More green for your green

By Emily Paul

Commonly misinterpreted as onomatopoeia for a sneeze, SCGF (Student Campus Greening Fund) is much more than your average class interruption. SCGF is a currently forming student-run initiative to provide more options for environmental action within the campus community.

The origins of SCGF stem from an Environmental Advocacy class taught by Rebecca Purdom, wherein the students had to advocate for some change within the greater student body. Within the span of one class period, the idea of SCGF was born. Taking some ideas from a similar fund at Northland College (a fellow Eco League member) the students wanted to create a reservoir of money available to students who have the motivation for campus-wide environmental change.

But where on Earth would a bunch of students find a large lump sum of cash? In the pockets of parents and loan companies, of course. During the Spring semester of 2004, the SCGF students proposed a mandatory tuition fee that received preliminary approval from former Provost Bill Throop. Although merely a tentative approval at the time, a $30 tuition increase per student became SCGF's new focus.

In the Spring semester of 2004, a campus wide survey was given to students asking for their opinion on the mandatory fee. Out of 67% of the student body, 93% were in favor of the mandatory increase, 6% were opposed to it, and 1% abstained from voting.

With the summer break SCGF's progress came to a halt, but soon after, the fall semester began, students were meeting to prepare letters of information for parents and students. Although the letters won't be mailed until the end of the semester, SCGF's letter elaborates on the basics of the fund, the success of the student survey, and the administration's tentative approval.

In order to follow through on the tentative approval of the tuition fee, members of SCGF also met with Jim Traer (current Provost), Joel Wincowski (Director of Admissions), and Joe Manning (Chief Financial Officer) to further discuss the implications of the fee. The response of Traer, Wincowski, and Manning was in opposition to the fund, due to the negative connotations associated with any tuition increase and limitations on the amount of increase for a set period of time. Traer, Wincowski, and Manning suggested the fund for SCGF be based around voluntary donation and gifts only and presented GMC's $10,000 greening fund as an alternative.

SCGF members were disappointed but unwilling to give up their dream. According to Kat Sauter, Lucas Somers, and Derek Andersen of SCGF, the $10,000 greening fund currently in existence does not roll over from year to year. This, in effect, lacks long-term financial power. The $22,500 per year that the mandatory tuition increase (a total of 0.1% of all tuition) would yield a fund that would roll over from year to year. This would allow for larger, more expensive environmental initiatives to be completed. For example, getting a scrubber for the smokestack on campus to reduce noxious gases is a costly project that could not be accomplished on the current greening fund alone.

With any obstacle in life, the students of SCGF had to redefine their goals for the fund accordingly. Currently, the students want to finish off the policy-writing aspect of SCGF by completing the by-laws associated with student proposals. Every step in the process of implementing environmental action on campus needs some sort of regulation to ensure that each project is treated the same. Here is where the by-laws come into play. The members of SCGF have been carefully choosing words and assembling sentences for weeks in an attempt to make sure every base is covered by their written policies.

SCGF is currently on the lookout for new student environmental proposals to demonstrate to the administration that students support the fund. How does one submit a proposal? Any proposal must elaborate on the costs and environmental benefits of the idea in order to be considered. For more details regarding submissions, SCGF leaders Sauter, Somers, and Andersen are more than happy to answer questions.

SCGF priorities include a third endeavor: to hold a public accountability session. Put more simply, SCGF hopes to organize a huge forum of student support with key administration figures present to hear the wishes of the student body. Because this type of forum requires an amazing amount of student support, the members of SCGF are attempting to gather support through environmental studies classes, Images of Nature classes, and the off-campus community. SCGF also has a plan in formation to target the entire student body.