Green is Gold
Students form Southeastern Sustainability Society to support and enhance university's "green" efforts
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
During the fall 2014 semester, a group of like-minded students passionate about their environment and their university joined together to form one of Southeastern's newest student organizations. The Southeastern Sustainability Society has since led fundraising and promotional efforts to improve sustainability practices among students and support the Physical Plant's efforts to position the university as one of the greenest in the state.
According to the organization's inaugural president, sociology graduate student Dante Bidwell, the society was founded to expose students to sustainable consumption practices like recycling and the use of renewable and reusable energy.
Last semester, the society held a recycling drive at a home football game to raise funds to purchase new outdoor recycling containers for the campus. The society then developed a system to monitor recyclable collections from these bins. There are now 22 blue recycling bins on campus that were partially funded by the Southeastern Sustainability Society's efforts and partially by a Healthy Communities Grant awarded through Keep Louisiana Beautiful, a volunteer-based service organization dedicated to a litter-free Louisiana.
Danilo Miranda, the organization's current president, says the society will spend the spring semester focusing on the campus community garden that will be located at Southeastern's Sustainability Center on North Oak Street. The garden, proposed by Stephanie Travis, Student Government Association president, and supported by Carlos Doolittle, director of landscaping, grounds and recycling at Southeastern's Physical Plant, will serve as an educational area as well as a source of nutrition for students to grow their own food. The Southeastern Sustainability Society will assist in developing the community garden in conjunction with graduate students in Dr. David Burley's Applied Environmental Sociology class.
"By implementing these types of initiatives we can help to provide knowledge on the issues caused by current methods of energy consumption and sustainable alternatives. Not only are these programs positive for the university, but if implemented regularly and properly, they could actually become sources of revenue," said Bidwell.
The society will meet Thursday, Feb. 26, at 2 p.m. in Sims Memorial Library. Interested students can attend the meeting, visit the society's Facebook page, or contact danilo.miranda@southeastern.edu for more information about the Southeastern Sustainability Society.
