by Gloria Flores
Staff Writer
The University of La Verne’s newly established Campus Sustainability Task Force has a new director, Amy Hoffman, and fresh ideas to improve the campus and community’s environmental awareness.
The Sustainability Task Force was first introduced to ULV in March 2002 by a subcommittee from the University’s strategic environmental plan.
The subcommittee’s objectives include educating for sustainability, conserving natural resources, reducing environmental pollution and promoting ecosystem-appropriate biodiversity and aesthetic quality.
Sheridan Merritt, professor of zoology, and Robert Neher, professor of biology, served on the first environmental subcommittee for the strategic planning task force.
“We reported on where we thought the campus was in respect to conserving resources,” Merritt said.
Suggestions made by Merritt and Neher’s subcommittee proposal included creating a task force, hiring a program director, commissioning a campus audit and creating a plan for the conservation of natural resources.
Hoffman was hired as program director in January and is currently working on the campus audit, a job she said consists of collecting baseline data in various areas around campus to implement projects.
There are goals to improve energy and water efficiency on campus by having a baseline from which to improve, she said.
Hoffman, who is a graduate student at Cal Poly Pomona, said she is also collecting ideas for future projects.
“I’m trying to keep the task force reminded that students are a big part of this too. We are all on board with getting faculty, staff and operations involved, but it’s students that can really drive these efforts,” she said.
Merritt said students had a great deal to do with the ideas and goals for the task force.
Students identified areas where on-campus conservation was both good and bad, and those observations were incorporated into our goals.
The students supplied the task force with ideas, and the task force is now supplying the students with projects.
“It is just the kind of dynamic interdependence seen in ecosystems,” Merritt said.
Hoffman and Merritt are currently working together on project outlines for a Core 340 class, which will include evaluating the success of the recycling program and possibly compiling a program out of Davenport Dining Hall.
Hoffman’s goal of extending projects to students goes beyond the Core class. Hoffman is also hoping that campus clubs and organizations will be interested in adopting projects to raise environmental awareness.
Rosa Arcadia, vice president of the Latino Student Forum, said she would be glad to participate in conserving resources at ULV.
“I would participate because I have always been in favor of conserving energy and helping the environment. Involving LSF in something like this would take several steps, but I would bring it up with the e-board and present the idea to the club.”
Another project goal is drawing up a plan for a native educational garden. The importance of this project lies in conserving resources such as water by landscaping the appropriate vegetation for the local climate.
A Campus Sustainability Task Force website is currently in progress, Hoffman said. It will serve as a sort of clearing-house for baseline data and the audit, as well as publicity for project ideas. For more information on the task force and getting involved with its projects, contact Hoffman at abhoffman@irpsmail.ucsd.edu.
