New interns lay groundwork for university sustainability

Senior Isabel Estevez has her hands full this summer. Revamping a Web site, creating and maintaining a blog, producing podcasts, writing press releases and meeting with campus leaders and news outlets are only part of her efforts to spread the word and promote campus sustainability. But as busy and determined Estevez is, she’s one of only 18 interns working to further sustainability at IU.\nTo continue the University’s ongoing environmental sustainability efforts, the IU Sustainability Task Force has selected 18 undergraduate and graduate students to work as fellows in its second running Summer Program in Sustainability. Broadly defined, sustainability is the responsible use of natural resources and promoting ideals of environmental stewardship.\nThroughout the summer, each intern will work on a specific project relating to sustainability. Project coordinator David Fuente said the program’s overall goal is to develop a network of students, faculty and staff who want to carry the conversation and process of sustainability forward. Projects have a broad range of goals, some of which are long-range research projects such as an overall campus greenhouse gas inventory, while others are very specific projects, such as advancing sustainable computing and improving alternative campus transportation, Professor Michael Hamburger said. \n“The basic idea of the whole program is to use the campus as a living laboratory for us to research and learn in a way that explores new opportunities for energy conservation, better resource use, recycling stewardship of the land, and so on,” said Hamburger, co-chair of the IU Sustainability Task Force. “This is a very exciting opportunity to get students directly involved in some of the key campus issues related to sustainability.”\nFuente said that one of the strengths of the internships is that it bridges the divide between sustainability theory and practice.\nThe internships are stages toward building up campus programs in sustainability, Provost Karen Hanson said.\n“These are outgrowths and continuants of the efforts of the Sustainability Task Force which suggests certain steps we might take on the operational and academic side to heighten our work and focus on learning experiences in sustainability,” she said.\nThe interns collectively represent almost every school on campus, at both the undergraduate and graduate level. There are staff mentors for each project who also come from a variety of operational units on campus. These factors, in conjunction with the program’s required 1-credit seminar on sustainability, will hopefully facilitate a strong community network dedicated to sustainability, Fuente said.\nEstevez was one of the 200 program applicants chosen for one of the coveted internship spots. Estevez, who will be working as the communications intern, said she believes the only way to achieve change is to educate people on the issues. \n“Personally I’d like to be able to reach a ridiculous amount of people and tell them what we’re working on and how sustainability effects everyone,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll build up enough support to make these sustainability positions more permanent.”\nNeil Sahu, a second-year graduate student in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, is working as the Griffy Watershed intern.\n“My job is pretty much to develop a set of recommendations specifically aimed at IU’s administration for how they can minimize their impact on the Griffy Creek watershed,” he said.\nSahu will be conducting background research about the watershed and look to the goals developed by the City of Bloomington and the state to formulate recommendations for IU.\nThis year’s interns are more directly involved in taking these steps than last year’s interns, who focused mostly on developing recommendations for IU’s Sustinability Task Force report, released in early 2008.\nThere has been buzz about creating an office of sustainability, which many think would truly institutionalize the Sustainability Task Force’s efforts, but there’s no official plan for such an office as of yet.\n“I’m not certain whether there will be an office of sustainability, but there are already signs of institutional support and I expect that to continue,” Hanson said. “We’re all living on one small planet and we have a finite number of resources here. We have the obligation to leave the planet in good shape for our successors.”