Ball State University students can get involved in a nationwide movement by attending the Greening of the Campus VII conference beginning 7:30 a.m. Thursday at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.
For three days Ball State will host the conference, which will engage participants in conversations of environmental management for college universities.
Robert Koester, director of the center for energy research/education/services, said the conference began as an idea in 1991.
"We had a green committee that was appointed by the provost and we made recommendations," said Koester. "One of the recommendations was to host a conference."
The conference is now an international event with more than 120 universities in attendance.
"They represent the full spectrum of schools," he said. "Some are from ivy league, state university systems, public and private liberal arts colleges and I believe we have some community colleges too."
The conference will include speakers who emphasize the importance of universities partnering with their communities and various workshops.
"There will be workshops on economic leverage on universities, focusing the nation on climate mitigation and some on student programs and activities that universities can foster," he said.
Some students helped in the early planning of the conference and some will help during the conference, but most important is the student attendance, Koester said.
"They're going to learn about things going on in the country and better learn what role they can play," he said.
Koester said the conference is a nationwide movement to clean up the environment.
"Part of the mission is to learn more from other schools," he said. "The other part is to help with the networking of schools so they can help support one another in order to make greening of the campus a reality."
James Eflin, chair and professor of natural resources and environmental management, said the conference's goal is to make colleges' and universities' environmental performances better.
"A college campus is very much like a small city and we look at campus as a small entity," he said, "so we want to make colleges perform as environmentally sound as they can be."
Solid waste management, recycling energy consumption, conservation maintenance of landscape and buildings and transportation systems will be addressed, he said.
Eflin also said Ball State's type of conference is being replicated across the country.
"More importantly, we are having a big influence on the country as new initiatives to make colleges greener take place across the country," he said.
Koester said with the replication of the conference there is a sense of pride because people realize the importance of a conference to learn more and foster more action.
One aspect of the greening of the campus initiatives deals with carbon neutralization. There is going to be a release of a computer program rating system that involves conducting a carbon inventory to help reduce carbon load on the atmosphere Koester said.
During the conference, students are welcome to attend the free keynote lectures. At 1 p.m. Friday in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center, a speaker will talk about diversity and the environment, Eflin said.
"I know that the environmental movements have been called a "white man's interest," and while that is not accurate, it's overwhelmingly the belief in many," he said.
Terry King, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said Ball State has a long tradition leading environment friendliness.
"Greening up campus is extremely important because a university should model what we're teaching," he said.
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