A couple of updates were sent out on March 29, 2021 regarding Big Ten & Friends Sustainability (BTAF.)The following are two messages sent on behalf of Lydia Vandenbergh, the Associate Director of Employee Engagement and Education at Penn State University:

Message #1:

Friends,

Great to see many of you at our last call and despite the pandemic, sustainability is progressing at our campuses. The minutes (prepared by MSU's Laura Young) are evidence of that fact. Emanating from the two-hour discussion are a few obvious next steps.

1. The group voted to hold routine discussions and instead of a long meeting scheduled to coincide with the virtual AASHE conference, the group is interested in a longer discussion in the summer. So Amy and I have scheduled calls for the following dates. Please mark your calendars and I will send out an invitation closer to the date.
   
   1. Thursday, May 20th from 9 to 11 EST
   2. Thursday, July 22nd from 9 to noon EST (3 hours)
   3. Thursday, September 23rd from 9 to 11 EST
2. Over the past year, we have seen the success of our members collaborating to benchmark best practices for the Green Office Certification programs. This and the anti-racism group's effort demonstrates the value of working together as we face increased challenges of budget and staffing changes. Several topics arose in the call that attracted interest for new affinity groups. What Amy and I have seen work successfully is for two people to co-chair the group. Start with a grounding session and then decide on priorities. Once these are set, identify sub-leads for the smaller working groups. This shares the workload and covers multiple topics in depth.
3. The topics and the people who expressed interest are outlined below with yellow highlighting. Amy will be in touch to organize the Athletics and tree groups and I will kick off the reusable container team. We don't have a lead for the Times Higher Ed assessment.
4. After our gathering, Brenda Van Cleare of OSU wrote wondering if anyone is interested in water reduction strategies. If this topic is of interest, contact Brenda at vancleave.13@osu.edu
5. Want to connect with other members of the BTAF network? The master list resides on Google and everyone has access. We have listed all the affinity groups that spurred interest in our meetings. Please visit the list to ensure that your information and affinity group enthusiasm is correct.
6. Ready for some inspiration? Grab a mug of whatever and read through the updates.

Message #2:

Greening Athletics, Sports for Climate Action/UNFCCC

• Interested individuals: Julie Cahillane, Northwestern; Sinead Soltis, University of Illinois-UC; Shane Stennes, University of Minnesota; Tom Reeves, OSU; Amy Bulter, MSU lead

Tree Policies and the roles they can play in branding, ghg reduction strategies, and conservation

• Amy will take lead to schedule follow up call. Let Amy know if there are 1-2 students you’d like invited. Can bring in arborist, professors that does research in this area. Interested individuals Julie Cahillane, Northwestern; David Cullmer, Penn State; OSU – Tony Gillund to identify rep; Jake McCulloch, UW-Madison; University of Minnesota – Shane to identify representative; Makayla Bonney, Indiana; Lisa Sanzenbacher, UIC

SDGs in the curriculum and Times Higher Ed reporting - the latter is similar to STARS, but emphasizes research and curricular activities more than AASHE.    

• Affinity Group Interest and Discussion Areas
• Interested schools: Shane Stennes, University of Minnesota - Doing THE assessment and SDGs in curriculum come up as well.; Anna Oetting, Nebraska. 

Reusable Containers - lots of interest in this topic

• A lot of interest in chat on this topic. Mary Leciejewski (OSU) willing to lead. Interested individuals: Carla Iansiti, MSU; Makalya Bonney, Indiana; Allison Mihalich, Notre Dame; Tom Reeves, OSU; Shane Stennes, UMN, Anna Sostarecz of Penn State and Julie Cahillane (NW)