Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AAASHE) Conference 2024 (Anaheim, CA)
Approved: 8/24/2024
Funding Amount: $12,519.50
This proposal will provide funding for 10 students to attend the 2024 AASHE Conference and Expo in Anaheim, CA from October 27th-29th, 2024. This project aims to increase the practice of sustainability at UK by allowing a group of students to serve as knowledge ambassadors following the conference. These students will return to Lexington with the blueprints, ideas, and connections necessary to advance sustainability on college campuses, positively impacting the campus community. AASHE also addresses sustainability from a whole-systems perspective, with economic justice and DE&I forming the cornerstone of the program design.
HON 352: Costa Rica: Biodiversity, Social Responsibility, and Sustainable Development
Approved: 9/22/2024
Funding Amount: $8,000
Funding for this project will provide scholarships for students with financial burdens to study abroad in Costa Rica via HON 352. HON 352 is an intensive study-abroad experience that engages students in Costa Rican ecosystems and sustainability practices. Students observe the interactions of plants, animals, environmental conditions, and tourism in several different unique settings: rainforest, cloud forest, paramo, marine ecosystems, and more. They learn about Costa Rican ecotourism certification, the need to involve and benefit locals in ecotourism, and how to minimize touristic impact on fragile environments. Finally, students get to engage with rural schools and indigenous groups and work with
them on projects benefitting the schools.
University of Kentucky Mycology Club Fungal Inoculation / UV Bioblitz
Approved: 9/22/2024
Funding Amount: $310
This proposal will provide funding for two UK Mycology club events: one that invites club members as well as all members of the UK community to participate in a log inoculation in order to introduce people to a method of growing mushrooms, and one that is a series of nighttime UV hikes to find and identify mushrooms in the ultraviolet spectrum.
Pictured: UK students participating in the Mycology Club's fungal inoculation event
Symposium on Dis/Ability and Debility in Appalachia
Approved: 9/22/2024
Funding Amount: $1,180
Funding for this project will provide food and compostable dishware for the Symposium on Dis/Ability and Debility in Appalachia. The event is a one-day symposium on disability, ability, debility, and chronic health equity (including environmental health) in Eastern Kentucky and throughout the Appalachian region. In order to best practice disability justice principles in conference design, compostable dishware was chosen to maximize sanitation for immunocompromised attendees and provide soft and flexible straws for people who need them due to disability, while also being environmentally sustainable.
Sustainability Summer Research Fellowships (2025)
Approved: 10/20/2024
Funding Amount: $25,000
Funding for this project will support five undergraduate fellowships. The UK Office of Undergraduate Research and Student Sustainability Council have successfully co-sponsored the Sustainability Research Fellowship program for 11 years. The fellowship program provides financial support and professional development to undergraduate students conducting sustainability-related research aligned with the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This opportunity is designed to support a student’s close collaboration with UK faculty and is intended to provide the student with an opportunity for intensive and self-directed research or creative work while advancing the university’s goals of sustainability.
Pay Equity for Student Interns
Approved: 10/20/2024
Funding Amount: $4,468
Funding for this project will support a pay raise for the current Sustainability Internship Program cohort to $15.55/hour. This pay raise is intended to make the program competitive with other part-time job opportunities available to students and to enhance the viability of participating in the SIP to the widest range of students by creating pay equity at a higher rate.
SIP interns Keren Keener and Henry Walke represent the program at the Sustainability Showcase.
Evaluating effects of ecological restoration efforts on ecosystem function in the inner Bluegrass
Approved: 11/17/2024
Funding Amount: $9,747
Funding for this project continues a water quality monitoring program initiated in 2020 with funding from the UK Sustainability Challenge Grant program. The program was established to evaluate the effects of stream restoration, including channel reconstruction efforts along Alumni Drive and riparian reforestation and conservation efforts elsewhere in Lexington, on stream water quality. This project will assess water quality using standard chemical panels, conduct macroinvertebrate sampling using standard kick net and/or leaf pack techniques, and will expand the program's original scope of monitoring to include salamanders as a potential bioindicator of ecosystem health in these sites.
Campus Tree Planting: Plant for the Planet
Approved: 11/17/2024
Funding Amount: $2,500
This project follows up on a highly successful campus tree planting project from Spring 2024, which also received SSC funding. Ten trees will be purchases and planted along Alumni Drive, providing a service-learning opportunity for students in HON 301 “Urban Restoration Ecology,” HON 152 “Appalachian Natural History,” and HON 140 “Knowledge and Society”. Student participants will be trained in planting ball-and burlap trees, and they will help plant, mulch, and clean up.
Educational Outreach on Sustainable Eating Practices for Young Adults and Supporting Food Sustainability Initiatives in Lexington
Approved: 12/08/2024
Funding Amount: $3,150
Locally Chopped is a series of monthly cooking demonstrations highlighting locally produced and/or seasonal ingredients, with least two different recipes demonstrated each month. As part of the demonstration, Campus Kitchen will also provide students with locally sourced featured ingredients for them to take home and make the recipes they learn.
Sustainability Internship Program 2025-2026
Approved: 12/08/2024
Funding Amount: $29,283.76
The Sustainability Internship Program (SIP) is a core program of, and long-standing partnership between, UK Sustainability and the SSC. This project provided funding for the SIP to accommodate 17 interns during the 2025-2026 year.
Solar Car: Grand Prix
Approved: 12/08/2024
Funding Amount: $7,574.00
The SSC supported funding for meals and hotel rooms to send the Solar Car team to race Gato Del Sol VII at the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix in summer 2025.
UFI TreeCATs 2025
Approved: 12/08/2024
Funding Amount: $6,317
TreeCATs is a five-week, online, interactive workshop intended to hone interest in and knowledge about trees. This was the eighth year of the program, and there were 62 participants who received certificates of completion, which included 26 UK students. The grant from SSC provided funding for 25 of those students.
Arboretum Interns 2025
Approved: 01/26/2025
Funding Amount: $9,744
The SSC provided funding for five UK students to perform internships in two discrete areas of the Arboretum in summer 2025: the Kentucky Children's Garden and the Walk Across Kentucky Native Plant Collection.
Tree Art Showcase and Student Contest 2025
Approved: 01/26/2025
Funding Amount: $600
Resiliently Rooted was a tree themed week-long art showcase held from April 14th-18th, 2025. It asked UK students and the Lexington community to consider the question "How do trees inspire and sustain us?" through art submissions.
Graduate Appalachian Research Community 2025
Approved: 02/16/2025
Funding Amount: $1,000
The SSC supported food and refreshments at the Graduate Appalachian Research Symposium. The Symposium is intended to foster a supportive community in which students from various fields can present their Appalachian-based research and creative work.
Hydration Station 2025
Approved: 02/16/2025
Funding Amount: $5,000
For many years, UK distributed up to 30,000 single-use plastic water bottles during the fall move-in to keep parents, students, and volunteers hydrated. UK Auxiliary Services and the SSC now partner each year to fund the rental of hydration stations at fall move-in, offsetting roughly 22,000 bottles.
Campus Keynote: Patagonia
Approved: 02/16/2025
Funding Amount: $14,989.47
Vincent Stanley, Director of Philosophy and Chief Storyteller at Patagonia, will come to campus in fall 2025 to deliver a sustainability keynote address that the SSC and other co-sponsors intend to promote as a campus-wide conversation that explores how Patagonia has emerged as a multi-billion dollar company and popular brand that sees the planet as their only share holder.
UFI TreeCorps 2025
Approved: 02/16/2025
Funding Amount: $7,876.01
Over the years, UFI has grown a community of tree-centric people who are interested in volunteering in tree-related work. UFI TreeCorps is a pilot project that was implemented in summer 2025 to test the concept of a volunteer recruitment system. With oversight by Crew Leaders selected from the TreeCATs 2025 UK alumni, the UFI TreeCorps will support tree plantings, tree care and maintenance, tree inventories, invasive plant removals, and outreach events centered on the urban tree canopy, green infrastructure, and sustainability.
Filled Up: Water Access for UK Farm Facilities
Approved: 03/09/2025
Funding Amount: $4,305
Filled Up provided funding for sustainability improvements at the UK Horticulture Research Farm. The project is two-fold: first, to upgrade an existing dual-water fountain in the main classroom building with a water bottle filler station, and second, to install a new combined water fountain and water bottle filler station in the outdoor classroom area at the Organic Farming Unit.
Bluegrass Greensource 2025 Sustainability Summit
Approved: 03/30/2025
Funding Amount: $1,050
This proposal arose out of a capstone project from an Environmental & Sustainability Studies senior. It provided funding for 30 students to attend Bluegrass Greensource's 5th annual Sustainability Summit at UK's Gatton Student Center.
SSC Director Stipends 2025-2026
Approved: 03/30/2025
Funding Amount: $3,200
This project was an internal proposal to provide stipends to the SSC Directors for the 2025-2026 council cycle.
Sustainability Challenge Grant Program: Year 11
Approved: 03/30/2025
Funding Amount: $16,667
The SSC co-sponsored the Sustainability Challenge Grant program. This program engages and supports multidisciplinary teams from the University community in the development of scholarly, creative, and research projects.
Fall Retreat 2025
Approved: 04/13/2025
Funding Amount: $2,000
This was an internal proposal to provide funding for the annual SSC fall retreat. This retreat serves as an orientation and team-building exercise for new and returning council-members.
Healthy Futures: Creative Technology and Non-Toxic/Recycled Materials Research at the School of Art and Visual Studies
Approved: 04/13/2025
Funding Amount: $6,000
This project funds two key initiatives aimed at advancing creative pedagogy through the integration of digital fabrication and sustainable practices: the Digital Matrix Modeling course, and the Healthy Materials Lab. The Digital Matrix Modeling course is a collaborative effort between Print Media and the Fabrication Lab, designed to introduce students to advanced digital fabrication techniques for printmaking. The Healthy Materials Lab represents a longer-term initiative, aiming to create a comprehensive bioplastic repository, which will serve as an open resource for students to engage with and test innovative, eco-friendly materials for use in the SAVS Fabrication Lab.
Planting flowering shrubs underneath pest infested urban trees to manage pests and improve tree health
Approved: 04/13/2025
Funding Amount: $3,038.64
This is an ongoing three-year project with two main objectives: 1) To determine if planting flowering shrubs supports natural enemy diversity and abundance within tree canopies, and 2) If the presence of flowering shrubs enhance biological control of scale insects within tree canopies.
