From: Johnston, Morgan B
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2015 3:18 PM
To: Welch, Ryan B; Johnston, Morgan B; Lewis, Brent Christopher; McSweeney, Kevin; Kling, Gary J; Lage, Stephanie M; Brunk, Mike
Subject: Campus Tree Advisory Committee

Hello,

I am writing to formally ask for your participation in the new Campus Tree Advisory Committee for calendar year 2015.  Superintendent of Grounds Ryan Welch and I will co-chair this committee, under the purview of Facilities and Services Executive Director Al Stratman.  Our goal is to achieve the Tree Campus USA designation from the Arbor Day Foundation by the end of this calendar year.  To that end, we would like your advice for the following items, as listed in the attached charge letter.

1. Assist with Tree Campus USA application by December 31, 2015.
2. Recommend policies for the maintenance, removal, planting, and landscaping of trees. 
3. Recommend a tree protection plan process for construction and trenching. 
4. Recommend a policy for enforcement, penalties, and appeals related to tree damage.
5. Develop a communication strategy to help make the campus community and contractors aware of policies, procedures, and goals of Tree Campus.
6. Plan an Arbor Day observance event for Arbor Day (last Friday in April).
7. Review annual expenditures related to tree maintenance.

We expect to meet for one hour approximately once per month, except during the summer months.  The first meeting will be set for early February.  Please let me know if there is someone who manages your calendar for you, and I will work with them to schedule the first meeting.

Thanks in advance for your help with this process!  I look forward to meeting with you next month.

Sincerely,

Morgan

Morgan Johnston and Ryan Welch met to review next steps for the Tree Campus USA designation.  The charge letter is scheduled to go to committee members at the end of this month, with a first meeting to get scheduled in February.

Many students aren’t exposed to the broad and detailed aspects of CEE until a summer intern opportunity or it could be as late as their senior level course work. There is a great desire by faculty and among our students to bring more meaningful experiences, exploration, and context to CEE in the Freshman and Sophomore curricula. There have been recent changes to CEE195 to engage our entering student more into thinking about the different disciplines of CEE through invited speakers and selected case studies. CEE research and professional practices have traditionally been based on observation and then explanation through theoretical models. The goal of this new course would be an extension of the introductory CEE195 class with more emphasis on exploring CEE through presentations on current challenges and innovations in CEE, field trips to various area CEE infrastructure facilities giving students context about what civil engineers build, operate, and maintain, and sensing and experimental measurements of civil engineering quantities. A semester, team project will also be part of this new course which will be designed around providing students with several real problems facing the University of Illinois campus and allowing them to propose solutions. This project and experiment-based learning approach are integral to student connecting the importance of engineering fundamentals and experimental measurements and observations with solving future challenges in CEE.

Course Vision

The purpose of this course is to primarily give our freshman/sophomore level CEE students the opportunities to learn through hands on laboratory experimentation and field measurements, field trips to local infrastructure facilities, and lectures on current problems and innovative solutions facing civil and environmental engineering. Due to the many societal and infrastructure challenges in CEE, we want to motivate the next generation of engineers to solve these grand challenges, e.g., NAE Grand Challenges, through a project and experiment-based learning environment.

Course Genesis

The development of this course first began with a conversation with Dr. Jack Dempsey of F&S, who was interested in offering a campus-wide course to students of the challenges facing campus infrastructure especially as it relates to sustainability as well as F&S connecting faculty and students who could propose and possibly offer solutions to some of these challenges. After a few meetings, it was obvious that most of the topics in this course would be most applicable to civil and environmental engineers and it could find a permanent and thriving home in the CEE department, and be an excellent class for freshmen/sophomore level students.

Course Objective

This course will expose and instruct the students about the broad areas of CEE disciplines through lectures, experimental measurements, and field trips and link them with challenges facing the civil infrastructure on the University of Illinois campus and in the local community. This course is a follow up course to CEE195 to provide further insight into the practical application of multi-disciplinary civil engineering themes through lectures, project and experiment-based learning, and field trips. This course complements other key courses in the CEE department and will strengthen student’s idea of challenges in civil engineering to assist society and the environment, foster interdisciplinary work during the undergraduate experience. Collaboration with the University of Illinois Facilities and Services Division will further strengthen this class as a living, learning laboratory with relevant problems to solve, data to collect, measurements to make, and the need for interdisciplinary experts.

Course Format and Implementation

The long-term course goal is to provide a bridge class for freshman/sophomore students in CEE linking the introductory CEE195 class to the introductory courses in the various CEE specialty areas such as structures, transportation, materials, hydrology, sustainability, etc. This course will engage our undergraduate students during a sensitive time in their education in order to retain, inspire, and motivate (or even attract) them so that they can make a large impact on societal infrastructure challenges. It is anticipated that this course would become a permanent, required class for freshman/sophomores, i.e., CEE203 in the Fall 2015. This 2-hour course will be fully implemented over a 3-year period starting with limited enrollment in the Fall 2013 as a one hour class, a 2-hour restricted enrollment class in the Fall 2014 with the laboratory and field sensing/ measurements content being added, open enrollment in Fall 2015 for all CEE students, and mandatory enrollment in Fall 2016 for all CEE freshman or sophomore. A fixed number of class slots will be reserved for other engineering and campus disciplines to further broaden and promote the interdisciplinary nature of solving future CEE challenges. The following subsections provide a brief description of the course evolution.

Dear Transportation SWATeam,  [Sorry for the barrage of emails...this is the last one for this morning!]

I met with Michelle Wahl from Parking late last week, and she had some very useful comments on the iCAP draft that I thought I should share with you:

1) She mentioned that in years past, she used to receive "idling reports" on her vehicles, which must have been equipped with some sort of system that tracked when the vehicles were idling.  This raised the question of whether such technology could be deployed widely on our fleet, rather than focusing only on "class 6 and above trucks" (neither of us knew exactly what that means).

2) She was concerned about the financial aspects of providing additional opportunities for people to purchase less than full-time parking privileges in lots with wait lists...this is probably something that deserves further discussion.  If Parking allows someone to drop their full-time parking pass for a particular lot and instead purchase less than full-time for the same spot, their revenue will decrease.  This is concerning because Parking is legally required to be self-supporting -- they cannot receive any subsidy from campus, nor can they make a profit.

3) She recommended adding a recommendation that parking rates be increased to provide a dis-incentive for single-occupancy vehicle use. 

This would also be essential if the number of parking permits sold were to decrease, as Parking's costs are essentially fixed. Raising rates would be a challenge because they are subject to collective bargaining, but it has been successfully done on other campuses (including UIC). 

Having an explicit call for this in the iCAP might help provide ammunition for such efforts.

4) She recommended some investigation of the subsidy that Parking currently provides to MTD.  At present, Parking pays over $500K per year for this, ostensibly to support the buses that run to the "shuttle lot" (E-14, I think).  But this amount greatly exceeds the total revenue that Parking receives from selling permits in the shuttle lot.  She thought it was worth making sure that the amount Parking is contributing towards the MTD is the appropriate amount, because any funds that could be "saved" there could be directed towards other sustainability-related initiatives within Parking.

5) She pointed out that there are now 18 "Level 1" charging stations for electric vehicles on campus, and Parking has plans to install some "Level 2" charging stations in 2015.  She thought it might be worth showcasing this work on page 29 of the current draft, and I am inclined to agree.

Cheers,

Ben

To fund solar panels, there could be a Solar Donor program.  Tom Abram, previous F&S Sustainability Coordinator, wrote about the concept in 2009 (see file).

Hello Big Ten Unplugged!

I registered our group today with the following schools and tentative dates:

• UNL - Nebraska tentative dates are Feb 25 - Mar 17
• Penn State tentative dates are Mar 16 - Apr 6
• University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign tentative dates are Feb 21 - Mar 14
• U of Minn - Twin Cities tentative dates Feb 23 - Mar 16    
• Ohio State University Feb 16 - Mar 9
• Michigan State University Feb 2-23

We're good to go but still on the lookout for a traveling trophy. If you happen to have something we could use, please let me know. 

Best of luck in your competition and we'll reconnect in early May when the winners are announced. 

Best,

Stacey White
Sustainability Coordinator

University Services

University of Minnesota

Office: 612-624-3285

Final Waste Stream Characterization Study of Swanlund Administration Building, Henry Administration Building, the Illini Union Bookstore, and the Alice Campbell Alumni Center.

Morgan White discussed the iCAP themes and goals, along with the Energy Conservation Incentive Program (ECIP).