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University of the South's Environmental Resident Proposal
for a Student Development and Engagement Grant from the
Associated Colleges of the South Environmental Program 2002

INTRODUCTION:

In our ongoing efforts to increase environmental awareness and responsiveness among students, faculty, and staff, the University of the South seeks financial support for its new Environmental Resident Program. Spread throughout the dormitories with an average of one person per dorm will be students who are trained in environmental issues such as campus environmentalism and sustainability and global sustainable development. These students will have two primary responsibilities: 1) they will educate students in their residential area about environmental issues, 2) they will run their building's recycling program. One or two of these students will oversee the program, reporting to two members of the faculty and staff. In short, we are cultivating student leaders on environmental issues.

In founding this program, we recognize that while many students have the opportunity to learn about environmental concerns through their classes here, they lack the infrastructural support necessary to act locally in response to their environmental learning. Further, often students do not learn enough about the troubles of our environment until they are well on in their four-year time here and have little time left in which to respond here. Finally, we recognize that much education occurs outside the classroom, be it in the forest that surrounds and is our campus or be it in the dorms in late-night "bull sessions." We want to respond to this complex reality and encourage the better aspects of it, enabling students to become educated about environmental concerns as soon as they move into their dorms (97% of our students live on-campus and virtually all first-years do), enabling them to become responsive that quickly, and encouraging a more holistic approach to living and learning by putting environmental education in the dorms--where students sleep, study, socialize, recreate.

Through this program, we seek to further institutionalize environmental commitment and activism on campus.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

There are several main aspects of the Environmental Resident (ER) Program. The program is modeled on two existing programs here: that of the assistant proctors (AP's, in other schools these students have titles such as resident advisors) and that of the resident computer assistants (RC's). Assistant proctors receive extensive training--some in the spring and an entire week in the fall--and a stipend. They are responsible for helping to make residential life a rewarding, educational, and peaceful aspect of student life. They serve on-call on weekend nights to handle questions and emergencies. The resident computer assistants work to help students have computer access from their dorms. They receive computer training and respond to any resident's problems related to setting up and using computers in their rooms.

Similar to the AP's, our Environmental Residents will receive a stipend and extensive training and have great responsibilities to the dorm--they will be the frontline of environmental education at our university, the place where learning meets activism on environmental issues. Similar to the RC's, our Environmental Residents will work alongside the Residence Life program but have supervisors outside that program. ERs will report most immediately to one student in charge of the overall ER program (who will receive a higher stipend) and to the Environmental Fellow and the head of Sewanee's Outing Program.

A reasonable but heavier burden is placed on the one or two student directors of the program. They must:

• inspire, motivate, and focus the ER's in their work on education and recycling,
• oversee the work of the ER's so as to make sure there is environmental education and activism occurring across campus in the dorms,
• coordinate with Physical Plant Services to collect the recycling at curbside,
• oversee that the entire recycling process is set up to go smoothly,
• handle confusions and errors of all the parties involved in recycling, which is easily over 100 people including the ER's themselves and physical plant service workers.

How will the ER's educate about the environment? We will work with their own interests in order to build on what is already there, but we can anticipate the following sorts of activities:

• signs on lights and faucets indicating why they should be off when not in use
• bike-to-class rallies in which students are invited to bike to the main quad all together, feeling the solidarity of this sort of action as well as the closeness with nature it inspires
• easy-to-access literature on paper waste at our University and suggestions on how to avoid worsening the problem

BUDGET we hope you'll help with:

Training of 20 ER's including head ER:

Travel of two University alum who currently work on environmental issues and who could assist in training: $1000
Honorariums for these two alum: $400.00
Lodging of 20 students for two nights (at Tims Ford State Park or the Great Smoky Mountain Institute at Tremont): $1000
Lodging of 5 faculty and staff for two days: $240.00
Meals and snacks for 20 students and 5 faculty and staff for two days: $500.00
Transporation to and from training location (vans): $200.00
Educational supplies such as helpful videos, books, pamphlets: $500
TOTAL: $3740.00

Partial budget being submitted to the Dean of Students of our University [We are requesting more than matching funds. Currently we have the support of Dean Michelle Thompson and of Dean Eric Hartman (of the Dean of Students Office).]
Stipend of each ER: $300. Head ER: $500. Total: $6200.00
[Purpose of the stipend is not only to motivate the ER's but also to give the work status and to evidence the commitment of the University to environmental problems.]

EVALUATION and DISSEMINATION

The success of the project will be evaluated in tiers. All ER's will be invited to evaluate both their training and the overall program. The Head ER will read these evaluations and present his/her own view. The supervisors (Environmental Fellow and Sewanee Outings Club head) will read the other two tiers of evaluations and present their own evaluations.

Perhaps most importantly, though, an evaluation can be achieved by simply walking into any dormitory on campus and looking for the obvious signs of environmental awareness and responsiveness. Examples include: recycling program is up and running, unused lights are off and their switches have signs indicating why this is important, faucets are not running unnecessarily and there are indications on faucets about water use. More students walking and cycling to class would also be indications of program success.

We will use the Environmental Fellows and interns email as one forum for this sort of dissemination. We will also do a circuit rider activity if you think this would be of use.

BASIC TIMELINE:

November 2002:	begin application process for potential ER's, organize training.
March 2003:	Training retreat.
August 2003:	Implementation of full ER program.