12/06/07 - sustainability group meeting minutes
Thursday, December 6, 2007• 2:30 – 4:00 pm • Building 5, Room 239

Attendees:
Amber Alexander, OSPIRG/Student
Thomas Brex, Student
Susie Cousar, Health and PE
Kyle Hammon, Distance Learning
Jennifer Hayward, Sustainability Office
Gail Hemsoth, Adult Basic and Secondary Education
Patty Hine, Computer Information Technology and College Now
Brian Kelly, Conference and Culinary Services
Sonja Mae, Student Intern
Amanda Poston, Conference and Culinary Services
Margaret Robertson, Advanced Technology
Beverly Scholz, English as a Second Language
Anna Scott, Sustainability Office
Jennifer Steele, College Operations
Gloria Vanderhorst, College Operations
Dave Willis, Facilities Management and Planning

Minutes:

1. Introductions
Participants introduced themselves and briefly described why they are interested in participating in the sustainability group.

2. Announcements

• Global Action Movie Day

Sonja announced a Global Action Movie Day that she planned as part of her internship in the sustainability office. It will be an all day event on Thursday, January 17, 2008. Five movies will be shown. Each film describes a critical problem related to global sustainability and proposes solutions. Free snacks and drinks will be provided and many great “eco-prizes” will be raffled during each movie. Jennifer and Sonja would like to encourage sustainability group members to attend and to encourage others to attend. They would also like to ask faculty to offer students incentives such as extra credit for attending. A flyer is attached that may be printed and posted.

• Focus the Nation

Amber announced that OSPIRG is working on coordinating an event called Focus the Nation on January 31, 2008. Focus the Nation is a national educational initiative in which over 1000 organizations have committed to holding an educational event on January 31, 2008 that “focuses the nation” on global warming problems and solutions. The event is specifically meant to focus on policy making. Organizations are encouraged to invite Senators, Representatives, Governors and other policy makers to speak about their ideas and solutions and to hear input from the audience. Sustainability group members should look for e-mails with additional information about how they can help or participate.

3. Core Value
Margaret and Susie reviewed how Lane’s sustainability core value was developed and adopted. Participants discussed ways to more fully implement the core value including:

• Putting a requirement to state how your department is contributing to sustainability in the unit plans.
• Reviewing contributions to sustainability in employee evaluations.
• Having sustainability included in all staff job postings and job descriptions.
• Eco-literacy graduation requirement for students.
• Sustainability Council.

4. Review Sustainability Group Charter
Jennifer reviewed the draft sustainability group charter that was developed when the sustainability group first started in 2004. The group agreed to review and finalize the charter at a future meeting.

5. Projects

American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment

Jennifer described the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. It is a high-visibility effort to make campuses more sustainable and address global warming by garnering institutional commitments to reduce and ultimately neutralize greenhouse gas emissions on campus. Specifically, signatories are to:

• Within two months of signing this document, create institutional structures to guide the development and implementation of the plan and initiate at least two out of seven possible tangible actions while the more comprehensive plan is being developed.
• Within one year of signing this document, complete a comprehensive inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions (including emissions from electricity, heating, commuting, and air travel) and update the inventory every other year thereafter.

1. Within two years of signing this document, develop an institutional action plan for becoming climate neutral.

Over 450 colleges and universities have signed onto the commitment to date and Lane is one of the signatories in the Leadership Circle. This means that we not only have an obligation to meet this commitment, but also to promote signing to our peer institutions. Lane’s two-month report was submitted in November 2007.

In this report, Lane committed to initiate the following three tangible actions right away.

• Adopt an energy-efficient appliance purchasing policy requiring purchase of ENERGY STAR certified products in all areas for which such ratings exist.
• Within on year of signing this document, begin purchasing or producing at least 15% of our institution’s electricity consumption from renewable sources.
• Participate in the Waste Minimization component of the National RecycleMania competition, and adopt 3 or more associated measures to reduce waste.

Jennifer noted that the four most critical first steps to implementing the Climate Commitment are to begin initiating the above three tangible actions and to complete a comprehensive inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions. Participants made the following commitments to help implement these four steps.

Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System

The American Association of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has recently released the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). Lane has become a pilot member testing out the system. STARS is a voluntary, self-reporting framework for gauging the relative progress of institutions of higher education toward sustainability. Benefits of participating in STARS include

• Ability to make meaningful comparisons to peer institutions.
• Ability to track Lane’s progress.
• Ability to provide input into this draft version of STARS and opportunity to shape the final version.

There are four categories of indicators: 1) Governance and Finance; 2) Social Responsibility and Community Engagement; 3) Education and Research; and 4) Operations. In each category, there is a list of about 20 items for which we can get points.

Members agreed to fill out the checklist for Lane in the following subgroups:

Governance and Finance: Jennifer Steele and Gloria Vanderhorst
Social Responsibility: Brian Kelly (kellyb@lanecc.edu) and Thomas Brex ( thomasbrex@gmail.com )
Education and Research: Susie Cousar and Patty Hine
Operations: Anna Scott, Mike Sims, and Dave Willis

Members may view the STARS checklist and instructions at http://www.aashe.org/stars/STARS0.4.pdfhttp://www.aashe.org/stars/STARS0.4.pdf .

Prior to the next meeting, subgroups will communicate about how they will fill out the form. Subgroups will report on their progress at the next meeting. The goal is to have the first draft of the forms completed by February 21, 2008.

National Conference on Sustainability for Oregon Community Colleges

Lane will be hosting a National Conference on Sustainability for Oregon Community Colleges this April 16 & 17. Jennifer asked if group members would be willing to participate on a sub-committee to help select keynote speakers and work on programming. Kyle, Amber, Susie, Gail, and Jen S. volunteered. Jennifer will schedule a planning meeting with this group.

6. Next Meeting
Participants discussed agenda items for the next meeting and recommended the following items.

Agenda:

• Project Updates ( American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, Sustainability Tracking and Rating System, National Conference on Sustainability for Community Colleges)
• Getting more people involved
• Top priorities/objectives
• Review and finalize charter
• Report from Sustainability and Learning Group
• Educational event planning (January is Global Action Movie Day and Focus the Nation. What’s next?)

Date/Time/Place: The next meeting will be Thursday, January 24 from 2:30 to 4:00 pm in Building 5, Room 239.

Minutes prepared by: Jennifer Hayward; Date: 12/20/07