North Central College, Sustainably

Yesterday, six NCC faculty and staff members attended the Illinois Sustainable University Symposium, hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Will Barnett, Martha Bohrer, Don Koletsos, Beth Laken, Joseph Wilmarth Tyna, and Matt Zanon, who are all members of the NCC Sustainability Committee, participated in the event to learn about the latest environmental efforts at nearby colleges and universities.  The event was organized by Illinois Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn and the Illinois Green Governments Coordinating Council, and the NCC representatives participated in workshops on recycling programs, campus transportation, preparing students for careers in sustainability, and financing new energy projects.  They heard presentations by speakers from the Illinois EPA, the National Wildlife Federation, the Clinton Climate Initiative, and by sustainability leaders at colleges and universities around the state.  North Central College is proud to be one of over 40 members of the Illinois Sustainable University Compact.

Old McDonald had a farm and for a few hours North Central College freshmen worked on it. Premier Scholars, a group of incoming first-year students, got down-and-dirty at a 60-acre Naperville farm this June. Adamant that her Naperville farm not be replaced by subdivisions, Mrs. Lenore McDonald bequethed her property to the Conservation Foundation, a local not-for-profit committed to watershed protection. Mrs. McDonald’s decision provided the perfect opportunity for participants to learn about sustainable, organic food production and the social justice issues facing farmers.

Green Earth Institute, a non-profit committed to environmental and nutritional health, hosted our Premier service project. Founder, Steve Tiwald, spoke with students and staff about the farm’s operations before setting us to work on weeds. Steve challenged students to identify the 40 varieties of vegetables and herbs being grown for the CSA (community supported agriculture) shareholders. While extolling the virtues of organic farming on plants and people, Steve also let Premier students try some of the food produced here.

North Central’s mission of producing informed and involved citizens, and the college’s commitment to sustainability were perfectly blended in this experience.

For more information about Premier Scholars, please contact director of the program, Viviana Kabbabe, at vkabbabe@noctrl.edu.

Apply to join Zipcar now: students, faculty/staff !

Would you stop keeping a car on campus if you could rent a car by the hour for the intermittent times that you need one? Zipcar, a nationwide service available as of this week here at North Central, lets you do just that.

You’ll find the College’s first Zipcar vehicle, a red Toyota Prius, in its marked parking spot in the NW corner of the parking deck on Highland Avenue. After signing up via Zipcar’s website ($35), you can rent this car for $7/hour, including gas and insurance. Your $35 fee will even get applied towards $35 in free driving during your first month.

Relying on Zipcar means avoiding the many, often-hidden costs of having and bringing a car to campus:

• parking permits that cost most students $200-$350 per year
• depreciation: $100/mo. for a cheap used car, $200-$500/mo. for a new car
• gas at $3.70/gal. and rising
• insurance, plates, city stickers
• oil changes, tune-ups, repairs

At $7/hour, Zipcar makes sense for infrequent drivers, and even drivers spending several dozen hours a month on the road!

More info:

• How does Zipcar work?
• Frequently-Asked Questions
• Apply now!: students, faculty/staff

Green Scene would like to collect your old sneakers so that they can recycle them to be used on sport surfaces in communities around the world! Simply drop off your used athletic shoes in White Activities Center from April 16th through 22nd (until Earth Day).

A few guidelines:

• Athletic shoes only (any brand)
• No shoes containing metal
• No cleats or dress shoes
• No wet or damp shows

Contact Joe Wilmarth Tyna (jptyna@noctrl.edu) or Matt Leonard (mrleonard@noctrl.edu) for more information.

The College and SGA are relaunching the Cardinal Community Bike Program this week so that you can get around campus more greenly.

You’ll find Cardinal RED bikes with NCC stickers at bike racks around campus and at Naper Place. Students, faculty and staff will be able to pick up a bicycle in one location, ride to another destination on campus, and drop it off at a bike rack.

Help things go smoothly when you use a RED bike:

• Don’t use any personal locks on the bikes. RED bikes work on an honor system; Campus Safety will cut off any personal locks.
• Don’t ever park RED bikes off campus (other than directly outside of Naper Place). If a non-NCC community member is riding a bike, please call campus safety.
• Do leave your RED bike outside, accessible to everyone. A fine will be assessed if a bike is found in residence hall rooms.
• If a bike requires maintenance, call campus safety at x5911 or walk the bike to the Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium (Campus Safety office) and it will be repaired and put back into circulation as soon as possible.

Be safe, too:

• Follow all the Bicycle Rules of the Road (PDF, 208kB)
• Always maintain a safe speed and wear a bike helmet
• Don’t wear headphones while riding
• Never bike at night without a light
• Do not ride bicycles under the influence of alcohol or drugs
• Wear proper apparel (shoes are a must and skirts/wide leg pants can get caught in bike parts).

So, grab a Cardinal RED bike the next time you need to go from one end of campus to the other, and help North Central go green!

Support student enterprise and sustainable commerce at the same time: buy NCC’s Best Conscious Bean Coffee, brought to you by the College’s chapter of Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE).

Farmers who follow fair trade practices grow Conscious Bean in San Lucas Toliman in the Highlands of Guatemala, and you can get your hands on these “Fine and Fair” beans online or on-campus in the Rolland Center Boilerhouse Café.

(Your author is drinking a cup of Conscious Bean as he writes.)

Our SIFE chapter hasn’t limited itself to coffee, either: get a hold of them to ask about their Fair Trade chocolate bars, woven table linens produced by Burkina Faso women widowed by AIDS, and sweat-free t-shirts.

Unsure about what you can put in the College’s new, blue recycling bins?

We’ve designed a detailed, easy-to-read new sign (PDF, 100KB) about what’s recyclable that’ll soon appear above the taller “central” bins in each building on campus.