ASG Voted: The Redhawks Are Going Green

By RACHEL BRADY

Miami University Journalism Student

Miami University’s Associated Student Government unanimously passed a Resolution to Support and Sponsor the Green Room Initiative during its meeting Tuesday night.

Student Academic Senator for the College of Arts and Sciences, Max Leveridge, proposed the resolution in conjunction with the Infrastructure and Sustainability Committee.

“Essentially (the resolution) is to promote students thinking about sustainability on and off campus in their everyday lives,” said Leveridge. “And also to recognize those who are already living sustainably.”

The initiative is also supported by the Miami University Eco Reps, Green Oxford and the Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Leveridge said.

The requirements to be a part of the initiative include the completion of a 55-question long survey that gauges each student’s level of sustainability. Questions from the survey include such topics as water use, electricity and recycling habits.

After they complete the survey, students will be placed in to one of three levels of certification -- green, silver or gold -- depending on their score.

There are initiatives in place to encourage students to participate in the survey and to achieve the gold, or highest level, of certification. Achieving gold level gets a student a laptop sticker, stainless steal water bottle and three tickets into a raffle for various gift cards from Uptown businesses.

Currently, the university is working to minimize it’s carbon footprint campus wide by 20 percent by the year of 2020. Since this goal was set in 2008, Miami has achieved an approximate reduction of 13 percent.

The Associated Student Government’s support of the green room initiative also supports Miami’s sustainability commitments and goals.

The Initiative includes incentives to encourage students to participate and lead the most sustainable life at Miami University as possible.

The proposed resolution gained the backing of many other student senators during the meeting including Student Senator for College of Engineering and Computing, Josh Fleisher.

“This legislation is to support a great initiative and to encourage students to be more green and respectful to the earth,” said Fleisher, “I see no reason not to support it.”

The idea for the initiative stemmed from the success of similar green initiatives at other universities such as Oberlin College, which have made significant progress in becoming more sustainable.

Photo: Miami University’s central quad in the spring time Photo by: miamioh.edu