SC Hosts 2009 Kansas State Envirothon Competition

Eighteen high schools from around the state traveled to Southwestern College on Wednesday, May 13 for the 2009 Kansas Envirothon. The entire competition took place at the SC biology field station, north of Winfield.

The Kansas Envirothon is an outdoor, environmental high school competition where students learn and are tested on soils, forestry, wildlife, aquatics, and a current issue. The winner of the Kansas Envirothon will represent Kansas at the Canon Envirothon national competition.

“I think it is very exciting that many high schools around the state of Kansas are beginning to teach environmental care,” says Jason Speegle, director of Green Team Southwestern. “It is a vital part of our society, and teenagers and college students will be the ones to lead our country in a cultural shift toward environmental sustainability. Southwestern College and the Green Team are thrilled to be hosting the Kansas Envirothon this year and hope to be very involved with the event for years to come.”

The current issue for the 2009 Kansas competition is “Biodiversity in a Changing World.” Southwestern College professors Charles Hunter and Rick Cowlishaw educated the students in this current issue during their time at the SC biology field station.

Each county is allowed to send one team of five high school students to the state competition. Participating high schools and counties included: Hiawatha (Brown), Clay Center (Clay), Pittsburg (Crawford), Wilson (Ellsworth), Hill City (Graham), Holton (Jackson), Northern Heights (Lyon), Hillsboro (Marion), Valley Heights (Marshall), Council Grove (Morris), Centralia (Nemaha), Rock Creek (Pottawatomie), Riley County (Riley), Salina South (Saline), Linn (Washington), Neodesha (Wilson), and either Wathena or Troy High School (Doniphan).

The Canon Envirothon competition will be held Aug. 2-8 in Asheville, N.C.

SC Participates in RecycleMania

Southwestern College recently participated in a 10-week nationwide competition called RecycleMania. SC recycled nearly 21,000 pounds of cardboard, paper products, plastic, aluminum, glass, steel, and food products.

“I thought this would be a good way to set benchmarks in order to determine how much Southwestern actually recycles and to measure how much waste the college produces,” says Jason Speegle, director of Green Team Southwestern. “In years to come, we hope to take steps that will allow us to recycle more and waste less. This competition shows us how to measure our progress in both areas.”

According to the RecycleMania Web site (www.recyclemaniacs.org), RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities.

More than 500 colleges and universities entered the competition. SC entered its name into three separate competitions during RecycleMania.

The first competition is called the Grand Champion division which measures the amount of trash that a campus produces versus the amount of recycling collected. SC finished 110th out of 206 schools with a cumulative recycling rate of 25.04% of its waste.

The second competition was called the Per Capita Classic in which the amount of recycling collected is measured per person on campus. SC finished 151st out of 293 schools with a recycling rate of 10.42 pounds per person (Kansas State finished 214th).

In the final Waste Minimization competition, schools measured how much waste (trash + recyclables) it produced per person. SC finished 63rd out of 148 schools with 41.59 pounds of waste per person.

SC Students Help Rebuilding Efforts in Greensburg, KS

The Campus Council on Ministry (CCOM) at Southwestern College took 15 students for a spring break mission trip to Greensburg.

“There are so many choices these students could have done for fun during spring break,” says Ashlee Alley, director of campus ministry at Southwestern. “I am excited that students want to spend their break in service to others.”
Greensburg was hit by a devastating F-5 class tornado May 4, 2007. Following that tornado, the leaders of Greensburg decided to bring back the town in a completely sustainable way.

Jason Speegle, director of Green Team Southwestern, and two of his students also went on the mission trip. The entire group received a tour of the green buildings that have been built in Greensburg.

According to Alley, the whole group worked with the leaders of Mennonite Housing, a group that does rebuilding following a natural disaster.
“We tried to help them in any way we could. They are the crew leaders for the project,” Alley says.

Winfield native and Southwestern College student Alex Gottlob donated seven trees that the students planted during the trip.
The students left Saturday, March 14, and returned Thursday, March 19. While in Greensburg, they lodged at the Greensburg United Methodist Church.

Anthony Cortese Visits SC

Listen to an audio interview with Dr. Anthony Cortese by SC's Curt Caden

Listen to a short audio clip by Dr. Anthony Cortese

Anthony Cortese, co-director of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), and co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), visited Southwestern from September 29 - October 1, 2008. Find out more about Mr. Cortese here.

He gave a public lecture on October 1, 2008 at 7:00 pm in Mossman 101 that focused on ways to make the green effort at Southwestern one that is embraced by the whole campus.

Cortese is the co-director of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. Southwestern College President Dick Merriman was an early signer of this compact, and the college now is engaging in progressively green practices.

Anthony Cortese to Speak at Southwestern College

One of the nation’s top advocates for sustainable lifestyles is coming to Southwestern College. Anthony Cortese will give a public lecture Wednesday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m., in Mossman 101.

Cortese is the co-director of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. Southwestern College President Dick Merriman was an early signer of this compact, and the college now is engaging in progressively green practices.

Academic dean Andy Sheppard says that Cortese will meet with several students, faculty, and administrators around campus and challenge them to think about various ways the college can “go green.” “I think the thing that is great about having Dr. Cortese here is that he is not coming to give us a top 10 list of things to do in order to reduce our carbon foot-print,” Sheppard says. “Rather, his visit will be spent on helping us to make a culture change in the way we consume our resources.”

Cortese was formerly the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. He was the first dean of environmental programs at Tufts University and spear-headed the award-winning Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute in 1989 which helped integrate environmental and sustainability perspectives in over 175 courses and the internationally acclaimed Talloires Declaration of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future in 1990.

Cortese is a founding and current member of the board of directors of The Natural Step US, and a founding member of the Environmental Business Council of New England. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been a consultant to UNEP, a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board and the President's Council on Sustainable Development's Education Task Force. He has been actively engaged climate change and other large system environmental challenges for 25 years. He is also a founding member of the U.S. Board of Councilors for the China – U.S. Center for Sustainable Development.

Cortese has B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tufts University in civil and environmental engineering and a Doctor of Science in Environmental Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

The public is invited to attend the Oct. 1 lecture by Cortese. There is no admission charge. For more information about Cortese’s visit to Southwestern College, contact Jason Speegle, Green Team director, at (620) 229-6311.

SC Green Team Director Saves Lots of Trees

Thanks to some hard work and an unusual find by Jason Speegle, almost 30 trees were saved from the paper mill.

Speegle, director of the Green Team at Southwestern College, was walking near campus when he saw numerous boxes filled with old textbooks sitting in a dumpster. As director of the sustainable environment group on campus, he was well aware of his chance to make a difference. He recruited Kate Norton, assistant women’s soccer coach, along with several of the soccer players and they began the seemingly endless task of preparing all of the thrown out text books to be recycled.

Textbook recycling is far from an easy chore, according to Speegle.

“You have to tear off the front and back covers,” Speegle says. “Then you have to physically tear the books into several parts in order to satisfy the requirements of the city of Winfield. The books averaged around 175 pages per book.”

Slowly but surely, the small group of students, Speegle, and Norton prepared each of the discarded textbooks to be recycled and a crowd of students began gathering and helping. Eventually 20 students had turned up to help.

“It ended up taking us around three hours to finish,” Speegle reports.

According to Speegle’s estimation, they saved just over 26 trees.

As part of the new Southwestern program, Speegle is recruiting and leading students in activities such as recycling, conserving resources on campus and in the community, and pioneering college use of renewable energy sources. The program promotes sustainability education as well as student leadership development.

“I don’t want to be the center of attention about environmental issues here,” Speegle says. “Everyone on this campus can be an environmentalist. My goal is to increase awareness about recycling and sustainability and to slowly attempt to change the culture of the college toward a greener future.”

Southwestern College purchasing department thinks green with new library carpet.

EcoWorx is the industry's first 100% sustainable, non-PVC tile backing system. And don't just take our word for it - the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded EcoWorx the Presidential Green Chemistry Award for its environmental and performance benefits.

EcoWorx has been recognized with Cradle to Cradle Certification, contributing to U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED® Green Building Rating System™. EcoWorx tile, EcoWorx Performance Broadloom and Eco Solution Q premium branded nylon are the only carpet products to receive Cradle to Cradle Silver Certification from MBDC (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry), a third party consultancy founded by the world-renowned architect William McDonough and innovative chemist Dr. Michael Braungart.

Southwestern Purchasing looks for green products with office supplies:

By using Office Max:

As we all seek to reduce our collective impact on the environment, there are some specific things OfficeMax can do to help you achieve your goals.

Creating a “green office” is a good place to start.

Everyday products like paper, toner and furniture play a significant role in the life of your business.

Purchasing department at Southwestern look for green products in furniture:

New Counterweights for Steelcase Large Case Storage Products: An Environmentally Friendly Solution

Changes to many of Steelcase’s large case storage counterweight packages continue to demonstrate the company’s commitment to environmentally friendly solutions. New counterweights have replaced existing counterweight packages as of orders that shipped December 3, 2007.

The company’s new counterweights are made from 95% reclaimed steel mill slag, previously sent to landfills. The slag is ground and bonded with high density polyethylene in a unique manufacturing process which allows it to be formed and cut into weight packages. The counterweights can be recycled with other steel products at the end of their useful life. All of these factors demonstrate Steelcase’s continued commitment to environmentally friendly solutions.

New appliances and furniture

Here is some information that you may find useful in the “green” efforts. This summer we signed a new contract with our laundry provider that included 20 new washers and 20 new dryers. Our old top load washers were installed in 1996 and used over 23 gallons of water per load; the new washers are energy efficient front loaders that only take 14.8 gallons per load. The machines are ADA compliant; DOE 2007 compliant for energy and water standards, ENERGY STAR® qualified and have a Modified Energy Factor (MEF) of 2.16 and a Water Factor (WF) of 5.2.

This summer we also purchased new furniture for Honor and Shriwise apartments. The furniture was purchased from University Loft Company (ULC), which has taken a pro-active approach to the environment by implementing a Green Plan. ULC uses Hevea Brasiliensis (HB), also known as Environmentally Farmed Timber (EFT). HB produces a natural form of latex that is tapped from its trunk, and is used in the production of rubber. HB adequately produces latex for 20 years, after that time it is harvested for timber. Five Hevea Brasiliensis trees can be grown and harvested in the time one oak tree is ready to be milled.

To make room for the new furniture we recycled 2140lbs of steal bed frames and donated several sets of old furniture to a local organization.