Location: Sayles 252

Time: 4:00 pm

Present Mathias Bell, Gary Wagenbach, Rob Lamppa, Ray McGaughey, Mark Kanazawa, Mark Krusemeyer, Alex Chohlas-Wood,Ray McGaughey

Absent Steve Spehn, Amy Sillanpa

Secretary: Alex Chohlas-Wood

Paper (Gary):
• Committee leader is out of town, so no new updates.
• Over break, new copiers and printers placed in departments with card systems integrated to build up records of machine use. Numbers are accumulating but nothing is being done with data. In some departments, breakdown by professor wouldn’t be possible without changes to card-swiping system.
• Hoping to get records available to people and committees.

PCC (Mathias):

• Last week Tony Cortese was in town – good information on the PCC.

• First initiative on the agenda is Recyclemania, Dorm Wars, etc.

Transportation (Adam):
• A lot of movement.
• As of yesterday, pending Fred Rogers’ approval, the College will trade in two vans for two Toyota Prius’ to come immediately. They’d arrive in four to six weeks.
• Panel also recommended replacing vans, but not sure with what (more Prius?). Riskiness of large vans being considered.
• Other news: Amy Wilson (carpooling Ents capstone) meeting with ITS staff members on how to approach visual aspect of carpooling setup.
• Subcommittee also talked about focusing on campus policies (like registration fees, purchasing policies, departmental fees, preferential parking for hybrids/carpools) and seeing how to improve these. Maybe even a no idling policy.

SRF (Mathias):
• Charter passed late in Fall term.
• This term’s goals: publicity (environmental groups know a lot, but not the whole campus), getting it up online.
• Committee is ready for applications but they need proposals from the student body. Ray is proposing one with lighting in Cowling and the Library, and getting together information.

Waste/Composting (Mathias):
• EPA P3 grant was accepted with EarthTub. This will be installed soon, but also we’re applying for the next 70,000 dollars for more Earthtubs. Not sure about public involvement (potential educational value, use by community?), but we should check on liability issues.

Communications (Mathias):
• Website had 5000 visits in month of December.
• Next improvements to the site: one with a sustainable revolving fund template, sustainability code of conduct.

Announcements:

CSA
• CSA was thrilled with the presentation of the dorms… highlight was that the dorms were LEED gold certified. Student body government very much behind the move.
• CSA is meeting with Board of Trustees, with an hour long presentation on the State of Carleton. Focus on Carleton students and commitment to sustainability…
• Student activity fee increase did not include any green fee allocation… but this might happen in the future.

Dining hall committee is hoping to have signed a contract by March 1st. Reason for postponement: avoiding poor contract, hoping to do well. Current contract doesn’t expire until June 30th, so we have plenty of time.

Three big events that start close to each other: Dorm Wars, Recyclemania, and Focus the Nation.
• Dorm Wars
o Traditionally MPIRG’s bit, but people involved in the process either graduated or didn’t want such a big workload, so there’s currently a delegation of authority to keep work spread out.
o Focus is on electricity, not heating. Also, a quick question about metering: these are being consolidated and segregated in the new electrical installation close to Willis. New dorm will have monitoring for each suite or floor.
• Recyclemania
o Unfortunately going on at same time as Dorm wars, but will continue for ten weeks (past the end of Dorm Wars). Carleton’s split is pretty low compared to should what be possible, so we have room for improvement even with one-stream recycling. In fact, we had a dip in recycling because people might be afraid to put everything in one place. Facilities workers are mostly on board, but some problems with Dining Hall employees who are more temporary and also stuck on bad habits.
o Carleton’s split: 35% compost, 44% trash, 21% recycled.
• Focus the Nation
o Good amount of publicity planned. Large nationwide event happening at the end of the month. Talks (both online and here) about climate change.

Budget
• Review of budget. Don’t have guidelines for spending, but that might be a good thing to draft.
• Might add spending to student initiatives which don’t fall under the SRF guidelines (don’t make back money).
• Keep AASHE payment since we’re more similar to them than any other group on campus.
• Ray makes a motion to fund the Focus the Nation dinner up to $300 if no other group is able to fund it. Mathias abstains, all others vote yes.