Suggestions
Mary Schantz February 11th, 2009
If you have suggestions for how the College can operate more efficiently, please use the Leave a Reply function to submit them.
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I was horrified to learn that all of the food not consumed by the faculty in Faculty dinning hall after every lunch is thrown away. I suspect that this is the case of student dinning as well. Just imagine, over the years how much food has been wasted. In attempt to deal with the economic crisis, perhaps we should find ways to save resources that are food related. Perhaps we could prepare less food or find ways to distribute left over foods to other agencies committed to helping the needy. May be it will save the college money.Ishwar Harris
Please don’t implement the trayless plan right now. while certainly it is a great choice for the environment, now is not the right time. i actually think the editorial in last week’s (2/13/09) wooster voice is a fine compromise during the time of economic uncertainty. i think it would be too much right now for the wooster to take.
Can students, faculty and administrators take small steps to reduce electricity usage? what is the college electric bill and is a 3% savings worth the effort?
some ideas -
- unplug laptops, tvs etc that don’t need to be charged or on all the time
- shut down computers at the end of the day..this can be done manually or automatically through the network
- collect and publish historical usage information for each dorm, program house, building etc and set goals, organize competitions to see who can save the most?
there are plenty of example of families, companies, communities, colleges reducing energy usage through cost-effective means.
Following is a letter from Baldwin-Wallace’s President, Dick Durst, to their campus community. Is this a practical benchmark that could be adapted here?
DATE: February 12, 2009
TO: Baldwin-Wallace Faculty, Administration and Staff
FROM: Dick Durst
SUBJECT: Temperature Controls
As I indicated in my remarks at the communication forum on January 28, as an expense reduction and sustainability action, we intend to heat our campus buildings to 68 degrees in the winter and cool to 76 degrees in the summer. We believe that this action can provide savings between $100,000 and $200,000 per year when fully implemented. Before we implement this procedure campus-wide, we have selected four buildings in which to test our ability to control temperatures. Bonds, Marting, Strosacker, and the Recreation Center are the buildings that we have selected to be tested.
In order for us to control temperatures properly throughout these buildings, we are prohibiting the use of space heaters or fans. In addition to consuming considerable energy, space heaters disrupt accurate temperature readings by sensors located in these buildings and thereby cause spaces served by sensors near the space heaters to be considered warmer than they actually are. Additionally, space heaters have caused a number of overloads to our circuit breakers.
As we strive to regulate the temperatures within these buildings, we would encourage you to identify any heating or cooling issues to the Buildings and Grounds department. They will measure the actual temperature in these spaces and take corrective actions as appropriate. Once we are satisfied that we can effectively manage the temperatures in these buildings, we will expand the temperature management action throughout our campus.
The tray-less system may pay for itself within the first year, but also think of the side effects. Trays do an excellent job of catching spillover from trays, leaving the tables and allowing an almost instantaneous turnover time from one group to the next at tables. Sanitation would be a huge concern if we moved with the trayless option. Even though the machine may cost X amount, what about installation costs, and will it be directly compatible with other aspects of the dish room?
We might also want to rename the blog…’economic storm’ seems a little sensationalist.
Hook up all the equipment in the Swigart fitness center to electric generators. Think of all the wasted energy expended in that place and others on campus that could be harnessed rather than turned into sweaty useless heat.
Change the job description for Security officers: when they lock the doors in academic buildings, they also turn out the lights. It might take Security longer to lock a building, but this policy would save on our electric bills. In addition it would cut down on needless waste of energy.
Keeping in mind that Kittredge will be closing next fall, is the COW going to update/improve Lowry in any way to ease this transition? I’ve had to go to Lowry at 12pm on the days that Kittredge is closed, finding myself waiting in long lines and left with barely any seating (especially when prospective students are visiting!). So I guess what I’m really wondering is if the COW is going to try and provide more tables or things of that sort to filter out the problems?
Rent advertising space in the areas on either side of the whiteboards/chalkboards in each of the classrooms. During transitional moments in class students can consider drinking Budwieser or eating Smucker’s jam. The College can collect money for unused space that would otherwise produce no income. Other spaces that could be rented for advertising might include the sides of College vehicles, professor’s office doors, textbook covers sold by Wilson bookstore, etc.
Harness the hydroelectric energy potential in all the toilets flushed at the college. Install Benkatina turbines in the toilets or sewer system and make use of the waste energy that comes when excrement is promiscuously disposed of by our community.
(Andrew R.’s “suggestion” is dead on. While it doesn’t present a way to help get out of this, it does present an issue that will have a greater magnitude because of Kitt’s closing. Lunch at noon on Monday was horribly planned, given that noon is the busiest time of the day (when we can barely find seats to begin with) and there were prospectives in Lowry on top of that. It was basically pure pandemonium. Something is going to need to be done to rectify the situation, because it hasn’t gotten better at all this semester (unlike previous times where students were still getting accustomed to their schedules for the first week or two), and Kitt not being open at all will only make it worse. Perhaps Old Main should be increased in prevalence as more of an alternative to Lowry?)
Suggestion: Lower the printing balance for the majority of the students. $60/semester is a large amount of money that could easily have portions redirected elsewhere, especially when most people only use regular laser printers (at only $0.05/copy) (and not color lasers). I’m aware that some students do like to print out PDFs/etc. which are posted online as readings or simply have a lot of required things to print out for their classes. In those cases, have them or their professors fill out a requisition to increase the amount of printing money allocated to the student so that they could still print things out (assuming, of course, it is deemed that they need the extra printing funds in order to keep up with their academic responsibilities). Alternatively, allow the use of Flex Dollars or simply money on our COW Card to act as an alternative medium for paying for printing. Reducing the default allocation to even $30/semester would save a fairly large chunk of money that could be diverted to other places to ease the economic strain. Reducing the total granted to students for printing might help divert paper costs, as well. I’m sure that IT budgets a fair amount of money to buying boxes of reams of paper each year. By reducing the total cost of money allocated to students, it might reduce the amount of paper usage and, consequently, reduce the amount of paper needing to be bought each year as well.
I agree that we should turn down the heat in all campus buildings. My dorm, Andrews, is uncomfortably warm. Kauke is often quite warm, and so is the PEC. A gym can never really be too cold.
Also, the printing allocation is far too much for most students other than seniors, and some students don’t use it at all because they have their own printers.
I’m not sure I like the idea of advertising on chalkboards, though. I like that our academic buildings feel like purely academic spaces and are full of posters for events on campus.
I disagree with cutting the printing budgets. Like Lowry meal swipes, I’m pretty sure IT or whoever sets the printing budget for each student higher than they anticipate students using. I know that I’ve come close to using all of my printing budgets for the last couple of semesters, and have borrowed funds from other people’s accounts. Using the school printers are much more efficient than printing out from an inkjet printer, especially articles and pdf files.
For the record, all of the food not consumed by the faculty in Faculty dining hall after every lunch is NOT thrown away.
Only foods identifed by the Health department as potentially hazardous foods that have not maintained a temperature outside the danger zone (below 41 degrees F or above 135 degrees F) must be discarded.
All other uneaten foods are not thrown away.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.
Chuck
cwagers@wooster.edu
I think we should increase the price of parking stickers, and implement a charge for faculty and staff. This would not raise a lot of money, but would be a good way to remind the community how hard we’re trying to protect academic functions… The price could be scaled to salary, or to how close the parking lot is.
Another suggestion, again that wouldn’t raise a lot of money but would make a point, is to consider getting rid of some of our printers — the ones that are least energy-efficient. With fewer, more efficient printers, we would save on energy and upkeep as well as possibly cutting down on printing. People might have to walk a little bit further to get to the printer.
My suggestion in regards to the issue of there not being enough seats in Lowry is to possibly change the seating arrangements. This could be done by eliminating many of the smaller circle tables with long row seating, similar to the long tables found at Kitt and in some parts of Lowry. This would help allow for more seats to be created in a smaller amount of space. In fact, the college could save money by just using the tables that are currently at Kitt instead of purchasing new tables. Another possible option would be to make some seating available in the main floor of Lowry. By doing this it would create a more pleasant less hectic place to eat like that of Kitt. Just imagine eating your meals by the fireplace in the winter time. In addition, if this were to be successful Soup and Bread could be moved down there. The cost of moving of Soup and Bread would most likely be not that much of an extra financial burden due to the fact that many school functions involving food already take place there. For example, that of Perspective Student Days and that of events involving the College and Wooster Community.
I know that often offices will wait until the end of the FY to make purchases of office equiment/supplies that they’ve held off on to be sure they had enough money for other purposes during the year. Perhaps departments should be asked to closely evaluate those purchases as the end of the FY approaches. If a department has a budget surplus it could be saved instead of spent.
The College could save thousands of dollars per year in water and sewage costs by incorporating composting toilets, greywater systems, low-flow shower heads, and faucet aerators.
True composting toilets (not the kind that dehydrate the waste) can save the College thousands of dollars while also becoming more “green”. Think of all of the good water one person flushes down the toilet daily (each flush = 3 gallons of clean water that we have dirtied), multiplied by the number of students, faculty and staff we have on campus, and we flush down at least 100,000 gallons of water per day with our waste. With composting toilets, we would 1) Save money by not flushing that amount of water down the drain 2) Create compost for campus greening projects, thus saving money by not needing to purchase compost from a third party source 3) Set a precedent for other campuses to follow 4) Spare the environment and our bodies from harmful chemicals that can enter our drinking water due to waste treatment practices.
Greywater systems can be incorporated along with composting toilets to save on sewage costs, or separate from them. Greywater is tap water that has been used prior in bathing, brushing teeth, washing hands, and doing laundry. A greywater system recycles this water by clearing out any harmful organisms and repurposes it to wash hands, take showers, and do laundry over and over again. The key in making this system work is to use biodegradable soaps and detergents.
Low-flow shower heads can save our campus residence halls plenty of money. Most showerheads on the market use anywhere from 5 to 9 gallons of water PER MINUTE! We can reduce that to 1.5 Gallons per minute by upgrading all of the shower heads on campus to low-flow showerheads. Some of these 1.5 Gallon-per-minute showerheads even have a pause button, so that whoever is showering can pause the flow of the shower while they are lathering without risking a change in the water temperature.
Faucet aerators, and even low-flow faucets, can reduce the amount of water that sinks on campus use. Many standard sinks use three to five gallons of water per minute. By switching sinks on campus to low-flow faucets, or even by placing inexpensive ($1.50) aerators on our current faucets, we could bring down the water usage in our sinks to 1.5 gallons per minute.
I hope that our campus can continue moving forward with the green initiatives that have started, such as the food waste composting in the dining halls, and continue making these resource-saving and resource-recycling decisions to create a more sustainable College environment!
One way the College can enhance revenues is to charge students fines for violating certain rules listed in the Scot’s Key. For example, many students on campus who choose to smoke and not stand 25 feet away from a building do so knowing that they are in violation of the Key. Students like this who choose to violate the Scot’s Key and put other students’ health at risk should be fined, which can generate another source of income for the College.
This may be one of the greatest recessions many of us will see in our lifetimes. I think we must consider each step we make carefully in an effort to surf upon the waves of recession.
First, I would recommend to the College of Wooster, that we make a concerted effort to buy American produce. The policy of buying many locally grown produce is enormously beneficial to the local community and the future growth of Wooster and its surrounding area. This policy should be extended to ensure we are choosing American goods wherever possible.
Money could also be saved by limiting energy use. As an example, electricity should be shut down in the library buildings, turning off computers during the nighttime, during building lock downs. All computers in Wooster should be shut down after a specific duration of inactivity. This policy, I believe, should be exteneded to the rest of the academic buildings.
I would not be in favor of imposing Eric’s fine system to enforce the smoking policy. As a student security officer, I am aware that the department is already overstretched and needs increased funding. Imposing draconian measures is not a positive step in the relationship between security and campus and also a negative way of raising money for the campus. I’m sure we don’t want our campus to become like Singapore.
I agree with pzula’s suggestion of implementing greener measures, however I would expand his vision. Now is the perfect time, during this recession, to invest into greener technologies to bring our campus to become one of the greenest in America. I fear the cost may be expensive, however if we begin to replace the current facilities as they break with green equivalents, we would be taking positive steps towards going green. When implemented alongside Rich Danch’s idea of reducing the temperatures in buildings and looking for ways to better insulate buildings, the savings could be immense.
Bill Scotton 17 Feb 2009 at 3:01 pm
Hook up all the equipment in the Swigart fitness center to electric generators. Think of all the wasted energy expended in that place and others on campus that could be harnessed rather than turned into sweaty useless heat.
imagine that
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