Student for Sustainability and the Central Oklahoma Sustainability Collaborative are proud to host our annual Earth Day Fair on Wednesday, April 19 from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM at Broncho Lake. Both the UCO and surrounding Edmond community are invited to attend (visitor pay parking is east of the Nigh University Center).

More than 20 non-profit, municipal, and state agencies will be hosting tables, along with campus student groups and offices. An electric car will be present to prompt discussions of sustainable energy, seed bombs will be made and distributed under the blue tent from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, a “sustainability and the labyrinth” session will take place (time TBD), a food waste and recycling dropoff point will be setup, and more environmental education will take place.

This event is STLR-tagged for UCO students with the Health & Wellness and the Service Learning & Civic Engagement tenets.

With questions or to reserve a table, please email Dr. David Bass.

Green energy jobs are growing, and expected to continue growing, in the U.S. and in Oklahoma. Ever wonder what it takes to get a job in this sector? Priscila Guillen (UCO ’22), an energy project specialist with the Oklahoma Department of Commerce will talk about her current job, her job search experience, and the things she did at UCO that were helpful in her career acquisition.

Join us for the STLR-tagged event:

• Monday, November 14
• 12:30-1:30 p.m.
• Center for Transformative Learning (CTL), room 101

Priscila graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma in May 2022 with two Bachelor’s Degrees – one in Economics and one is Finance. Priscila is a first generation college graduate and was a very active student while at UCO. She plans to return to school to pursue her Ph.D. in Economics soon.

The Central Oklahoma Sustainability Collaborative (COSC) is proud to be working with our student arm, Students for Sustainability, to host the first sustainability meeting of the 2022-2023 academic year. You won’t want to miss it on Tuesday, September 20 from 3:30-5:00pm in the NUC 300, Carl Albert Room.

From 3:30-4:00pm we will give updates and get feedback from attendees on campus sustainability initiatives. These includes our petition and proposal for a Sustainability Center on campus, our grant for food recovery and composting, Students for Sustainability activities, and other educational opportunities happening in the OKC metro area.

Then from 4:00-5:00pm Mary Bixler will host “Bucking Industrial Food.” Where does our food come from and what are the environmental impacts of industrial versus local food systems? Once food gets to the consumer, what happens with food waste and how does that further impact the environment? As a board member of the Oklahoma Compost and Sustainability Association, a UCO alumna (2018), and manager of the OKC Scissortail Park Farmers Market, Mary is well-versed in the place of industrial food systems in feeding our state.

Mary will put local food systems into perspective, from planting to eating to composting food waste. In fact, you can bring a bag (paper or BPI compostable plastic) of food waste to contribute to our new compost bin!

We hope to see you there as we work together towards a more sustainable campus.

The City of Edmond stopped taking glass in their curbside recycling back in 2019, and UCO doesn’t recycle glass in their regular recycle locations. But, this commodity is in high-demand by glass manufacturers and is infinitely recyclable. In fact…

• Melting recycled glass down happens at lower temperatures than smelting it together from sand;
• Lower temperature ovens mean less greenhouse gases;
• Lower temperatures mean lower prices; and
• Recycling glass diverts it from landfills, leaving more room in landfills for other items.

The Central Oklahoma Sustainability Collaborative (COSC) here at UCO worked with our Physical Plant to have a giant GLASS ONLY DUMPSTER delivered for Summer 2022 at Lot 51 (University & Washington). So, all you have to do is take your clean, any color, glass bottles and jars over there and toss them in! [Note: no bags, boxes, lids, or “complicated glass” like auto-glass, electronics glass, plates, etc.]

What can you do to help the earth today? Recycle those glass jars and bottles, and help us fill up the glass dumpster!

Questions? Contact Mark Walvoord, x5589

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

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.”

We invite the UCO community to attend our next event: COSC welcomes Phil Jones, Sustainability Planner for the City of Edmond, to hear about Edmond’s sustainability initiatives and plans. In addition, attendees will hear about updates on UCO’s sustainability activities, including:

• The upcoming Earth Day Fair, Wednesday, April 20 at Broncho Lake
• Our developing proposal to form a “Sustainability Center” at UCO
• A Food Recovery Project that is in-the-works for the fall 2022 semester
• A glass recycling collection event (April 18-22)
• The re-forming of UCO’s student group: Students for Sustainability
• and more!

This event is available in-person or virtually. See details at the UCO master calendar.