SPEAR: Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Responsibility - graphics by Lee Hopkins

Projects and Endeavors- Fall 2008

Successes

Bike Generator

We would like to have bikes at the Student Recreation Center that could charge the user's phone or media player with the energy generated during exercise.

We made a lot of progress on the Bike Generator. We will have the project ready to go when we finish the logistics and the funding issues.

Project leader: Ben Kahn ()

Brita Essay Grant Application

Three SPEAR members wrote a ten page essay on why our campus should be awarded $40,000 to start the Dining Charity Initiative on our campus to further our efforts to go green. The essay focused on allowing students to replace the value of one of their unused sides at dining times to go towards a green charity. The winners are still pending.

Project leader: Leslie Labruto

Campus Education

Our project's goal is to educate and train students how to live a greener and more sustainable life. First, the group member would educate themselves, then we would present our knowledge to the SPEAR members and continue to branch out to the general student body and to the community.

The presentations that we gave are now on the presentations page.

Project leader: Tiffany Cheng

Cardboard Crew

August 15-28, 2008

Recycled Cardboard during move-in days. Big thanks to all the Cardboard Crew members and Plant Ops for all the help! See the photo gallery for pictures.

Project leader: Brent Fitzgerald

Composting

This will be the second year we compost food offerings from the Commons Dining Center Preparation Kitchen, and coffee grounds from Common Grounds.

The Commons Compost Discovery Site composted 100s of gallons of discarded food from the Commons Dining Center's prep kitchen and the Common Grounds cafe. Thanks to all our SPEAR volunteers, and thanks to the decomposers in our life cycle!

Project leader: Luke Boehne ()

Education and Outreach

We participated in Vanderbuddies Playday, Rec Fest, and the Wellness Bash to engage both the Vanderbilt and Nashville communities in dialogues about sustainable practices.

Project leader: Peter Reisz ()

Family Science Night

November 11, 2008

Partnering with VSVS, members of SPEAR educated groups of middle school students about the effects of carbon dioxide on the environment in a series of short and fun science experiments.

Project leader: Matt Irwin

Green Tailgate

We organized Vanderbilt's first Green Tailgate with the Towers RA's. We handed out shirts and reusable bags and dialogged with many students, faculty, and alumni about conservation efforts.

Project leader: Ben Kahn ()

House Energy Competition

The House Energy Competition served to create awareness on Vanderbilt campus by hosting a competition amongst the 10 first-year houses. We held a month long competition to see who could reduce their energy consumption by the greatest amount. Throughout the competition, tips for greener living were place in the Hustler. At the end of the competition, the house who reduced their consumption by the greatest percentage was awarded a pizza party and a masseuse for the day.

Project leader: Leslie Labruto

Kilowatt Ours

Kilowatt Ours was a program developed by local filmmaker Mark Barrie focusing on sustainable energy and conservation in the Southeast. SPEAR was able to partner with the program and send out trained educators to present the documentary Kilowatt Ours and the accompanying program to elementary and middle school age children.

Project leader: Peter Reisz

Recycling at Football Games Initiative

Last fall, Vanderbilt started recycling at football games, and SPEAR members encouraged and educated football fans about the importance to recycle. Also, SPEAR members kept statistics about the success of recycling at the games in order to further improve the effectiveness of the program.

Project leader: Wern Ong and Rebecca Maddox

Sustainapalooza

September 15-17, 2008

The goal of sustainapalooza is twofold. First, to educate and increase awareness of environmental practices that students can adapt to their daily lives. Second, to promote and gain momentum for several SPEAR projects. All this is done through a set of displays on Sarratt Terrace, much like an expanded org fair exhibition.

Project leader: Wern Ong

Partial Failures

Bamboo Bike Trailer

Many departments on Vanderbilt's campus have no way of recycling their cardboard. The bamboo bike trailer works to alleviate this problem by picking up the cardboard recycling directly and taking it to the recycling drop off point. Last year this project involved mainly the creation of the bamboo bike trailer, while this year's focus is on performing the actual runs themself and expanding the program.

Many problems, but now Plant Operations offers cardboard recycling. We will let this one go.

Project leader: Wern Ong

Dining Charity Initiative

The Dining Charity Initiative is a proposed program for students using a meal plan, giving them the option to trade (a side item) for a charitable donation. It will generate significant donation sums, and is especially useful for students with lighter appetites, those who eat more meals spread throughout the day, and those who frequently take an unwanted side item.

The Dining Charity Initiative, as it were, is suspended due to the following logistics:

  • Dining constructs the meal plans based on a pseudo-non-profit model, which means they do not have high profit margins. They also factor in people who do not use all their meal plan affords them when pricing the meal plan. Therefore, allowing people to turn uneaten meal plan provisions into cash donations would undercut Dining's budget structure.
  • Parents have complained in the past about students being able to use their meal money as cash without the parents' discretion.

We are still looking into reviving the initiative when we as SPEAR are prepared to undertake research into promotion to parents and students, and dialog extensively with Dining while they revise their budget for a new fiscal year.

Project leader: Luke Boehne ()

Green Kissam Redevelopment

Working with OHARE, Campus Planning, and Plant Operations to ensure that Kissam is a LEED-certified and environmentally friendly building.

With the economic crisis, Vanderbilt's plans to rebuild Kissam have been put on hold. As such, the Green Kissam project is dormant for the time being.

Project leader: Jinsu Sohn ()

Green Tips in the Hustler

Working on having on a regular basis to inform the Vanderbilt community how they can conserve energy and resources even at college.

Unfortunately, this project simply did not happen.

Project leader: Colleen Parker ()

Vanderbilt Forever - "We are a Green Vanderbilt" Movement

Adding sustainability and environmental awareness into the VSG Constitution

Towards the end of this Fall Semester, SPEAR (Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Responsibility) is launching the new movement "Vanderbilt Forever". "Vanderbilt Forever" is an event, a pledge, and a new way of life. The basic idea is that every Vanderbilt student signs a Green Pledge and then re-affirms it each year and at graduation. The plan for the initial signing is to host an event for four days, during the lunch period (11-1), which will be split between the Sarratt Student Center and the Commons. Students will read the pledge and then if they decide to sign it, receive (or purchase at a reasonable price) our "goodie-bag" which will probably include a t-shirt and a rubber bracelet (same type as the popular yellow "Livestrong" bracelets) as our budget permits. The formal pledge will be printed on a board approximately 3.5 ft by 5 ft. Along with signing the board, the signers will put their name on a list-serve. By signing up for this list-serve, they will periodically receive tips about how to live an environmentally friendly life and also information how they can help make Vanderbilt and Nashville more sustainable. "Vanderbilt Forever" is not just a single event. It is a movement that will grow overtime, inspiring, enabling, and encouraging more and more students to be stewards of the environment and to use Earth's resources in sustainable methods. Where "Vanderbilt Forever" will end up is still to be seen, but as of now it will be an exciting interactive event. Hopefully someday soon, the green pledge will be a part of every Vanderbilt students' way of life.

As it turned out, we did research for and wrote a Green Pledge but ended up shelving Vanderbilt Forever partly because of the almost identical Think Gold Act Green campaign.

Project leader: Ben Kahn ()