A LOOK BACK…
- Our Central Oklahoma Sustainability Collaborative (COSC) kicked off one year ago, May 2021, and we now have a blog, social media presence, and ~80 members (people on our email list). We met 4-5 times as a big group (mostly virtually) and heard from UCO’s Kelly Vaughn about recycling, Phil Jones from City of Edmond, UCO’s Vicki Jackson on green spaces, and more.
- Affinity Group: We applied for and became a UCO Faculty/Staff/Student Affinity Group (thanks Cristi Moore)! https://www.uco.edu/offices/people-culture/inclusive-community/affinity-groups-at-uco
- City of Edmond Memorandum of Understanding: UCO (President Neuhold-Ravikumar) and City of Edmond updated and re-signed our 2014 MOU. Thanks John Wood!
- Sustainability Quotes: We released an online form to collect student (and faculty/staff) testimonials about “Why is sustainability important to you?” (STLR credit for students) and have gotten ~25 quotes! Thanks Veronica Cianfrano!
- Food recovery and compost grant proposal: Submitted and awarded! Thanks Lauren Bieri and Susan Woods for your help.
- Earth Week 2022: David Bass and team successfully restarted the Earth Day Fair (Wed, May 20); Veronica Cianfrano (Melton Gallery) focused on environmental justice film festival, panel, and art exhibit other days that week.
- Students for Sustainability: The student group restarted and elected officers for next year (good work, Ryan Lykins!)
- Faculty Book Clubs: Katrina Lacher, Ed Cunliff, and Alyssa Provencio led discussions of the books All we can save: Truth, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis and Radical hope: A teaching manifesto
- Sustainability Center proposal: John Wood started up a 9-member subcommittee to work on this. It is progressing.
- Sustainability Petition: Avery Geist, who just graduated, kicked this off at Earth Day Fair; about 63 signatures were collected so far. (See below to sign)
- GLASS recycle dumpster: Delivered to Lot 51 (behind baseball field) in mid-April for campus and Edmond citizens to drop off glass for recycling. (See below for details)
- Recycle Maps: Kelly Vaughn had her team create maps of the location of recycling bins in every building on campus!
- Senate Resolutions on Sustainability: Alyssa Provencio and Liz Wallace got these PASSED through faculty and staff senates, respectively. The President was forwarded the wording, and responded with:
- “Please extend my gratitude to the senates on their consideration and support of the university’s commitment to sustainability. Thoughtful care of our economic, environmental, and social systems are elemental to building our future. My best to you.”
Patti Neuhold-Ravikumar
President
- “Please extend my gratitude to the senates on their consideration and support of the university’s commitment to sustainability. Thoughtful care of our economic, environmental, and social systems are elemental to building our future. My best to you.”
Isn’t that list amazing!!?? Thanks to everyone who participated, served on subcommittees, volunteered, and stayed green. Let’s keep this momentum going into the 2022-2023 academic year.
A LOOK FORWARD…TAKE ACTION!
- UCOSA sustainability resolution: Students, please contact the officers to show your support, and request they introduce it and pass it at their first meeting this fall: https://ucore.uco.edu/ucosa/home
- Glass Recycle: We can’t send it back until it is full and it is a LONG way from full! Please bring all your clean, any-color glass bottles and jars to the Glass-Only dumpster at Lot 51 (behind the baseball field at University Dr. and Washington). See, and share, the graphic below.
- Food Recovery and Composting volunteers: We’ll have a press release with more details through University Communications after the fall semester starts. Prior to that, we’ll put a call out for volunteers to help with food packaging and delivery (on campus). Nicole Doherty and Susan Woods are the main coordinators, and more details are forthcoming.
- Sustainability Center proposal: John Wood and team hope to have their proposal for a Sustainability Center ready for COSC’s input by the end of summer, so that we can get to administration by early fall.
- Sustainability Center petition: Sign the petition and advertise to your UCO colleagues/peers.
- Recycle Maps: The new recycle maps should soon be linked from https://www.uco.edu/offices/facilities-management/physical-plant#setup (and we’ll cross-link from our blog).
- Sustainability quotes: Haven’t given us yours yet? Feel free to submit one.
- New members: We’ll look forward to growing COSC membership even more this Fall. Please invite your green-minded colleagues and peers to join at https://blogs.uco.edu/green/get-involved/. Under Volunteer Form, one of the options is “just add me to the email list.”
