Sustainability
April 10, 2013
Glenn Gilbert: Technology meets sustainability
Not a minute passes for Glenn Gilbert without the static overtone of a hand radio, the buzz of a cell phone or the chime of incoming mail on his tablet. “This is the latest and greatest,” Gilbert said of his Samsung Galaxy Player tablet. “I should say: ‘I like gadgets.’” Gilbert explained that for a long time he was ahead of the curve when it came to the latest technology: the Goshen College Alumni Bulletin even featured Gilbert sporting an ancestor of today’s mobile device several years ago. Many devices later, Gilbert cannot recall which one was featured. You might...
March 27, 2013
Earth Week creates environmental awareness
EcoPax, Goshen’s environmental awareness club, and PRSSA, Goshen’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America, worked collaboratively on Earth Week, which turned out to be a not-so-sloppy first for either organization. Hosted during the week of March 18, Earth Week consisted of a variety of events pertaining to environmental awareness and activism. The week kick-started at the break of dawn on Monday, when a group of students met for communion at the Millrace Dam at 7 a.m. The communion left a genuine impression upon Hannah Eberly, a senior leader in EcoPax. “The combination of spirituality and environment is important...
January 30, 2013
Weisenbeck presents at Florida composting conference
Natasha Weisenbeck began her trek to the U.S. Composting Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Monday to speak about Goshen’s current composting system and how it has been developing since 2011. Weisenbeck, a junior Bible and religion and public relations major, has been a dedicated member of the GC composting team since she was a first year in fall 2010. Since then, she has volunteered once a week, every week, to collect and dump food waste into the campus-wide compost bin, a large wooden box located behind the dining hall dumpsters. Before heading to Florida, Weisenbeck knew what she wanted to accomplish....
November 8, 2012
This winter, geothermal unit heats three buildings
Last spring, Goshen College partnered with Chillit Chillers, a local business that designs and manufactures geothermal monitoring systems, to install an efficient heating and cooling system for Umble Center, the Good Library and parts of the Union Building. Glenn Gilbert, GC sustainability coordinator, said that geothermal, though expensive to install, was a good option for the college. “We have a desire to get away from steam,” said Gilbert, “which is a wonderful [heat] source but is not very efficient.” The project came at this time because several buildings needed heating upgrades anyway. But why should students care about a utility...
November 8, 2012
This winter, geothermal unit heats three buildings
Last spring, Goshen College partnered with Chillit Chillers, a local business that designs and manufactures geothermal monitoring systems, to install an efficient heating and cooling system for Umble Center, the Good Library and parts of the Union Building. Glenn Gilbert, GC sustainability coordinator, said that geothermal, though expensive to install, was a good option for the college. “We have a desire to get away from steam," said Gilbert, "which is a wonderful [heat] source but is not very efficient.” The project came at this time because several buildings needed heating upgrades anyway. But why should students care about a utility...
October 18, 2012
Merry Lea pioneers first sustainability semester
This fall, seven students are taking part in the sustainability semester at the Merry Lea Learning Center. They are the first to take part in the program. The Sustainability Semester offers students a unique way to spend a fall semester at Goshen College. The program involves living at Marry Lea’s Reith Village, a platinum-rated LEED® Facility. The students are grouped together as part of a cohort and spend the semester living and studying together. The semester is 15 credit hours and consists of four classes, with a final project at the end. The classes deal with different areas of study...
March 8, 2012
Fisher-Wirth brings poetry and environmental issues to campus
Poet Ann Fisher-Wirth visited campus on Monday, sharing from two of her published collections and promoting her newly released book, “Dream Cabinet.” Fisher-Wirth, an environmental activist and director of Environmental Studies at the University of Mississippi, began seriously writing poetry while living abroad in Sweden with her husband. Her book, “Carta Marina,” was inspired by an old map in a library near their home, and Fisher-Wirth’s daughter, also a poet, encouraged her to write about it. Though she did not set out to write a book, Fisher-Wirth said that various pieces of her life came together at the same time...
September 27, 2011
Solar-paneled system to heat water in RFC
In a month’s time, the Recreation-Fitness Center will be the first building on Goshen College Campus to use solar-powered water heating. Faculty advisors John Buschert and Glenn Gilbert had, for several years, pondered utilizing solar-powered energy on campus. But it was not until last year that the plan began to take shape. And that shape was tubular. Rows of 25 tubes will lie parallel to make up eight 7-foot solar panel racks that will power the RFC’s daily hot-water use. A layer of glass surrounds a smaller tube that has a special coating that collects heat from the sun. The...
September 7, 2011
Fridays@Four lets students, professors enjoy natural prairie
Every Friday afternoon at four p.m., Glenn Gilbert heads out to the new native prairies growing on campus. Gilbert, sustainability coordinator for Goshen College, invites anyone else interested in learning more about the prairies to join him in experiencing the native plant growth. For Gilbert, the goal of the program is “to get people to experience this radical change on our campus, to learn about it, to enjoy it.” JFNew, the company hired by the college to oversee the growing project, is pleased with the progress the native plants have made, Gilbert said. “There are some flowering plants that they...
April 21, 2011
Ecopax hosts Earth Day celebration
At 12:30 p.m. today, Thursday, April 21, Ecopax will be kicking off its Earth day festivities. Earth Day is actually this Friday, which falls on the same day as Good Friday this year. Since students are off of school, Ecopax is celebrating early. Hannah Eberly, a sophomore nursing major and the leader of Ecopax, defines the mission of the group as “promot[ing] environmental sustainability on campus and among students at Goshen College.” However, with this year’s Earth Day festivities, Ecopax is taking on the city of Goshen in a broader sense. This year’s event boasts between 20 and 30 volunteers,...
March 31, 2011
Goshen launches three institutes
The first three institutes at Goshen College—with potentially many more to come in the future—were launched at a faculty meeting this past Friday, March 25. These institutes will conduct research in ecological regeneration, Latino educational achievement and global Anabaptism. Goshen College has begun these institutes to develop new academic programs and to conduct research that the institutes will then share with the community. President Jim Brenneman, who introduced the institutes to faculty on Friday, said that he hopes that designating them as “institutes” will raise their quality and profile. The three initial institutes were established this past week, but different...
March 23, 2011
Campus will turn lights out to fight climate change
For the third year in a row the Goshen College campus will join hundreds of millions of people around the world in an hour of darkness as it participates in Earth Hour 2011, an effort to raise awareness about our environmental impact. From 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 26 the college will turn off most outdoor and indoor lights, and students will be encouraged to turn off room lights and other electrical devices in order to make the campus as dark as possible. Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia in 2007 and was spearheaded by the World Wildlife...
March 23, 2011
From diesel to biodiesel: a difference of 4 mpg and fewer trips to the gas station
Most students spend their winter break sleeping in and taking a much-needed break. Greg Thiessen, a junior physics and biology major, spent his winter break converting his diesel car to run on biodiesel made from used vegetable oil. While the process only took a few weeks, it took a little longer than that for Thiessen to decide to do it. “I first thought about it two summers ago. I was working at Wilderness Wind [a Mennonite camp in Minnesota] and there was a lot of green initiative there,” Thiessen said. Part of his stay at Wilderness Wind took him to...
March 17, 2011
Merry Lea to offer new sustainability semester
Imagine if you could live communally, study 1,189 acres of nature preserve, canoe down the Elkhart River and work together to explore sustainability techniques---all for academic credit. Starting in the fall of 2010, Merry Lea, Goshen College’s Environmental Learning Center, is introducing a unique semester called the Sustainability Semester in Residence that will include all of these features and more. The Sustainability Semester will run from Sep. 7 to Dec. 7 at Merry Lea. Around six to fifteen students will be enrolled and live in two of the village’s cottages. These buildings make up Indiana's first platinum-rated LEED® facility, featuring...
March 10, 2011
Financial aid goes green
Financial aid award letters are moving online next year. Instead of getting hard copy letters of financial aid awards in the mail, next year students will receive emails that direct them online to JICS to view their awards. Students already use JICS to register for classes or check their online accounts, so next year they will be able to check financial aid as well. “We believe this will provide a better service to students, as the awards can be viewed anywhere at any time after you are awarded,” said Judy Moore, financial aid director. “The awards will get to students...