Arts and Sciences faculty meetings and Arts, Sciences and Engineering (AS&E) faculty meetings this semester will continue to be "zero-waste meetings" after a switch last semester to more environmentally friendly meetings received positive feedback from attendees.
Among the environmentally friendly actions adopted last semester were recycling, composting, using electronic instead of paper copies of agendas and suggesting members bring their own drinkware to meetings, according to Secretary of the Faculty for AS&E Jillian Dubman. Other green initiatives included eliminating plastic water bottles and individual sugar packets.
Office of the Provost Staff Assistant Courtney Spieler said she and the other assistants modified the amount of food they ordered for meetings last semester, because past events often resulted in extra food left over that would ultimately be wasted.
"Basically, by changing these very simple things, we've made faculty meetings from events that had waste into zero-waste events," she said.
Spieler, who began the initiative, cited the implementation of green practices by staff members of the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences as an inspiration for her actions.
"[Administrative Assistant to Dean Glaser] Laurie Tautkas [Stuart] has used composting and recycling in the past at other events, and I was wondering why we weren't implementing them in our events because we have eight or nine faculty meetings a semester," Spieler said.
Dubman considers the move to zero-waste meetings a success.
"We were able to compost 24 bags of waste, recycle all forks and knives and cut back on document waste," she said.
The changes were also easy to enforce, according to Dubman. She explained that Spieler set up separate bins for recycling plastic goods, recycling paper goods and composting prior to each meeting, as well as signs to explain what could be composted in case faculty members were confused.
"We no longer have the bin for trash, because there should be no trash theoretically," Spieler said. "Taking away that option is another way to have people recognize that there's no longer trash, no longer waste, and that the only option is to make these sustainable efforts."
Nothing at past meetings used to be composted, and everything most likely went in the trash, Spieler said.
Dubman cited University President Anthony Monaco's push for a more environmentally friendly campus as an example of the university's movement toward greener practices.
"President Monaco is in the process of creating a sustainability council," Dubman said. "He's very interested in sustainability efforts, not just at the local level like we're trying to implement here, but also what the university as a whole can do to be more sustainable on a much larger scale."
One of the first steps toward this sustainability effort was to gather the right people to discuss what to do, according to Spieler.
"We basically took all the heads of the departments … and got them to meet together and figure out how we can make that system work, because that was something that just wasn't happening before," she explained.
Associate Professor of History Jeanne Penvenne, co-chair of the AS&E Faculty Executive Committee, is pleased with Spieler and Dubman's efforts and believes that the rest of the meeting participants agree. She also believes that the environmentally friendly initiatives are easy to follow.
"I don't know anyone who thinks it's a bother," she said. "Plus, it's very effective."
Dubman believes that faculty will now try to include these changes at meetings of different levels throughout the university.
"I think staff members are excited that on a larger scale this can be done, so maybe they can implement it on a smaller scale at their department meetings too," she said.
