Administrative Decision on the PCC

For anyone who's reading this thing, here is the official reply from President Celeste on our efforts with the PCC, now that he's met and presented our paperwork to the Board of Trustees. Please post your thoughts-- let's figure out what to do with this.

Best,
Katie

____________________________________
Dear Katie, Charlie, Laura, and David,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter to the trustees and me, urging Colorado College to become a signatory to the American College and University Presidential Climate Commitment.

I discussed this matter in some detail with the Board of Trustees during their meeting here last week. Many of the trustees share our interest in achieving carbon neutrality and general sustainable practices at CC. As I told them, however, I am not inclined to sign the ACUPCC until I am assured that we can carry out the commitment it represents.

Thus I am forming an advisory council on sustainability, comprised of alumni, parents, and other experts. Their charge will be as follows:

One of Colorado College's core values is to "nurture a sense of place and an ethic of environmental sustainability." How well do we live up to this important value?

In 2004, President Celeste appointed a Campus Sustainability Council (CSC) to help promote environmental awareness; make recommendations to ensure a safe and healthy environment; promote resource conservation, energy efficiency, waste reduction and recycling, pollution prevention, and use of renewable resources; further long-range environmental planning; conduct regular environmental audits; and encourage incorporation of sustainability and environmental issues into the curriculum, among other activities.

As of 2007, Colorado College has made progress on sustainability, much of it due to the efforts of students and the CSC. We are working on our second LEED-certified building, the Cornerstone Arts Center. (Tutt Science Center is the other.) We pay a premium for wind power, which provides 15 percent of our electricity. We are exploring a move to 100 percent wind power and hope to have a plan before our Board this year. We recycle; we compost; we use only non-potable water on our grounds and are xeriscaping wherever possible. Several of our motor fleet vehicles have been replaced with hybrids.

To fully embody our commitment to sustainability, however, we have far to go.

The Colorado College Sustainability Presidential Advisory Council (Sus-PAC) will advise and assist the President, Dean, and Board of Trustees. The Sus-PAC will:

* Work closely with the Campus Sustainability Council to assess progress on sustainability measures
* Provide counsel on current and future directions in the areas of policy, global warming and energy, green buildings, investments in sustainability sectors, and other sustainability issues
* Provide guidance for formulating and executing an actionable plan for reducing carbon emissions in order to achieve carbon neutrality

The work and advice of this council will help inform a decision about becoming a Regular Signatory of the ACUPCC.

I welcome your continued involvement on this important issue and fully expect you to engage with the advisory council when they come to campus (at a date yet to be determined in the fall or spring).

Thank you for your impressive leadership on sustainability.


Sincerely,

Richard F. Celeste

*Meeting Minutes 5/8/2007*

*Meeting Minutes 5/8/2007*

Need to do 8^th block

Sustainable Living sheets (handouts) for NSO

EnAct Flyers for NSO

Nalgene Stickers

Formalize Drossman’s Catamount Institute leadership retreat

Need to do during summer

• Checking up on PCC
• Getting stickers printed
• Get NSO sheets printed
• Give them to Elizabeth Putter Service and Learning
• Give them to Res Life for RA’s
• Work with Wiley on website to get ready for NSO
• Revise/create the constitution via email

Projects for next year

Sticker campaigns

GRT

Earth-week

Sustainable alumni fundraiser

Bathroom flyer

Wind credit competition

Sustainable principles

PCC follow through - Get involved in implementing it

Meeting with:

Dick Celeste – Monday the 14^th at 11:00

John Delahunt – Thursday the 10th at 12:00 Wooglins

CCCA - Wednesday the 9^th @ whenever they tell us

• Wiley's info about wind power at CC
• Tom Nykum has been working on a wind farm
• Walt Hecox wants to have a wind credit competition
• Students would bid at an auction for credits
• The Slade fund would be used for money
• Make stickers for those who buy credits for their room
• It could be a competition between dorms…. Other schools?
• Credits would be bought at wholesale and sold at a premium
• Profit would go to make a “live feed” energy monitering system for the school.
• EnAct has agreed to host and run the student auction
• Graffi-T’s (contact is Julie) (down on Hancock and Bijou) has worked for EnAct before and gives a good deal on stickers (compost sticker was 97 cents)
• Look into the Campus Climate Challenge
• The reason its feasible is because of the tax credits

Other topics/tidbits of info

• What are we doing to get in touch with the trustees?
• Ask the CCCA to contact the trustees and give them the packet
• We are handing the packet to Celeste on Friday the 11^th
• We should go part digital in future petitions.
• Sarah Ruben Made a “how to” sheet on connections etc…
• Make sure Drossman knows we want to go to the Catamount Institute
• Leadership retreat of first weekend of first block

• NSO
• Sustainable living sheet
• RA’s
• Leaders to kids
• Elizabeth Putter’s in Center for service & learning
• Make sheet before end of block
• Stickers
• EnAct basic nalgene sticker
• Many colors
• Sell at CC store

• Bathroom info sheet (Next year)
  
• Catchy name
• Approved
• Also include EnAct info meeting dates

• Advertise composting in Rastall (Next Year)
  

• There is a compost account
• There is money in it around 150 – 300
• EnAct will have control of the fund
• Rowan is interested in working on the project
• Joint money should come from rastall, enact, others for the sign
• Project for EARLY next year is signs
• Shawn Finnegan (Sodexho regional Mngr)
• Adrienne already sent him info on the signs
• He want to make table tents on composting OR EnAct info if we go in on it with him
• Talk to Jerry Swiesser (assistant director facilities)

• RMSS refunding to get rid of the $93.00 in our CCCA account (info from Laura)

-DS

EnAct Meeting Tomorrow Night

Folks,

Last EnAct meeting of the year: Tuesday night, 8 pm in the ERC. We have plenty to talk about, including:

Final PCC Edits
Summer Organizing
Catamount Retreat
Early Fall Initiatives

Please post anything else you think we should discuss. Let's wrap up and get ready to hit the ground running next year.

See you there,
Katie

EnAct Minutes - Tuesday May 1st

Enact Meeting Tuesday May 1st.


Speaker series: focused on energy efficiency and renewable energy.
-Including fort Carson, Air Force Academy, El Pomar
-James Woolsey, Salazar, Amory Lovins, Rittenburg
-Colorado Springs is considering building an additional 350 million dollar coal power plant
-Popularize EnAct


EnAct 8th Block
-PCC petition
-EnAct Constitution
-Student Sustainability Principles
-Introduce new Enact to campus/admin.
-Elections


PCC – petition timeline

Week 2 –
- Door to door finish
-Loomis – Wiley and Laura
-Mathias – David and Sandhya
-Slocum – Charlie
-Off-campus – David
-Language Houses – ?


- Llama- Table canvas
- Gear Sale
- Faculty Signatures
-EV Department
-Bio Department
-Relay 4 Life
-Dorm-Posters + Petition @ desk
-CCCA


Week 3:
-Cover letter, meeting with Celeste, CCCA meeting, Submit proposal petition.
-Meet with John, David meet with Gary Reynolds

Elections
Chairs Responsibilities/duties
-Lead meetings
-Budget
-Spearhead Projects
-Official Representation & projects
-Switchboard Operators
-Executive/Organize Vision

*Possible Leadership Training
-Catamount Institute

Meeting Structure
-1 Hour
-1 Co-chair responsible for vocally leading the meeting
-Send out pre-meeting schedule and post meeting minutes
-Create “parking-lot” for ideas that don’t necessarily fit into meeting topics

PCC Charter Signatory

Looking at the PCC website today I noticed that if we are able to get President Celeste
to sign by June 30, 2007 he can be a Charter Signatory of the Commitment. This might give him some incentive to sign soon, so that he has this title instead of just "Signatory". Currently 202 colleges have signed the commitment, so it's not a matter of meeting the 200 Goal, but it would still be cool to have this signed ASAP.
What do you all think?
Could we use this as leveraging power to get this signed sooner?
-Sandhya


Presidents and chancellors may play several different roles as signatories to the Commitment. Here are the key roles and definitions:

Signatory - a president or chancellor who signs the Commitment. Goal: 1,000 or more signatories by December 2009.

Charter Signatory - a president or chancellor who signs the Commitment by June 30, 2007. Goal: 200 or more charter signatories.

Leadership Circle - signatories who have agreed to help lead the initiative, promote it, and recruit colleagues to join. Any interested signatory may join the Leadership Circle through December 2007.

Steering Committee - a smaller group of Leadership Circle members selected by the group to facilitate its efforts and guide the initiative. The Steering Committee will be established in March 2007.

Brown's PCC Initiative

Ran across an article from grist.org that talks about Brown's movement towards the PCC. Here are some links that might interest:

Brown's PCC initiative

Brown's Environmental Blog

-DS

Voting Results

Awesome meeting tonight EnAct!
I really feel like we're going in the right direction!
Here are the voting results:

Voting Results:

Co-Chairs for 07/08
David Sullivan
Katie Eberle
Laura Parker

Public Relations
David Amster

Secretary
Megumi

Internet Guru
Wiley Rogers

Treasurer
will be assumed by Co-Chairs

Design/Marketing
Katie Eberle
Along with Courtney and others