Location: Sayles-Hill 253

Time: 5:08 pm

Present Cailey Gibson, Phil Camill, Tricia England (2nd half of mtg), Kirk Campbell, Dennis Easley

Absent Dave Holman, Kelly Kollman, Gary Wagenbach, Andrew Navratil, Richard Strong

Secretary: Lauren Miller

** = Action to be taken

On last meeting/minutes:

~ Minutes approved

~ Please give Lauren any corrections/additions to minutes

Announcements:

~ Great job with Meet the Earth! Saturday, Feb 19th. Many people reported very favourably.

~ Kristy Jones of Campus Ecology would like more info on wind turbine project – info for Richard.

~ We need to keep some of our first few topics fairly brief; there is a lot to discuss but I felt it was important to include them!

Environmental Audit/Institutional Research –

~ Lauren: has continued pursuing w/David Davis-Van Atta since last meeting. Have sent him some information and he met with Pres. Oden Tuesday. This project seems to fit in with the sustainability initiative perfectly and should be pursued spring term?

~ General agreement.

Transportation:

~ RENew Transportation Group – Bruce Anderson from RENew introduced himself and RENew and discussed a on project that a program organizer in St Paul is working on: the “hOurCar” initiative –Kurt Fischer. The vehicles are hybrids (Toyota Prius), owned by hOurCar’s sponsor, the Neighborhood Energy Consortium (NEC). Members pay an initial membership fee, and then pay per hour and mile.

~ Lauren: noted that this is taking place in the context of the reworking of the Student Motor Vehicle Policy – committee being formed to look at SMVP, which has not changed significantly in the last 20 years. Bruce Colwell discussed this at Monday’s College Council meeting, and said that the committee will not focus on the issue of transportation and student life.

~ Jen asked about peak times; Bruce Anderson discussed the reservation system.

~ Bruce mentioned that there are currently about 300 cars registered at Carleton, and about 800 at St Olaf; parking spaces are full on both campuses.

~ Jen suggested there could be incentives for students – parking spaces for hybrid shared cars, for eg.

~ Emily Schwing: some students need cars, if they live far from campus, or live in the Cities.

~ Phil: recently talked to Pres. Oden about the college fleet, and said Oden had asked why can’t Carleton have a fleet of hybrids for its campus system.

~ Jen: Will Tor has a relevant book on this (Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities: Issues, Examples, Solutions by Will Toor, Spenser W. Havlick)

~ Kirk: we have a vehicle contract in town – with Ford (?)

~ Presentation by the hOur Car organizer to take place Thursday, Mar 3, from 7-9pm, Olin 149. **Lauren will put up posters for this event.

Environmental Radio Show:

~ Emily Schwing briefly introduced her idea of having an environmental radio show on KRLX, the college station. Could include interviews with professors, Northfield folks, great music, news, etc.

~ Phil suggested friendly time-slot. Emily and Lauren think this should not be a problem, as it is an educational program and Lauren has enough terms of experience to get a decent slot anyway.

Prairie and Wood:

~ Update from Phil: Prairie and Wood is long-time running summer program for elementary school kids that takes place at Farmhouse during the summer. Recent scrutiny regarding liability issues has made led some administrators. Steve Davis was the campus liaison. Lauren spoke with Bruce Colwell about this briefly. Mary Savina is working on a way to formalize Prairie and Wood through Carleton’s summer programs.

Watson House update:

~ Richard not present; Lauren briefly summarized the passing of the resolution:

Presented by Richard Strong (draft by Richard with modifications by Lauren):

It is the recommendation of the EAC that the new student house to replace Watson House should be designed and constructed with “life cycle costs” in mind, in keeping with the principles of long-term planning that guided the 100-Year Plan.” Every currently available sustainable technology should be investigated as to its application and suitability in the Carleton student housing context. Applying these concepts will not only save Carleton operational costs but demonstrate to students, faculty, staff, alumni and trustees, Carleton’s leadership role in stewardship of its resources.

Approved by Fred Rogers:

It is the recommendation of the Environmental Advisory Committee that the new student house to replace Watson House should be designed and constructed with “life cycle costs” in mind, in keeping with the principles of long-term planning that guided the 100-Year Plan. Currently available sustainable technologies should be investigated as to their application and suitability in the Carleton student housing context. Applying these concepts could not only save Carleton operational costs but would demonstrate to students faculty, staff, alumni, and trustees, Carleton’s leadership role in stewardship of its resources.

~ Kirk: we are under some time constraints with this project, as it is to be done, built, and occupied by Jan.1.

~ Phil/Lauren: Richard plans to hire an architect with sustainable background, and consider full life-cycle cost. Possibly the architect who did the Tofte cabin.

~ Phil: Richard took LDC and modeled some minor building changes – eg 4-pane windows, thicker walls, more efficient fans – model suggests these changes would have saved energy ~ 37%.

~ Phil talked with Oden who got very excited about retrofitting buildings, doing an energy audit, etc. (Apparently Oden also once won a raffle for some photovoltaic panels – didn’t work so well but he was enthusiastic about them.)

Paper updates:

~ Phone survey completed; Lauren and Rika presented on results: basically, there is a huge communication gap between Printing and Mailing and the Administrative Assistants. Printing and Mailing says everyone should be able to order and get whatever they want, while the Assistants are for the most part unaware of their options. Recycled is definitely not the default.

** ~ Should be able to present these findings at next College Council meeting, Mar 7. Dave Holman to add this to the College Council agenda.

~ Dennis/Phil: would be good to calculate the benefit involved – the environmental footprint of one ream recycled vs. one non-recycled.

~ Jen: knows of a good calculating program on another college website that we could use

~ Kirk: student (barrk ?) doing his art comps project on paper use.

~ Jen: Should be college policy. Could partner with St Olaf and/or other schools to be influential on getting 60%.

~ Kirk: We’re switching fr. Unisource.

~ Tricia: We should publicize – get posters up.

** ~ Terin to contact Loretta Springer.

Sustainability initiative

~ Reports from sustainability subgroups

– Academic/Sustainability draft: still working on draft.

– Students: SOPE and bulletin board/website draft work

~ Lauren and Rika updated on meeting with Fred Rogers – he is very enthusiastic about future work on the Lyman Lakes watershed, and about funding that, also has personal history with Earth Day (was at Carleton for his first Earth Day, took a lot of photos for the student newspaper and met his future wife). However, Rika noted that he seemed confused about who the Environmental Advisory Committee was and also seemed confused regarding references to the resolution on Watson House.

~ Dennis: at a recent talk at St Olaf their VP called St Olaf “a green campus” – this is what we want – for this to have reached all parts of campus.

~ Kirk: we’re looking at adding another boiler at Carleton – might be good to get someone whose job it is to research sustainability components in cases like this.

Inst. Research/Environmental Audit: David Davis-Van Atta announced that his meeting with Pres. Oden went extremely well; Oden seemed genuinely enthusiastic about seeing data for Carleton, and was “all for it.”

One more meeting!!

~ Mar 3 (next week)