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.
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.
