'Green' organizations to continue joint meetings

The groups hope to fund a sustainability coordinator.

By Belinda Kocen

Published Nov. 4, 2008

Many different sustainability groups met Monday night to discuss coordinating efforts to make the campus more environmentally friendly.

After all of the participating groups introduced themselves and gave a basic background as to what they do, Sustain Mizzou President Pat Margherio said he was hoping to get help from everyone on a statewide higher education conference that will be put on in March.

He said the preliminary planning has already begun but he is looking for ideas for workshops from the other sustainability groups.

Another topic that Margherio introduced was a bill the Missouri Students Association Budget committee passed Monday night. The bill requests the administration and student fees fund a new sustainability coordinator position.

The position will be partly funded by the administration and partly funded by student fee reallocation, according to the bill.

"Since we are asking to simply reallocate money that is already there and is not spent, it will not raise student fees since nobody wants that," former Sustain Mizzou President Ben Datema said.

Margherio said the funding needs to be split between administration and students.

"If the students pay for everything, then the position will go under Student Life which is at the bottom of the hierarchal chain," Margherio said. "If the administration pays for the whole thing though, students will not have a say in it."

Everyone at the meeting supported the idea of creating the new position.

"If it doesn't make the splash you want, then you can always push it again next year since it is just a suggestion," Greeks Going Green President Ryan Pulkrabek said.

A group of administrators who participated in the Administration Leadership Development Program were given a task at the conclusion of their training to make campus more sustainable, Margherio said. Seven different areas and subcommittees were created and will be submitting their ideas by the spring semester, Datema said.

"Hopefully the group will push for a sustainability coordinator as well," Margherio said.

Outside help is also coming to help make MU more sustainable.

The Rocky Mountain Institute partnered with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and will be sending someone to campus to provide feedback on the sustainability efforts.

There were 12 campuses picked in total nationwide for this review. A representative from Rocky Mountain Institute will be on campus for a 2-day visit, meeting with those involved in sustainability.

With all of these projects underway and many more, the group decided to meet once a month in order to keep each other up-to-date.

"The e-mail list between all of us will be important to just send information out to each other," Pulkrabek said.

President of Emerging Green Builders Tori Jarquio said the next meeting will be better since everyone will have more to say now that they know the format of the meeting.

The next meeting is planned for sometime after Thanksgiving.