Showing posts with label Campus Organizations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Campus Organizations. Show all posts

Sunday, November 6, 2011

SEA Fall Reflections

Hi there -- SEA here! We've been very busy bees here on campus the past few weeks. We we move from fall to winter, we thought it might be a good idea to reflect on some of the great things we have done, and some of the great things we have to look forward to. Here a few highlights so far from the Fall 2011 Semester.

UMD Student Environmental Association: Seed Collecting Day
Sunday-morning seed gathering - what a great day to be outside!

Annual Native Seed Harvest
(October 3) - What could be more pleasant than meeting in the rain garden on a Sunday Morning? On that fateful day, we shook, thrashed and picked seeds from native flowering species in the EIC rain garden and collected them in bags. After that, we sorted, dried and packaged the seeds for the SEA's Native Plant Fundraiser.




Campus Ecology Discussion
with National Wildlife Federation's Juliana Goodlaw-Morris (October 19) - How do you coordinate sustainability initiatives on college campuses? Julianna Goodlaw-Morris, Campus Field Coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology Program, was able to shed some light on this topic at UMD just in time for our Sustainability Week. Miss Goodlaw-Morris works throughout the Midwest region assisting college campuses with campus sustainability programs, finding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and works with students and faculty to bring sustainability to the forefront of all campus activities.


Leaf Bird
Soaring Bird, by Sara Cole - A creative work made of materials in the UMD Natural Area

Sense of Wonder Open Art Exhibition
(October 19) - This was a sustainability-themed art show co-sponsored by the Student Environmental Association and the Lyceum at the University of Michigan - Dearborn. The SEA was well-represented in the show with a good percentage of the works being submitted by current or past SEA members. Artwork displayed for the day on the University Center stage.


roundtable
Professor William Seacrest, Professof from Henry Ford Community College, participating in group discussion

Earth, Ethics, and Religion Roundtable Discussion (October 20) - More than forty people showed up to this special event, making it one of our most successful events of the semester. The main goal of this roundtable discussion was to explore the intersections that exist between religion and environmentalism, and the commonalities/differences between different faiths and the ways they regard the Earth. Featured guests included William Seacrest from Henry Ford Community College, UMD Biology Professor Orin Gelderloos, and UMD Professor and Ecotheology Scholar David Skrbina. (Look forward to a "Suggested Reading List" made of titles gleaned from this event -- we should have it compiled by the end of the semester!)


BakeSale2
The first SEA Bake Sale of the season was held in the Fairlane Center.

Fall Bake Sale
(October 27) - We made over $90! Thank you to all who provided or purchased some of our delicious baked goods. See more photos here. (If you missed our first bake sale, don't worry -- we have another bake sale coming up soon!)

Currently in the works:

  • Keystone XL Pipeline Photo Petition
  • Keystone XL Pipeline Research Document (created in partnership with the Student Environmental Group at Fordson High School and the Student Environmental Action Leaders at Wayne State University)
  • SEA Bioswale Proposal

Did you notice that our blog also has a new look? Let us know what you think.

Cheers to a warm, plentiful, and productive November!

Monday, September 12, 2011

September SEA Events

September is going to be a busy month for the SEA! See the "Resources" page on SEA's blog for a map of the campus. Come when you can, go when you must.

Tues. 13th 12:00-3:00pm: Student Organization Fair

Thurs. 15th 4:30-6:30pm:
SEA Meeting/potluck meet and greet

Fri. 16th 11:30am-1:00pm:
Sustainability Fest planning meeting and pot luck with EverGreenTeam

Sun. Sept. 18th 9:00am to 2:00pm:
SEA Working Day

Thurs. Sept. 22nd:
10:00 am:
City of Dearborn’s Adopt-A-Watt program launch at (RSVP required by Sep. 19)
4:30-6:00PM: SEA Meeting and Officer Elections

Welcome to the new semester! The autumn winds bring a rush of events for The Student Environmental Association here at UM-Dearborn, and you're invited to join us!

Tues. 13th 12:00-3:00pm Student Organization Fair--Can you help us greet incoming students and spread the word about SEA at our table behind the University Center? Please let us know, 15 minutes of your time can make a big difference in recruiting and finding out what's happening on campus!

Thurs. Sept. 15th 4:30-6:00pm Our semester kick-off meeting takes place -- let's make this one a meet-and-greet potluck for sustainability. We'll pick up on the summer's events and talk about the new semester, too.



Fri. 16th 11:30am-1:00pm: Sustainability Fest planning meeting with EverGreenTeam room 1070 Administrative Building (at UM-Dearborn's campus)


Theme for this year: Fresh Water. Join us as we plan and coordinate the events with various campus and community allies for this year's week long October festival on sustainability! (We'll make a better image for this year's festival theme)...

Sun. Sept. 18th 9:00AM to 2:00pm* SEA working day at the Environmental Interpretive Center! Help us out with various projects, make/distribute fliers, learn about native/invasive species, meet and greet friends new and old! We're hoping to finish up around 2:00 or 3:00 pm, but this depends on who will be available, what gets finished, and whether we decide to eat on campus or off.

Thurs. Sept. 22nd: TWO MONUMENTAL EVENTS IN ONE DAY!!
(two exclamation points to denote two significant things!!)

City of Dearborn Adopt-A-Watt program launch at 10:00 am on the West Parking Structure on West Village Drive in Dearborn’s west downtown

Launch of the City of Dearborn’s Adopt-A-Watt program at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011. This public ribbon-cutting ceremony will recognize Adopt-A-Watt charter sponsors for their efforts to save energy and reduce City expenses through their adoption of new energy-efficient lights in one of our parking structures. The SEA helped the Dearborn Sustainability Coalition promote this program this summer at the Dearborn CARES Festival. Attached is a press release issued earlier this month by the Adopt-A-Watt organization.

Media will be invited, as will suppliers of energy efficient products and the Adopt-A-Watt founder, Thomas A. Wither.

Additional details about the program and organization are available at: http://adopt-a-watt.com/

Kindly confirm your attendance before September 19 by email (bcampbell@ci.dearborn.mi.us) or by calling the City of Dearborn Department of Public Information at 313-943-2285. Parking is free. Please show your invitation at the entrance.

SEA Meeting and Officer Elections at 4:30-6:00PM
The SEA has a meeting once again, elections for officership take place at this time, but you can also vote online (more on that this Thursday). We're looking for individuals interested in any of the officer positions. If you are interested in running for a position please let us know either via facebook or by e-mailing us confidentially at greenwolverines (at) ymail (dot) com .

We have many exciting projects and opportunities in the works for this term and we need some people to step up to the plate for leadership opportunities. If you have any questions please reach us!

Saturday Sept. 24th We will be selling our native plant seeds at the Master Gardeners Association of Wayne County conference here at UM-Dearborn and meeting many of the regions greatest greenthumbs.

As always, we welcome your interest and inquiries--feel free to reach us via facebook or e-mail!

Cheers to a fine new semester!

The Student Environmental Association at The University of Michigan-Dearborn

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Earth Day tidbits for any day

A while back the SEA provided counsel to UM-Dearborn's English Club to develop a small pamphlet for Earth Day.  Some of our recommendations made it in, a lot didn't fit on the paper, and some were hastily put together.  Earth day also happened near a hectic time of the semester, so we didn't get around to sharing them online until now.  Besides, every day is a great day to do things for the earth!  Below are my thoughts:

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Invitation: Dearborn Sustainability Round Table June 16th

To whom it may concern,

I've been working closely with the Dearborn Sierra Club Cool Cities Group to bring institutional, not-for-profit, corporate, academic, governmental, and community leaders together for comprehensive sustainability efforts in the Dearborn area.

We cordially invite you to join us for a moderated round table discussion in room 1225 of the University Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn on Wednesday June 16th, 2010 from 6:00-8:00 pm.

This event is open to all, please RSVP to Mary Ann Baier: maturtle (at) gmail.com
Come when you can, go when you must.  If you believe this invitation may be suited for other individuals or organizations, please share it with them.

Our immediate objectives for this meeting is to increase sustainability awareness and foster informed coalition building and network development in the city.  We hope attendees will have a clear understanding of the local groups currently at work, as well as the regional initiatives which may influence events happening within the Dearborn area.

Among our longer-term goals, we aim to organize interest in establishing a sustainability panel for the city and formalize the University of Michigan-Dearborn's task force to coordinate efforts in sustainability to increase meaningful impact locally and globally through the community.

Feel free to bring a dish to share (it's also a potluck for sustainability) as well.

Below is the agenda overview:
-Greetings
-Introduction and objectives
-Organizational introductions, activities, accomplishments, goals
-Local event opportunities
-Mingle, network, etc.
-Next steps and meeting closure

Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to meting you,
Ian D. Tran
--

President, The Student Environmental Association at The University of Michigan-Dearborn
http://www.rcampus.com/Clubhomeshellc.cfm?xsite=sealeader

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

What's up at the University thusfar in sustainability...

There's a lot of stuff going on under the radar, so I thought I'd let you all know about some of it here as it pertains to the SEA and UM-Dearborn:
  • Campus food reform
In response to Provost Davy's Urban Farming summit, a food panel was formed to examine and guide action on changing our campus food system and impacts. 

One agreed upon goal was to offer healthier food options, and to ensure ethical/responsible/sustainable food system practices.  This has also on Student Government's platform of agenda items, but both the panel and vice versa didn't know that they were working on the same thing.

Two visible action items are growing out of this:
-a comprehensive sustainability policy (I think I'm the only one looking into it right now, feel free to prove me wrong)
-a proposal for a cheap vegan sub sandwich to offset environmental and health impacts (a brilliant brainchild of Dr. Skrbina's)

After unsuccessful attempts to reach and join the United Students or Fair Trade via SEA (I'm guessing spotty internet connection when I pressed submit--I'd try again, but it was a detailed form to fill out so maybe later), we have reached out to food justice groups like the Coalition of Imokalee Workers to see what's going on with our current food contracts and food service's operations.  Aramark is at the table with the CIW and recently made an agreement to pay more for tomatoes as of January, so we can move on to watch for Kroger (the grocery store) some time on the horizon.

Through a very helpful person named Meghan from the Student Farworkers Alliance/CIW, I recently came across the Real Food Challenge's resources and was delighted to find a plethora of useful things:  We can find out about all of UM-Dearborn's contracts via FOIA requests (here's a useful guide for food services)  and add them to the contract database!  Plus, there were examples for Sustainable University Policy (Huzzah!!!), which brings us to the next point...

  • University Sustainability Policy
We've joined the University of Michigan Student Sustainability Initiative and are waiting to catch up by phone with what's going on at the big campus in A^2.

To strengthen our actions in the food initiatives and other activities in the community, we're proposing that the University passes a sustainable charter that would be used to hold all future contractors to the University's standards of ethical operations within sensible time frames.

The great news is that we don't have to reinvent the wheel--The University of California and Brown University already passed comprehensive Sustainable University Policies and Student Government resolutions!

Eventually, things like sustainability and civic minded curriculum will be at the forefront of the agenda for the University, but one thing at a time...
  • Community outreach and engagement
As part of the University sustainability policy and per the discussion at the "End of Suburbia" screening this past month, dissemination of credible education (aka science, and ways to civilly discern and communicate credible information) are key to enriching the community at and around campus.

The Sierra Club Dearborn Cool Cities group is looking to ask the mayor to formalize a sustainability panel for the city (in accordance with the city's proposal for comprehensive sustainable education and outreach) and at the same time, UM-Dearborn's EverGreen Team have been waiting to do the same with the university.  The Detroit Regional Chapter U.S. Green Building Council Green Schools committee is also checking out Dearborn to offer educational consulting services... might I add that the word "coalition" is under discussion?


In other things, SEA's being promoted in several places:  you can find us on the Engineering Society of Detroit's Affiliate Council (we're an affiliate society, which has really nice benefits like meeting lots of non-profit groups in the region, tasty discounts, and other stuff), at idealist.org under the affinity groups, at greeningdetroit.com next to MSU's sustainability group, and the blogs page of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)
I've also found a few articles in The Reporter mentioning our events and activities (Thanks Jennifer Thelen!).
  • Habitat restoration/preservation (invasive species removal right now, native plantings June 5th--assuming we have a landscape plan in place)
The past two weeks were all about Garlic Mustard removal, and it's an ongoing challenge.  Six people have removed over 300 pounds of the invasive plant in a beautiful nature preserve nestled inside of Livonia MI--ferns, trillium, spicbush, jack in the pulpit, and some very old elm trees are a mere smattering of the wonders to be found there.  We've been reporting our "harvests" to the Stewardship Network's Garlic Mustard Removal Challenge.

Henry Ford Estate (yes, the one on our campus) is also looking for help--and it's not too late!  They plan to remove more Garlic Mustard this Friday, and are.

JUNE 5th:  SEA and Volunteer Dearborn are hosting UM-Dearborn's Rouge Rescue Day (and all are invited to join!).  Before then, we're figuring out how we could squeeze in some bioswale site surveying and are looking for some landscape architects who'd be willing to contribute some time in coaching us on how to make a viable remediation plan so that we can propose the bioswale to campus Facilities Planning and Management.

That's all for now I think...

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Suburban Expedition

With the conclusion of UM-Dearborn's 2010 winter semester drawing near, members of the SEA decided it would be an appropriate time for a suburban expedition to a wetland in Livonia.

I'll reiterate:  SUBURBAN EXPEDITION!  Livonia wetland!

Tentatively this will happen on the weekend of the 8th/9th of May (hopefully the 9th as I'll be in Chicago or Detroit the day before).

The idea is to go into the field, get in touch with the great outdoors, do an on-site study where we all take some samples/do some scientific monitoring, explore, meet new people and have fun.

It's a good opportunity for everyone to learn new/swap field research techniques too.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Putting the earth in OES with free trees

For Earth Day, UM-Dearborn's Organization for Earth Studies will be giving away free 1-2 foot saplings of Black Walnut, Tulip Tree, and White Pine (all Michigan natives).  I'm especially excited about the Tulip Tree (DIBS!), but also that address information will be collected from each person who takes a tree so they can map the spatial distribution of trees handed out.  It looks like a substantial way to follow up with what and where the trees are going.

Keep an eye out for details (time tba) from the oes.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

The Bioswale Project READ: FREE RESEARCH IDEAS!

Bioswale project: We hope that the bioswale project will illustrate how native plants can be used as traditional garden plantings at the bridge between the ScienceBuilding and the Mardigian Library.  Using similar principles described in the Native Seeds Project, we hope to provide signage that encourages students to interact more intimately with the ecosystems found on accessible areas of the campus.  We aim to establish and increase inter-organizational coalition strength, leadership, and demonstrate interdisciplinary place-based project learning.




Here are some experiments I came up with that others might be interested in trying (fair warning to UM-Dearborn, I'll offer this to you guys first, but don't be surprised if I put up research projects on Craigslist and open it up to the rest of Michigan academia):