Approved: 08/31/2013
Funding Amount: $10,000
In the spring of 2012, thanks to a proposal by a student in the College of Public Health, funding from the Student Sustainability Council, and a partnership with campus PPD, UK launched its first full scale outdoor recycling pilot program. In the years since the launch of the program, the number of outdoor locations served by the program has steadily grown and now stretches from WTY Library to the UK Student Center and includes Engineering, Law, Business, and Memorial Hall and the Kirwan Blanding Complex. The College of Agriculture and UK Healthcare are now priority areas for expanding the program.
This proposal is for funding to continue a partnership between the UK SSC and the UK PPD to purchase and install additional outdoor recycling receptacles to be placed strategically around campus. The Campus Physical Plant has agreed to provide matching funding up to approximately $10,000 and to install, operate and maintain the program.
In 2010, student managers from the Cats Den in the Student Center led an effort to have bottle filling stations installed in the UK Student Center. In 2011-2012 the SSC provided funding that led to the installation of 17 additional stations on campus. In 2012-2013 the SSC and PPD partnered to continue the expansion of this project. To date more than 100 fountains have been installed in 50+ campus buildings. The fountains are very popular, and Facilities Management receives weekly requests for them across campus. This proposal is for funding to support a partnership with the Campus Physical Plant to continue to expand the availability of the filling stations providing convenient access to free, cold, plastic-bottle-free water to students, faculty and staff across our campus.
Approved: 09/10/2013
Funding Amount: $923
This submission requests funding to house and pay for a speaker, Anibal Perez, to come speak on campus regarding the 01/13/13 Drummond Coal Spill.
Funding Amount: $1,550
The SSC is asked to help fund 3, $500+ scholarships for each of the three sustainability-based majors at UK. Updates: The Scholarships seem to have successfully been implemented into the Arts and Sciences as well as College of Agriculture. David Atwood, in charge of ENS, will be responsible for choosing the END recipient. A committee of CAFÉ faculty will be responsible for selecting SAG and NRES recipients. The development office is ready and willing to coordinate this scholarship in future years if it is renewed.
Approved: 09/24/2013
Funding Amount: $1,308
Six UK students will be attending the full AASHE conference from Sunday-Tuesday and up to 14 students will beattending the Student Summit on Sunday only. This proposal would provide funding to reimburse these students for any meals not covered by the conference. All other expenses associated with attendance were funded by a previously approved proposal.
Funding Amount: $1,523
The President’s Sustainability Advisory Committee (PSAC) and the Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment (TFISE) are partnering to host a fall sustainability showcase, Big Blue Goes Green, for the University on October 9, 2013. The event will include a showcase of campus groups, programs and initiatives (10am-3pm), presentations every hour on the hour for UK 101 classes, a film screening of a film on population dynamics, a research poster competition for graduate and undergraduate students, and a keynote address. This proposal provides an opportunity for the SSC to partner with the event by offering the SSC the option to co-present the keynote speaker for the event, Dr. Arnim Wiek.
Approved: 10/15/2013
Funding Amount: $3,000
Powershift is a network that mobilizes the collective power of young people to mitigate climate change and create a just, clean energy future and resilient, thriving communities for all. Power Shift 2013 will be hosted in Pittsburgh, PA - the first city in the country to enact a ban on fracking. The intended University of Kentucky audience is 25 UK students. These students come from a variety of backgrounds and affiliations. Power Shift has invited people from various faith based, political, and environmental groups on campus as well as students walking by tabling sessions.
This submission asks for funding to provide travel and lodging accommodations for the 25 people attending the PowerShift Conference. The SGA’s contribution is approximately 40% of the total estimated cost (5,089.50) and the SSC’s contribution would cover the additional 60%. The PowerShift conference seeks to empower and serve as a “hub” for the youth climate movement.
Funding Amount: $20,000
Since its conception Wildcat Wheels has set the precedent for on campus bicycle accessibility, maintenance, and safety education at the University of Kentucky. This emphasis on education-based services have provided numerous students, faculty, and staff with free bicycle maintenance and imparted upon them the knowledge needed to maintain and fix their own bicycles in the future. 12. Wildcat Wheels generally maintains 70 – 80 bikes in the semester rental fleet, with a 100% check out rate every fall and spring semester, and a varying percentage of bicycles checked out each summer. bicycle. This expansion would add a minimum of 40 durable bicycles to the semester fleet and allow Wildcat Wheels to increase their reach upwards of 300-400 students per year.
Funding Amount: $2,750
Climate Resilience will be a two-day event consisting of several lectures and workshops. Two major speakers are desired to be featured: Laura Lengnick & Carolyn Baker. UK student knowledge on sustainability largely focuses on issues of waste & recycling, bicycles, and renewable energy/efficiency. This project attempts to broaden the discourse to include emotional and agricultural resilience. Lectures and discussions included in these two days will focus on the vulnerabilities of our food system, which is a crucial conversation to instigate at a land-grant university.
Approved: 10/29/2013
Since its origin in 2009, the DOPE conference has been centered around decolonial, feminist, and critical scholarship and activism. DOPE has always engaged scholars and activists from a wide range of backgrounds from all over the world, whether or not they identify as political ecologists, including folks working in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. This proposal provides funding for honorariums, speaker travel and lodging, advertising, food, and miscellaneous expenses for this year’s conference to continue DOPE’s long-standing tradition of creating a space for participants to foster praxes of radical care, abundance, reciprocity, and interculturality.
Funding Amount: $7,855.14
Many UK affiliates and their families visit and use the amenities of the Arboretum, a unit of the University of Kentucky. Its principal mission is to showcase Kentucky landscapes and be a resource for environmental and horticultural education, research, and conservation. The Arboretum offers year-round programs and demonstrations to all ages to educate and encourage sustainable practices. A key uncertainty is the number and types of individuals visiting the Arboretum, what they use it for, how the Arboretum can better target its efforts, and what are potential valued improvements. AEC-580 is a capstone experiential learning course that will provide well-qualified and vetted undergraduates an opportunity to be engaged in a consulting project that requires meaningful research and outreach on behalf of the Council, the University of Kentucky and potentially Lexington.
Pictured: Arboretum visitors take the funded survey at the 2014 Arbor Day event.
Funding for this project will support 5 interns for UK Sustainability, as well as an allocation for UK Sustainability staff. Each of the projects coordinated by these positions (Eco-Reps, Programming in Residence Halls, Office Sustainability Certification, Solar Installations, Food waste reduction, composting, increased recycling, and sustainable transportation initiatives) directly involves a UK Student in outreach and operational efforts that reach other UK students with sustainability driven programs and messages.
Approved: 11/12/2013
Funding Amount: $400
The University of Kentucky's Graduate Appalachian Research Community (GARC) is an official graduate student organization promoting interdisciplinary dialogue on Appalachian research. Their mission is to foster a supportive community in which students from various disciplines learn from each other's findings, discuss research obstacles and successes, can have a venue to present their Appalachian‐based research, and collaborate. 11. This symposium invites undergraduate, graduate, faculty and community members to join a conversation on the present and alternative future(s) of Appalachia. UK students from the departments of community and leadership development, economics, anthropology, epidemiology and biostatistics will all present research at this year’s symposium as well as students from universities and colleges throughout Kentucky.
Approved: 12/10/2013
Funding Amount: $2,000
The UK Johnson Center currently has 16 ellipticals with ReRev technology to produce electricity. In the past the UK ReRev units collectively produced insufficient electricity to payback the cost of the ReRev technology. To solve this dilemma, the Burn to Earn Workout Challenge and other marketing efforts were implemented in the fall 2012 to improve ReRev elliptical usage and daily electricity production without additional capital costs. Those efforts lead to a 14% increase in daily production.
This project will put the challenge into action again but is more extensive due to increased advertising. Also, we will be the first to do a comparative study of human electricity production across multiple universities. Not only will we gauge where UK stands compared to other schools, it will allow us to assess the impact of the program more accurately and find more factors affecting energy production.
Pictured: Daniella Straathof presents her research study on the Burn to Earn Workout Challenge.
Funding Amount: $5,000
DanceBlue reaches a significant number of students from diverse areas of campus who can be educated and informed about sustainability. Funding from the Student Sustainability Council would contribute to UK student’s knowledge of sustainability by allowing DanceBlue to provide healthier food options and better products that would be more environmentally sustainable. These new resources would be excellent examples of sustainability to all students attending and participating in the marathon.
Funding Amount: $25,000
The goal of the Sustainability Challenge Grant Program (the name is not finalized) is to initiate transformational change on our campus by catalyzing interdisciplinary projects led by teams of faculty, students and staff. A call for proposal will be issued in the spring of 2014 through deans, center directors and department heads. Up to two $25,000 projects and up to five $10,000 projects will be funded. The purpose of the challenge will be to encourage and support sustainability-focused, interdisciplinary research, teaching, and co-curricular opportunities that utilize our campus as a living laboratory, and to demonstrate tangible top-level administrative support for sustainability as a guiding principle in our recently updated Master Plan and Strategic Plan. To be eligible projects would be required to demonstrate that they:
As of 2013, less than 1.5% of natural forest still remains in Haiti due to massive deforestation for charcoal and firewood production (Konpay, 2013). Additionally, thousands of people, mostly women and children, die yearly as a result of continuous daily exposure to smoke produced by cooking over open fires. To address these important and urgent health and environmental issues in Haiti, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a process that converts readily available biomass such as coconut husks and mango pits into a briquette that can be used as an alternative to charcoal. The process has been successfully tested in Haiti and continuously experimentedby Konpay, a local Haitian NGO.
With the institutional support of Konpay and the SSC, UK Master's student Nicaise Sheila M. Sagbo will travel to Haiti and survey households that currently use the stove-and-briquette technology, those who used to but have stopped, and those who do not currently use the technology. This work will identify the characteristics of households that are most likely to use the technology and inform Konpay as to how to better disseminate the technology and to whom.
Pictured: Pile of potential material for the briquette, an alternative to charcoal.
Approved: 01/28/2014
Funding Amount: $200
This submission asks for funding from the SSC for the travel, lodging, and conference expenses to attend the Upwind Downwind Conference. The Environmental Studies Department was giving $200 for the expenses as well.
Approved: 02/11/2014
Funding Amount: $4,000
The goal of Earth Days in the Bluegrass is to host on campus events in the month of April to promote sustainability and responsible global citizenship. The funding provided by the SSC will go toward marketing material, transportation, and events.
This project seeks funding from the SSC to support a student site manager and a summertime manager for the Shawneetown Garden’s. This is a community garden located behind the Greg Page Apartment Complexes, that provides international students and their families a unique garden experience.
Approved: 02/25/2014
Funding Amount: $3,500
This submission seeks funding for the frame, drivetrain, aerodynamic package, and travel expenses for the Human Powered Vehicle. The Human Powered Vehicle Challenge seeks to expose about 20 graduating Mechanical Engineering to proper engineering practices, as well as experience in creating a sustainable vehicle. The HPV is currently in the works. The design stage for the frame and powertrain was recently completed and, beginning in August, the aerodynamics team will being work on the aero kit. The goal for the project is to complete construction of the powertrain and frame by late December. The HPV will be presented in March-April of 2015.
Approved: 04/08/2014
Funding Amount: $2,500
Funding for the USGBC Student Memberships was approved near the end of the Spring 2014 semester, with intentions of launching the program at the beginning of the Fall 2014 Semester. An application has been developed in conjunction with USGBC and SSC members and will be going live near the beginning of the semester. USGBC is in talks with an undergraduate student who will serve as an intern for the school year and assist in coordinating UK-specific USGBC events, such as LEED building tours and a Green Apple Day of Service event in late September.
The SSC would hire an intern over the summer to oversee the council’s needs and keep projects moving in order to better prepare for the fall semester.
Funding Amount: $1,500
This submission asks for funding to travel to the Terra Madre Conference in Italy. The conference is focused on the slow food movement and encouraging small food producers to retain their cultural identity. The student will present the information learned in some of the Agriculture classes on campus upon her return and has already spoken with more than one professor about guest lecturing on this topic.
Approved: 04/22/2014
Funding Amount: $1,115.20
This submission requests funding for the SSC Annual Retreat. The retreat consists of various meetings, new member orientation, and group activities. This also acts as the first meeting of the new school year. Funding will go toward bussing, food, and facility costs.
Funding Amount: $750
The funds requested by this submission, will go toward Greenthumb’s fall and spring group events and marketing materials.
The Campus Kitchens Project seeks to provide a sustainable approach to reducing food waste on college campuses while also offering nutritious meals to those who are struggling with food insecurity. The approved funds would go toward a variety of start-up and upkeep costs.
Funding Amount: $7,829
In order to promote the use of refillable water bottles and the water bottle refilling stations on campus, this submission asks for funds to provide the incoming freshman class with water bottles. The funded bottles will be distributed to students living in the dorms via Campus Housing and Res Life.
Funding Amount: $8,000
The rain garden planting party went spectacularly well. Currently, the seating is in the process of being installed. The project heads have visited the quarry to see the rock and come up with additional ideas. The landscape architects are also working on finalizing a design. The groups involved with this project are excited to see the project coming together and the garden be utilized by students in the coming fall semester.
Rain garden installation after a rainfall event.
Funding Amount: $14,000
Locations for this project are still being evaluated. Currently, we are working closely with the College of Engineering on a location that can be integrated with their curriculum. Shane Tedder and Britney Thompson, the Universities Energy Engineer, are meeting with a consultant on July 16th to evaluate sites and discuss system size. Chris Goddard, a UK student, has been approached about serving as a solar intern for the coming year and will begin his work with the Office of Sustainability in August. In addition to the efforts with the College of Engineering, we will continue to coordinate a partnership between the Office of Sustainability, the Physical Plant Division, the Center for Applied Energy Research, and the College of Design. This partnership is focused on small-scale solar installations that, by virtue of their location, would be very visible and accessible to the campus community.
Funding Amount: $8,608
This project seeks to overhaul the SSC’s current website. The focuses of the new website will include: an easy user interface, a public face for the council, providing transparency, educating others on the roles of the council and how we impact UK’s campus.
Funding Amount: $6,000
This submission requests funding to support the Fall Office of Sustainability Staff. The staff will operate under The Office of Sustainability, Parking and Transportation Services, The Campus Energy Engineer, PPD Recycling, and UK Dining Services. The focus of the staff is to promote sustainability on campus.
Funding Amount: $1,600
The focus of this proposal is to reward and incentivize the additional effort and leadership given by the SSC Directors. It would provide $200 per director per semester, which they could choose to take or they may leave their funding with the SSC. Overall, the proposal seeks to acknowledge the SSC Directors for their hard work throughout the semester and encourage it to continue.