Sustainability on UT's Campus
Updated: 3 hours ago
Photos taken by Megan Matthews
Written By: Megan Matthews
TOLEDO, Ohio – The Student Green Fund and Greening UToledo Through Service (GUTS) have taken many steps to create a more sustainable environment for students.
The Student Green Fund is an organization on campus that provides funding for sustainability projects all across campus, while also allowing students to have a voice in change.
“Our goals are to create a more sustainable campus and to allow students to have a voice in how their money is used,” said Senior Project Manager Lizzy Hill.
The Student Green Fund is funded by a five-dollar tuition fee that students are able to opt out of. With that money, they are able to finance and carry out multiple sustainability projects across the two campuses.
“With those five dollars we fund sustainable projects right here on campus that are all student-run and student-developed,” said Student Green Fund President Kaela Bartley.
Students are able to create proposals and apply for funding through the Student Green Fund to get their projects approved. Once the proposal has been looked at and voted upon, the funds are then allocated to the project leader to begin work.
“I want to spend the Student Green Fund money on projects that are going to do the most good for the most students,” said Hill.
The Student Green Fund has funded many projects throughout the years, including a solar panel array at the Health Science Campus, a YSI probe, and a new solar-powered composting project by the Student Union, said Bartley.
The Student Green Fund not only helps with sustainability on campus, but also helps people in the community.
“The compost we collect goes back to an urban farmer named Thomas, and he uses it on his farm field,” said Bartley.
With the success of the solar panels on the Health Science Campus, there is also a push to continue installing these arrays across campus.
“By the time I retire, I hope to see the corner of Douglas covered in solar,” said professor and advisor of GUTS, Todd Crail.
Along with the Student Green Fund, there is also the student organization GUTS, a service-based learning organization.
“What I like about GUTS is the students have helped us get to the point where we had done enough that the administration was paying attention to it,” said Crail.
GUTS is responsible for organizing multiple outings to remove invasive plants and species around campus, such as Tree-of-heaven and lanternflies. They are also responsible for the 26 native plant gardens around campus, which also serve as learning opportunities on campus.
“A lot of those native plantings are representative of native ecosystems around the area, such that each one of them becomes its own classroom,” said Crail.
Sustainability on Toledo's campus can also be helped by the general actions of the students and faculty.
Walking to class, carpooling, or owning a reusable water bottle are simple sustainable choices that can be made. Other sustainable choices revolve around technology usage, such as artificial intelligence.
“AI is a growing resource and tool, but there is a ton we don't still know about it, and until it becomes a more viable option for our environment and for our own lives, try to use it sparingly,” said Hill.
Sustainability can also be difficult when the cheap and easy choice is the unsustainable option.
“For most of the students here, in a lot of ways, sustainability is really about being affluent enough to have choices,” said Crail.
