Sustainability
September 10, 2014
‘Grab-N-Go’ Debuts At Westlawn
AVI Fresh Dining Services have implemented a new takeout option this year. The new program, called “grab-n-go,” is convenient for people needing a quick meal between classes or off-campus students. “Grab-n-go” begins with customers obtaining an eco-friendly container at the main cashier that they can take to the salad bar. Main greens include fresh spinach, romaine and iceberg lettuce, an assortment of vegetable and other salad toppings are also available with a variety of homemade dressings. The container is then weighed at the main cashier for 47 cents per ounce. Students with a meal plan cannot use this option for...
September 4, 2014
‘Cool School’ And Global Citizens At Goshen College
This summer, Goshen College was named one of America’s greenest schools in the Sierra Club’s magazine. Ranked 131 out of 173 on the list of “cool schools,” Goshen College has been recognized as a school with one of the biggest commitments to sustainability on its campus. According to sierraclub.org, Goshen College was most successful in going green with its energy. On Wednesday, August 27, President James Brenneman delivered a speech at the opening convocation of the fall semester that focused on this year’s core value, global citizenship. Brenneman related our need to be “citizens of the earth and sky” to...
April 17, 2014
Planning for Carbon Neutrality
When Jim Brenneman, president, signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, Goshen College joined 175 other academic institutions in an effort to reduce their carbon emissions. This year, Goshen College intends to uphold its commitment by reevaluating its climate action plan, which was established in 2009. Part of the agreement involved the establishment of the ecological stewardship committee on campus, which would develop plans for long-term campus sustainability. The committee has four sub-groups: advancement, audit, analysis and awareness. Each group covers a different side of their mission. The committee is comprised of students, faculty, administrators and staff from...
April 2, 2014
Merry Lea Sustainability Semester Changes
The fall sustainability program at Merry Lea will arrive next year with a name. Formerly known as the Sustainability Semester in Residence, the program is now called Sustainability Leadership Semester. According to the Merry Lea website, the program has a focus in sustainable living, community engagement, health and leadership. This opportunity is only available during the fall semester because it is the only time the weather is warm enough to allow students to live in Merry Lea’s sustainable housing. During the semester, students earn 15 credits in classes such as Landscape Limnology and Faith, Ethics and Eco-justice. The semester includes...
April 2, 2014
Ecological stewardship committee looks to honor trees
Three years ago Joe Friesen, a 2010 graduate, started the process of applying for Goshen to become a Tree Campus, but was not able to finish before he graduated. Members of the Ecological Stewardship Committee have decided to follow through with Friesen’s efforts. Carina Zehr, a senior, will be taking the student leadership position on this initiative. The Tree Campus concept is similar to the Tree City concept started by the Arbor Day Foundation. In order to become certified as a Tree Campus, the school has to meet five standards. According to the toddsmariettatreeservices.com website, these standards include: the formation...
March 19, 2014
Everence moves to eco-friendly endowment
Almost all of Goshen College's $102 million endowment will fund environmentally friendly companies, according to Jim Histand, vice president for finance. GC and other Mennonite institutions that manage their endowment fund investments with the Mennonite Education Agency can rest assured that their collective endowment investments will be in more environmentally friendly companies. Specific investments with oil, coal and gas companies have been reevaluated by Everence, the Mennonite-based financial company handling the MEA's endowment investments. Nevertheless, the college has been searching for ways to reduce a $2.8 million budget gap. To the untrained eye, GC may appear to not be in...
March 5, 2014
Spring break with old food, hard work
Natasha Weisenbeck, a senior, and three other students, along with Lew Naylor, adjunct professor of chemistry, drove 20 hours from Goshen to Steward, Florida for a service trip to help build compost boxes. Naylor, who oversees the GC compost program, found the opportunity for the Goshen College compost group when he previously went down to Florida to go on a swamp tour with a professor emeritus from GC. While there, Naylor began talking with Charles Barrowclough, who led the swamp tour, and who works for a land trust called Treasured Lands Foundation Inc. (TLFI) in Steward, Fla. Barrowclough also serves...
March 5, 2014
Improved STARS rating shows commitment to sustainability
Every section of wild grass on campus means one less time a mower runs. Every food scrap in the cafeteria’s compost goes back into the earth. Many drops of water in a Rec Center shower are heated by the sun. Each of these efforts, along with others, helped Goshen College earn a silver rating from the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) report. The STARS report, a sustainability rating system created by the Association for the Advancement for Sustainability in Higher Education, measures a school’s commitment to green efforts on their campus. According to Glenn Gilbert, utilities manager and...
February 19, 2014
[POST AT 9:30] Campus Living Changes Made for Financial Savings and Sustainability
Changes to residence halls, small group housing, campus housing and Residence Life staff are to come. Residence Life hopes to create stronger communities and more stable finances. Chad Coleman, director of residence life and intramurals, said, “We’re solving more problems. That’s the gist of this whole thing.” These changes will be implemented for the 2014-15 school year. Miller hall will be closed, but Yoder 1 and Kratz 4 will be opened. Subsequently, there will be one less Resident Assistant position. Four small group houses will be closed. Hospital, Vita, Valesco and Adelphian houses will all be closed to students next...
February 19, 2014
Campus living changes made for financial savings and sustainability
Changes to residence halls, small group housing, campus housing and Residence Life staff are to come. Residence Life hopes to create stronger communities and more stable finances. Chad Coleman, director of residence life and intramurals, said, “We’re solving more problems. That’s the gist of this whole thing.” These changes will be implemented for the 2014-15 school year. Miller hall will be closed, but Yoder 1 and Kratz 4 will be opened. Subsequently, there will be one less Resident Assistant position. Four small group houses will be closed. Hospital, Vita, Valesco, and Adelphian houses will all be closed to students next...
February 5, 2014
Divestment: Students Lead Movement for Discussion
Recycling a can or milk jug here or there, using re-usable water bottles, and taking shorter showers are common habits at Goshen College, especially among those who consider themselves “green people.” But when it comes to the eco-friendliness of Goshen College’s investments, students and faculty alike are mostly in the dark. Karina Kreider and Carina Zehr, seniors, along with Cecilia Lapp Stoltzfus, Noemi Salvador and Jacob Penner, first-years, are taking the lead on campus in hopes of shedding some light on the subject. Divestment from fossil fuel companies is a relatively new topic being discussed on many college campuses across...
February 5, 2014
Around the Cluck at Merry Lea
Students are maintaining Merry Lea’s new livestock barn each day in the environmental education graduate program. Students in the sustainability semester care for the chickens in the fall and graduate students care for them in the spring. During May term, the Ornithology class members have the opportunity to care for the chickens. Abbey Bradley, a 22 year-old student in the graduate program, currently cares for the chickens every morning at 8 a.m. They are currently being changed over to an organic feed so the chickens are healthier and the eggs will be a better quality. Each chicken usually lays one...
January 29, 2014
Dumpster Diving: A Brief Treatise Regarding Methodology and Legality
For some students, eating food taken from a Dumpster is an ethical decision. The official term for Dumpster diving (if such a term truly exists) is “garbage picking”. It involves going through someone’s trash and removing items from it at its most basic, and really does not get much more complicated than that. In a setting like Goshen College, many students find themselves Dumpster diving. What are they searching for? The answer is simple and not at all surprising (for a college student). Food. While a Dumpster may seem a questionable source of food, stores frequently dispose of food that...
September 18, 2013
Community from the ground up
What began as “seed money” from last year’s graduating class has blossomed into the Trackside Community Garden, where three different types of cherry tomatoes, purple basil, rhubarb, potatoes, peppers and other garden plants grow and are harvested for the Goshen community. Carina Zehr, a senior environmental science and sociology double major, gets an excited gleam in her eye when talking about the peppers, the zucchini and the tomatillos—a small, circular, green fruit resembling a cherry tomato. But in order to reap the tasty benefits of the community garden, past and present GC students and community members had to dedicate their...
April 10, 2013
Making peace with dandelions
This spring, GC students are setting out on a campus-wide dandelion harvest to be served at a dandelion themed meal. Spring finally graced Northern Indiana with its presence this week, bringing one very important thing with it: dandelions. The dandelion, a traditional foe of lawnkeepers the world over, has been cast aside as a weed and a menace by many. The idea, pioneered by Jon Mark, a senior EcoPax member, and aided by EcoPax, is a new one for GC. According to Mark, there were several reasons behind this initiative. First, many people do not recognize the nutritional benefits of...