCUP’s site’s title refers to the tight turnaround required by recipients of federal funds for renovation. Projects you wish to fund must be planned and “shovel-ready,” with only a few last-minute preparations to go. This is not the time to look for a new project. Instead, go through your list of renovation to-dos: energy-efficient windows to replace old, leaky ones; modernizing a building with new technology; or replacing an old roof. The major restrictions won’t affect residence halls much: monies cannot be used for sports facilites that charge admission or for a building in which worship services are held. The money also comes with use-it-or-lose-it time restrictions.

Keep an eye on the Chronicle of Higher Education, for stories such as this: The $7-Billion Patch for Campus Maintenance.

Also, talk to your colleagues through the ACUHO-I Social Network, and share tips and ideas on how to identify projects and get the money to make them happen.

There’s a lot of garbage being thrown around at a political convention. No, really. Actual garbage. Fortunately, as The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, more than 450 students, faculty, and staff from Colorado State University have volunteered to help sort mountains of garbage; separating plastic from paper and the compostables from the recyclables.

It’s commitment like this that help CSU get named as one of the country’s “greenest” campuses by Newsweek magazine. And, perhaps, some aspiring political science major will be able to add this experience to his or her resume as an introduction to the dirty business of politics.

Last week when Congress passed all the provisions of the Higher Education Sustainability Act (HESA), it opened the doors for a “University Sustainability Grants Program” that will be operated through the United States Department of Education. It currently awaits President Bush’s signature.

The program will make grants available to higher education institutions to develop, implement, and evaluate sustainability curricula, practices, and academic programs. It is the first new federal enviornmental education funding program authorized in 18 years. It also directs the DOE to hold a national summit of higher education sustainability experts, federal agency staff, and business leaders to identify best practices and opportunities collaboration. Background on the legislation can be found here.

Patty Murray, the democratic senator from Washington who sponsored the bill, said in a press release, “Colleges are a natural breeding ground for the kind of innovation we need to move to new enviornmentally-friendly energy sources… These grants will help college students take the reins of the govement to make energy last longer and have less of an impact on our environment.”

How would you utilize a grant on your campus? Hit the “comments” and share.

[Links]
Campaign for Environmental Literacy
National Council for Science and the Environment