The Sustainability Task Force, a student-run organization, will create a new class for summer 2011 to bring awareness to campus sustainability, and to teach students how to write grants to ultimately petition the Environmental Protection Agency for millions of dollars.
The class would also compare the United States to the rest of the world, and Cal State Long Beach to universities around the country. Project leader for the task force Donnie Bessom hopes it will be made into a capstone for the fall 2011 semester.
Bessom, who is also the president of the Political Science Graduate Student Association, said, although the Sustainability Committee is a great thing, “students need to be, and are getting, more pro-active.”
“I think it would be a tremendous disservice if we didn’t engage all students in how to make this campus more sustainable,” CSULB President F. King Alexander said.
The Sustainability Task Force also endorses pro-activity through contests for students to compete in.
“There is a student design competition that will be launching for Earth Day, that whole week,” Bessom said. “We are mobilizing money to basically redesign our school.”
Bessom said Associated Students Inc. is funding the competition to let students redesign the campus, and earn money, depending on how many votes they get.
He said there is potentially thousands of dollars to be won, but that is “dependent on ASI.” However, he said he is not waiting for ASI to fund it. Instead, he said more exposure and participation from students could make the prizes more rewarding.
Bessom acknowledged that bureaucratic entities might not move as quickly as he would like. In addition, Bessom and the task force are writing grants and putting together proposals for money from the Office of University Research and the Environmental Protection Agency.
In an attempt to make CSULB a more energy-efficient and a greener campus, Alexander created a Sustainability Committee of faculty from as many departments as possible.
“We are in a position to be a national leader in how campuses operate,” Alexander said.
The Political Science Graduate Student Association won a $3,000 grant to promote a Green Speaker series on campus.
The Sustainability Task Force will hold monthly mixers in the Japanese Garden on the first Wednesday of the month. There will not be any admission charge for students and faculty. According to Bessom, the mixers are key to students becoming pro-active. He said the film department is documenting the group and the footage will be included in the press kit he is selling to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The students have great input,” Alexander said. “I’m looking forward to the task force creating additional ideas that we can all move forward on.”
Go to psgsa.net for more information about the Political Science Graduate Student Association and Sustainability at the Beach.
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