Environmental Council Meeting Minutes
October 2, 2001
Le Chateau E
Vice-Chair: Connie Leach Bisson
In Attendance: Lori Del Negro, Charlotte Tate, Katy Saunders, Charlie Sargent, Jon Isham, Ben Wessler, Helen Young, Caitlin Hicks, Oren Frey, Dane Springmeyer, Steve Switzer, Connie Leach Bisson
1. The meeting was called to order at 4:20 p.m. with everyone providing a short introduction. Minutes of September 18, 2001 were accepted as written.
- Announcements/Meeting Time
SGA has received 17 student applications for EC and are considering an interview process. Council members felt the process would be time consuming and questioned whether it would result in new, useful information. Connie suggested that there might be additional ways to involve students in the Council's work and she will discuss this with Nan and then follow up with SGA.
Tuesday at 4:15 seems to be the best meeting time for the majority of members. Dates for the rest of the semester are:
TUESDAYS Le Chateau E 4:15 pm
October 16
October 30
November 13
November 27
December 11
Amory Lovins will be speaking at the College on Monday, October 15th at noon in Dana. Steve Switzer offered to sell copies of the book "Natural Capitalism" before and after the talk.
- Launching the Environmental Affairs List Serve
Members thought announcing the list serve with a specific topic might be a good way to kick off the year. Tim McCahill suggested "Parking on Campus", predicting that with the loss of numerous parking spaces anticipated over the next year, a dialogue on alternative options would be useful. As members receive data on this issue they should send it to Connie, who will launch the list serve once we are able to frame "parking" the discussion.
- Environmental Grant
Publicity for EC's Environmental Grant program has been distributed to the campus. An article will appear in The Campus, and MiddPoints and table tents feature the grants for the next few weeks. ES affiliated faculty received an e-mail about the grants and each were encouraged to promote the grants in their classes. A request was made to the Dean of Student Affairs office to provide an e-mail to all students announcing the grant program. Connie urged all Council members to encourage friends and colleagues to develop strong proposals. Several students offered to chalk notices throughout Bi-Hall and suggested that an envelope with applications be hung on the bulletin board in Great Hall. (Connie will take care of this.)
- Environmental Fair
The Environmental Fair will be held on Thursday, November 15th in conjunction with Dining Service's Thanksgiving Dinner. Connie will reserve Woodstove Lounge for the Fair. Oren Frey and Tim McCahill volunteered to coordinate the Fair. Connie will arrange to have the electric truck on display.
- Sub-Committee Work
Environmental Grants
The Grants subcommittee discussed an evaluation matrix that each member could use when reviewing grants. Completed proposals are due at noon on Friday, October 19th. Connie will make copies of the proposals and get them to the review committee on Friday afternoon. Reviewers include: Charlie Sargent, Helen Young, Charlotte Tate, Dane Springmeyer, Tim McCahill, Caitlin Hicks, Ben Wessler and Franci Farnsworth. The Review Team will meet on Tuesday, October 23rd at 4:15 in 23 Adirondack View (Connie's office) to begin the selection process. This will enable time to contact applicants for missing details, if necessary. The Review Team will meet again on Tuesday, October 30th during the regularly scheduled EC meeting to finalize its selection, with a goal of announcing successful grants on Wednesday, October 31st.
Carbon Neutral
The carbon neutral subcommittee talked about individual expectations for the group. A long-term goal would be for Middlebury to become a model for other institutions aiming for carbon neutrality. In the shorter term, through efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on campus, the group believes that many positive changes and new systems can be implemented on campus (e.g., better communication loops for regulating temperature in buildings). One of the short-term goals of the committee would be to educate the campus about the 'costs' of the decisions they make, both in terms of money and carbon. Coming up with accurate estimates of these costs is one of the goals of this group. Carbon offsets were discussed and the subcommittee's preference would be to choose offsets that affect the area near by the Middlebury, VT campus. It is recognized that Middlebury will need to be very careful in determining an accurate value for offsets. The next subcommittee meeting will be at 12:15 on Tues., Oct.16, in the back dining room of Freeman.