392.009

In no particular order and without any editing, here are the proposal ideas for your consideration:

A: Sustainability has become a huge issue on Westfield State University’s campus and can be expanded throughout its classes, buildings, students, and faculty. The university is continuously expanding and within the next two years the campus will see yet another expansion with the addition of University Hall. I am proposing that this building be constructed with respect to the environment and this school’s goal to achieving sustainability.

With a grant, I believe we can install new heating fixtures and lighting fixtures that will allow for less energy to be consumed. $5,000 would allow for a complete installation that would, in turn, benefit the school in the long term, as well as the short term. Heating and lighting units are required in buildings anyways, so why not use this money to install equipment that is going to benefit the school in years to come.

It is important to consider these changes because the world is turning to alternative energy sources as we quickly run out of previous energy supplies. Installing energy efficient products is the most efficient way to still provide necessary heating and lighting to occupants, but is also the best way to save money and cut costs. With a struggling economy, everyone is about cutting costs and trying to conserve. The best way to do this is to install fixtures that will provide energy at a very high efficiency, while saving money because of the limited energy use.

B:

Westfield State University has been focusing a lot on sustainability and is really trying to make it more aware around campus. The university campus is supposed to grow a lot with in the next three years, with a new dorm and a new academic building. But those building will already provide energy efficient lightening and new solar panels. So I would like to propose adding solar panels to the older buildings.

                By adding new solar panels to some of the old building it would reduce the energy cost and make the carbon footprint lower. By receiving a $5,000 grant that would help tremendously and would save a lot of money in the future. This would allow new solar panels and the complete installation of them also. This will make the campus use less energy and it increases the sustainability and makes the campus more green.  With a future goal of having no carbon footprint this would help a lot and proceed to make this campus better.

                It would be important to add these solar panels because everyone is trying to help make the earth greener. The world is doing everything to make things green. Installing solar panels is one of the most efficient ways to be more energy efficient and by receiving this grant the university would end up saving a lot of money short term and long term. The best way to do this is add them to the buildings that use the most energy so it will reduce the energy produced in those buildings.

C.I’m proposing a campus wide commitment to reduce waste and increase recycling. This is a proposal to increase sustainability that will reduce waste, increase recycling, and save WSU money.Currently WSU staff, administration, and students produce a meaningful amount of waste paper through unnecessary handouts and assignments, and memo’s. Along with this meaningful amount of paper, electricity and resources are being wasted as well. The recycling initiative has shown to be less than fully effective and could use meaningful improvement.

The amount of paper being handed out and then thrown out is astonishing. The entire campus could use digital copies rather than paper copies. Teachers, professors and students could use digital copies for their assignments.
Faculty and staff could all use digital copies when transmitting memo’s and documents. Reducing the amount of paper would also reduce electricity usage, and reduce printer ink usage.

Recycling awareness should be increased throughout campus. This will not require a significant amount of funds to do so. Larger signs indicating recycle receptacles could be installed along with an increase in the amount of receptacles available. In order to increase awareness of recycling more signage is needed because people will not pay attention to that which is not in front of them.

This idea will reduce the amount of paper being wasted, lower WSU electricity consumption, save money by conserving resources, increase recycling, and lower our carbon footprint and lower greenhouse gas consumption. Without the need of a significant amount of funding to get started this idea can be implemented with speed and ease.

D.

A way that we can become more sustainable at Westfield State University is to encourage students who live in dorms to practice energy saving habits. Weather its keeping the lights off when you’re not using it, taking shorter showers, keeping windows closed in the winter, or unplugging electronic devices when they are not being used or charged.

Educating students about their environmental impact can help the Westfield reduce their energy costs, and emissions. Students in dorms may not realize that they are contributing to these bad habits unless they are educated about the effects it has on the school.

One way we can get the word out to students is to post flyers around dorms and campus that influences sustainable habits. This would be a good way to make sure all of the Westfield campus is aware of the simple changes they can make to become more environmentally friendly and save energy.

Another way we can influence this idea is to send out emails through mywestfield with short articles that explain ways you can reduce energy and how much energy you can conserve by practicing each activity. We can provide an incentive to students who reduce their energy usage the most by giving out gift cards or Sodexho money to the people who practiced the most sustainability. You could even make it into a campus wide competition to see what dorm hall is the most environmentally friendly

E.

To achieve sustainability in higher education at Westfield State University, I was thinking about adding classes to the curriculum that deal with sustainability. If the classes are added to the common core area of studies, all students will be forced to take the classes. If these courses cannot be added to the entire corriculum, then class time each day could be extended so that professors have more time to include sustainability in their classes and how it relates to that specific subject.

 

Another way to include sustainability at Westfield State University would be to start a club that talks about sustainability. This is a very cheap and effective way for students and faculty members to learn about the advantages of sustainability and how in the future it will save the school lots of money. The club could meet just once a week in a class room for an hour or so and discuss different ways to achieve sustainability. Flyers would be posted all around campus advertising this club in order to get students’ interest.