Sustainability Communications Subcommittee
Thursday, June 4th
10:00 am -12:00 pm
MINUTES
Present: Jodie DeLay, Jeff Davis, Pat Kujawa, David Klem, Nancy Filbin, Gretchen Hooker, Lyra Leigh-Nedbor
The committee began by discussing the specific goals for communications for the year. All agreed that transparency was critical, not only do we need to communicate what we ARE doing, but we should also communicate those items that we aren’t able to do at this time, but have discussed – along with the reasoning. We agreed that we need to have a regular output of information – whether it be about events, initiatives, resources or whatever – we need to be consistent and persistent. We also agreed to make inclusion of as many groups and individuals as possible a goal. We would like to have faculty, students and the like feed us information so that we have a very robust, comprehensive set of communications. Jodie agreed to take a stab at drafting these ideas into a clear mission statement for the year.
We discussed our audience and decided our primary audiences include faculty, staff, students, prospective students and the local community.
We then talked about mechanisms for communicating. The committee discussed using the Exponent and Gretchen agreed to follow-up on this possibility. We’ll also pursue getting on a KGLT talk show from time to time. Jodie agreed to speak with Tammi at RHA to see if we could have some time during RA training to discuss our plans and recruit volunteers to help motivate and inspire the residents to participate in our challenges. Gretchen agreed to work with students to spearhead our presence on Facebook, MySpace and other such sites. We also agreed to try to feed all of our information to Student Activities as they are a bridge to various clubs.
We talked extensively about creating a CSAC blog and the advantages and disadvantages. After lots of discussion we agreed to do a pilot blog with the committee to show to CSAC at the next meeting. Pat agreed to set up the blog with all of our committee and CSAC as authors. We will invite a group of additional authors to be a part of the blog. The group will consist of students, faculty and staff who agree to follow certain guidelines. These guidelines will include – everything posted must be factually accurate. Opinions must be clearly identified as such. There can be no foul language or name calling. We, however, WILL allow dissenting opinions – non-favorable thoughts, etc. This blog could ultimately serve as an example for other campus entities considering using a blog.
We agreed that an update/re-design of the current site was necessary. We will update the pages to better communicate their content, add a menu across the top from each page, and expand the number of pages. Jodie agreed to make updating of the pages a priority and has allocated student employee time to doing so on a weekly basis. Content will be updated to include new events and initiatives, as well as to include research projects and curriculum changes that are discovered through active searches. We will add an easy form for people to fill out requesting that their work be added and we will also include a google calendar that can be connected with other calendars already in existence.
For now, the Web pages will be expanded as follows, but we will make changes and adjustments continually to best meet the needs of the university:
PAGES (in no particular order)
Home page
About
News and Events
Governance – this will include CSAC minutes, committee information, ASMSU connections
Curriculum – This will include the new degree and other classes found to be directly related to Sustainability.
Research- this will contain links to projects in energy, food systems, etc.
Campus Culture (we may rename this) Will include a call to action stating that we feel privileged to live in the environment that we do and that we seek to become a leader in responsible stewardship etc. this page will have sub pages for NECO, Friends of Local Foods, Engineers Without Borders, etc.
Community – This will include things like Bioneers, bike clubs we work with, the City and other direct partnerships, service learning projects could be housed here, the k-12 outreach of NECOand Bozeman Recycling Club could be linked here, any forums and such that are open to public
Operations – This will include sub tabs for Food Service, Grounds, Recycling, building projects
Transportation – This will include Streamline, bike rules and regulations, location of bike racks and resources for bikers, etc.
Publications – this will be an archive of articles, links to professional papers, our CSAC annual report and other publications we may do, this might also include the campus tree inventory,links to reports for things like LEED certification, etc.
President’s Climate Action Plan – progress meter, reports, etc.
Energy Conservation Initiatives – Contests and challenges from the committee, links to resources available for home, office, residence hall energy savings, etc.
Links
Contact This will include a form for submitting ideas to put on the site as well as a list of key people, offices and organizations
Finally, we discussed a method for regularly bringing the campus’s attention to sustainability related issues. We will do monthly challenges/awareness campaigns complete with resources, calls to action, in some cases events, etc. We will connect Sustainability Luncheons with the theme of the month. We tentatively selected the following:
September – Turn out the Lights Month – give away CFL’s, challenge buildings to use less electricity than September 2008, educate about turning off dorm lights, unplugging charges, turning off monitors, etc.
October – Local Foods month – spotlight community gardens, harvest, student activities, curriculum – Lyra will be in charge of this one!
November – Weatherization – partner with Northwester, resources and information for dorms, rentals, homes and offices
December – Conscious –consumerism month – waste-free gifts (local food bizarre is this month too), buy local
January – Faculty/staff education month – discuss optional payroll deduction with funds going to sustainability, how employees can get involved in changing campus culture and WHY they should!
February – Water month – Trayless in the cafeteria (may be doing this already!), shorter showers, water bottles
March – Recycling month
April – Gallatin Earth Celebration – campus clean-up, Don’t be a BUTThead!
May – Re-use month – Don’t Dump it Garage Sale
Jodie agreed to work with design staff to come up with a slogan or image to identify the monthly sustainability theme. It could even be a button on the home page that always looks the same that gets people to go to the sustainability page for new and updated information. We agreed to take these ideas to CSAC to see if they wanted changes, additions, etc. We will try to get different groups to take ownership of each month to limit the work of any one area. To begin the year we will have a news story detailing the commitment of the university to meet the President’s Climate Change agreement and all the things we’ll be doing. Once a month we’ll seek a place on the home page for a major feature.
Next we talked about having a booth at Catapalooza to really get a jump on the year. Between all the groups, we feel we can properly cover a table for the full time. Lyra agreed to reserve a space.
We then scheduled our next meeting for June 25th at 12:00 in a room to be determined. Pat will set up a blog for us to use between this meeting and the next CSAC meeting. At that time we can demonstrate how it works and why it is valuable.
The meeting was adjourned.
Posts
I thought that the meeting went well and we're off to a good start. Hopefully we'll get some more discussion about the post in these comments, which could even offshoot to one of the blog co-authors creating a new post regarding a particular topic (like this post on monthly challenges).
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