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Project Updates for collection: Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects

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  1. Weekly Update: Thanksgiving break, Kids bike donation

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Hope everyone had a good holiday break! Mine extended into Monday, so this is a day late.

    We got a few more kids bike donations come in the Friday before we closed for the break, so we are full steam ahead in soliciting donations and fixing them up. With the nippy weather we should have plenty of time to work on the donations we have so far and tackle some cleaning/organizing that always gets pushed to the slower and colder months. We’ll also continue to make progress on the barn bikes.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 24

    Sales: $476.50
    Bikes (refurb): 1 for $180
    Memberships: 4 for $120
    Tires/tubes: 6 for $61

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  2. Weekly Update: Kids bike giveaway, Cranksgiving

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Busy week on the sales floor as the weather warmed up and we sold a few bikes. Also, got a half dozen or so kids bikes repaired for the KBG event in December.

    Over the weekend the Bike Project held their Cranksgiving bike food drive. Riders were able to collect ~400 lbs of donations to Faith UMC Food Pantry!

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 43
    Sales: $1,173.75
    Bikes (refurb): 3 for $530
    Memberships: 7 for $210
    Tires/tubes: 26 for $229

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  4. Weekly Update: Cranksgiving, Halloween last week

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Halloween was last week, and we are still awash in candy and Halloween-themed cellophane.

    Weather bumped back up, too, and we had a wait for stands on Friday. As the mercury goes, so do we. Accordingly, Monday and Wednesday project to be busy. 

    Getting some bikes on the sales floor and tackling some organizational projects; will continue to do so this week. Will also tackle some more kids bikes as we ramp up production for that.

    This coming Saturday (11/11) the Bike Project is hosting Cranksgiving, a bicycle ride/food drive to collect donations for a local food pantry. I’ll mention it to my staff and patrons this week.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 43
    Sales: $484
    Memberships: 9 for $270
    Tires/tubes: 8 for $59

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  5. Weekly meeting with Ethan

    Associated Project(s): 
    2024 Campus Bike Plan
    Independent Student Projects

    Sarthak & Ethan Meeting 11/3

    Campus landscape master plan 

    • where there is a map, see if there is anything related to trails or sidewalks, see where they are mentioned, try to include that in our plan 
    • Include: Implement campus landscape master plan
    • Page 25
    • Main quad district (we can use the image on page 66)
    • On Monday, begin process of pulling out data from landscape plan 
    • Work in person on Wednesday at 1pm

    Evaluation section

    • Add implement campus landscape master plan 

    Implementation

    • put projects on the list from landscape plan 
    • Can use the images from the plan

    Wednesday we will organize the document 

    Equity and accessibility section

    • only talk about how we want Ada accessible

    Existing Conditions

    • can minimize words, do not need as much details 

    Crash Data

    • update graph 

    Landscape plan excel:

    • Look at bike factors in its goals/recommendations 
    • Any bike related projects, take note of them, and where they are located

  8. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Made some headway on the abandoned bikes and already have six on the sales floor. We tabled at the Green Quad Day last week as well. This week I’ll work on tallying inventory--and the marketing/publicity—for the Kids Bike Giveaway as well as getting regular bikes up for sale.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 47
    Sales: $862
    Build-a-Bike: 1 for $40

    Memberships: 14 for $420

    Tire/tubes: 17 for $131

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  10. 70/80 building dashboards complete!

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project

    Currently, 70 of the first 80 building dashboards are complete, which represents 92% of the University's energy consumption. Many of the dashboards are visible on building video displays for all building occupants to view. They continue to vet the data streams and will add more dashboards as they continue our efforts in the future. We contract Hawkeye Energy Solutions to develop and maintain the dashboards.

  12. Land & Water iCAP Team October 2023 Meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Meadow at Orchard Downs
    Plantings at Dorner Drive Retention Pond
    Green Roof on Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics Building (formerly called Foreign Language Building)
    Cover Crops on South Farms
    Crop Protection and Pest Management (CPPM)
    Land and Water iCAP Team

    The Land & Water iCAP team met on Teams from 1-2 PM on Friday, October 6th. The team reviewed the iCAP Land & Water objectives, discussed area/projects of focus for the year, and brainstormed next steps in relation to projects that are underway. Meeting minutes are attached.

    Attached Files: 

  14. Weekly Update: Abandoned bicycles, new staff

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles

    All, Big news of last week is the abandoned bikes. Bike Project folk and I were able to take an inventory of the bikes that are available and given the number of bikes—fewest in my tenure!—we are not partnering with Working Bikes this year. I communicated as much last week and no hard feelings. If anything, they’re happy to hear we have less bike waste—and they would know, they’ve got a 3 story building full of bikes.

    This week we have a couple new staff members starting here. We’ll do some off-hours training with them.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 40
    Sales: $1,030.50
    Memberships: 18 for $540

    Tires/tubes: 27 for $212

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  15. Unclaimed abandoned bicycles donated to the Campus Bike Center

    Associated Project(s): 
    Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles
    Campus Bike Center

    Following the deadline day to claim impounded bicycles, Sarthak Prasad reached out to Jake Benjamin, campus bike center coordinator, to inform that these bicycles are now considered donated to the Campus Bike Center and the Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign. See the email below:

    Hi Jake,

    The deadline to claim impounded bicycles have passed, so you can start checking the bicycles in the barn now. These bicycles are now considered donated to the Campus Bike Center and the Bike Project. I have the serial number information for almost all of those bicycles in the spreadsheet as well. We had about 240ish bicycles to start with and 24 bicycles were returned this year.

    Thank you,

    Sarthak

  16. Cetacean Exhibit Viewing Dates

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sculptures

    Cetacean will be taking place during the times listed below.

    Deke Weaver: Cetacean

    CETACEAN (The Whale) is the sixth interdisciplinary performance from Deke Weaver’s The Unreliable Bestiary—a lifelong project representing an endangered animal or habitat. CETACEAN has evolved into a juxtaposition of lo-fi effects, story, video, dance, sound design, and a colossal installation—a plastic sea with plastic whales. It’s gonna be a whale of a show!

    September 28–October 2, 7:30 pm • University of Illinois Stock Pavilion, 1402 W Pennsylvania Ave, Urbana, IL 61801

  17. Weekly Update: Busy times, Light the Night, abandoned bikes

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    Light the Night
    Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles

    All, Pretty standard week. Busy with some wait time on stands/repairs most days. Had a Build-a-Bike completed—always a good thing. My team and I did Light the Night on Tuesday at the Ikenberry Quad area. First time in a new location always gets us some looks and questions. Not as busy as we hoped but again, it’s not yet familiar to folks. No word yet on numbers. 

    We were dangerously overloaded on scrap by Friday, but Todd pick it up over the weekend—always appreciated.

    This week I’ll do inventory of the abandoned bikes to see what’s worth keeping. Of note: Easily the fewest abandoned bikes in my tenure. I think my first year there were over 500 bikes left over. Maybe bike shares are really helping that issue (and maybe creating others)?

    This week I’ll have two new staffers start. It’s apparently midterms, so reinforcements are paramount.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 62
    Sales: $1,122.50
    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50
    Memberships: 20 for $600
    Tires/tubes: 26 for $192

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center

  18. Green Research Committee 4th Meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Green Research Committee
    Green Lab Program

    September 20, 2023 Green Research Committee Meeting 4

     

    Present: Stephanie Hess, Tim Mies, Jennifer Fraterrigo, Paul Foote, Jeremy Neighbors, Shari Effert-Fanta, Lisa Moore, Morgan White, Chad Stevens, Sabrina Summers, Maisie Kingren, Daphne Hulse

     

    Absent: Mitchell Bryant

     

    High-level overview (Jeremy leads)

    • Full-time GR Coordinator
      • Reduce, reuse, and recycle campaign headed by the new coordinator.
    • Centralized location for chemicals
      • Tim: are there concerns or risks with transporting.
      • Stephanie: opportunity for reuse. Repurpose bottles. ECE, MRL, SCS (no space here though). Various locations that we can split up. Lot of labs have bottles that they use up
    • Grad student to help coordinate reduce, reuse, recycle. Additional student supports the GR coordinator with tasks as needed.
      • Morgan: need a full-time staff person for GR. But it is not enough. Need a student or two at least, to help support the staff. Without at least 2 paid students, you won’t get far. 40 hours’ worth of student time? During the school year, sometimes 2 students doing part-time still is not enough.
      • Jen: maybe consider what we need first for the program, before determining how many students to include (and staff). Start modest with our first proposal, with the expectation that we will build over time.
      • Paul: typically hire 2-5 students, some stay through the summer, to help with his energy-specific lab programs.
    • Where will this GR program reside? OVCRI office, with input from Madhu, Susan, and Ehab.
      • Morgan: is it in DRS or is it in iSEE? Both are under VCRI, so that makes sense. It is about sustainability with research. Include requirements in the job description to directly communicate to various stakeholders: research,
      • Paul: green research is all about change and adapting, which isn’t necessarily DRS culture. iSEE is always rolling out new initiatives and is very fluid.
      • Lisa: DRS works with regulation; sustainability is not regulation. Thought DRS first, but then looked into iSEE and thought that GR can be more easily built out under iSEE.
      • Morgan: happy to host it under F&S, but it makes more sense to have it under VCRI.
      • Jen: PI who has a lab perspective: already have a relationship with the audit. Potential to have a partnership with DRS in this new way.
      • Chad: safety is paramount over sustainability, so agree with Jen.
      • Stephanie: conversation with Daphne showed that breaking down barriers between units is very possible.
    • GR ambassadors (Jeremy)
      • Every department would have GR ambassadors, encourage it at the lab level. Would work routinely with the GR coordinator to roll out
      • Training curriculum, system for communicating what’s going on, what metrics we have, what results we’re seeing.
      • Behavior of labs and groups. Reduce, reuse, recycle campaign.
      • Shut the sash, use of equipment timers, can implement on day one.
      • Promoting some type of certification. Implement GR in other ways. Lab assessment tools (UIUC based internal, or MyGreenLab).
      • Certification would be a longer-term goal with the GR coordinator.
    • Incentives
      • Recognition is the primary way
      • Stephanie: faculty peer pressure, you want to be that person that is recognized for these initiatives. Susan promote some of these people might be good, too.
      • Chad: could there be monetary award for the research group for their future research. $2500 not a lot, $10K much more head-turning.
      • Tim Mies: Illinois Professionals (highlights), HR. Would that model work for this?
      • Stephanie: working with Patty to work on awards for safety (Oscars for safety). Could work well with research.
    • Communication and education
      • Well-developed education and outreach program for what we will do.
    • Safe energy conservation plans
      • Form task forces to address the two different processes in the charge:
        • How to hibernate labs
        • How to deal with renovation projects
      • Fully funded capital projects, facilities with significant infrastructure deficiencies, facilities without significant infrastructure deficiencies. Would need to be very collaborative. Building-by-building basis.
      • Morgan: 1.5 years to complete a campus facility assessment. December of 2024 all info will be up to date. It won’t cover all portions, because it’s more visual. How are the fume hoods being used?
      • Stephanie: Wondering the same question.
      • Chad: We don’t want to shut off a fume hood forever. There’s always going to be some revolving research based on grants, etc.GR coordinator could look into high-efficiency fume hoods. Need to have campus support for green energy.
      • Shari: Agree with Chad, with Paul’s team coming in, they can see where improvements can be made. Incur energy savings but not lose the capacity. Finding unique ways to do that. Install the newer technology, like low-flow, high-efficiency will go a long way in meeting iCAP goals. Need help with things that are outside the department’s DOR.
      • Paul: Agree with everyone. Shut down almost all hoods at the top floor of Soybean. Morrill Hall needs a lot of help with renovations. Helped get them out during a pilot program. There are other places that use them 24/7 and they are clean and well managed. We see it all.
    • Additional resource for kick-off
      • GR coordinator, communications team, IT support

  19. Weekly Update: Bike to Work Day, Light the Night

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, I was out sick all last week with some combination of flu/cold/sinus infection. My staff handled operations in my absence. However, there were some issues tracking visit numbers, unfortunately.

    Last Thursday was Bike To Work Day. Some very awesome people stepped up and filled in for me. Sounds like it was a banner year! Congrats to all involved.

    Tomorrow evening is Light The Night. We’ll be hosting at a different location this year. Should be a better spot for folks to get their lights.

    We were inundated with donations last week. I’ll bring in staff off-hours to help scrap the junk bikes and reorganize this week. Hopefully we’ll have our space in better shape by our open hours on Wednesday.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 8*
    Sales: $1,242.50
    Bikes (refurb): 2 for $215
    Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $40
    Memberships: 17 for $510
    Tires/tubes: 9 for $55

    *See above issue with visit numbers.

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

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