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Projects Updates for key objective: No name

  1. iCAP Portal Admin Meeting - July 11, 2025

    Associated Project(s): 

    Agenda

    • Michael's updates
      • Stripped out HTML from ALL project update teasers (homepage, Project pages, Theme pages, Place pages, Collection pages, Key Objective pages)
      • Added expand/collapse to Recommendations listing on Project pages for listings with 4+ items
      • Here are a couple options for differentiating subject lines for iCAP Portal suggestions:
        • Use submission ID, e.g. "iCAP Portal Suggestion (ID #181)" <-- Decided to use ID
        • Use Subject / Project Name field, e.g. "iCAP Portal Suggestion: Campus-wide Solar Panel Installation"

    Discussion

    • [Quinn] Project pages for directing users to the many available data sources on the iCAP portal (e.g. Public Data for Independent Research)
      • Discussed pros & cons of Basic Page vs. Project vs. another approach
      • This could be part of a larger Getting Started section to provide guidance to new visitors
      • Decided to leave this page as a Project for now; may revisit in the future
    • For next meeting:
      • Discuss metric naming convention (see Discussion about Metrics - May 19, 2025)
      • Finalize plans for removing national research programs from Projects listing
      • Discuss 2025 Objectives dashboard (add in September, start displaying in October) - see "Adding Key Objectives" private file under Sustainability iCAP Portal project
      • New iCAP Team (Sustainable Buildings) being formed - discuss what that looks like on the iCAP Portal

    TODOs

    • ✅ Replace map link on homepage with link to "Resources for Independent Research" or "We've got data!"
    • ✅ Update suggestion email subject line
    • ✅ Find out if we can add administrative field to mark who responded to a Suggestion
  2. Research In Progress for Bike Ambassador, Bike Buddy, and Commuter Programs

    Emily is working on researching Bicycle Ambassador, Bike Buddy, and Commuter Programs at Big 10 and other universities to eventually implement these programs at UIUC. While the Bicycle Ambassador program was last active around 2014, restarting this program is a priority under the Encouragement area of intervention in the 2024 Campus Bicycle Plan. Similarly, the Bike Buddy program, which would encourage more bicycle trips on campus, especially for newer and less experienced cyclists, is also a priority under the Encouragement area of intervention. Emily is also continuing research on the Commuter program, which is a part of the Evaluation & Planning area of intervention in the 2024 Campus Bicycle Plan.

  3. Certified STARS Gold!!

    I am excited to share the news that the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has now been recertified at the Gold ranking in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). This is the sixth time we have received a Gold STARS rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). This achievement represents our ongoing commitment to making sustainable change on campus. The updated 2025 report builds on previous reporting and helps hold us accountable for continuous improvement toward our sustainability goals.

    The reporting process required a huge amount of data collection from across different campus units, covering our academic programs, orientation and training programs, energy and emissions, landscape management, transportation systems, administrative policies, and much, much more. I would like to give special thanks to Codie Sterner at SSIB for helping to lead the data collection process, and to our student interns Jenna Schaefer and Lucy Zhou for their invaluable contributions.

    If you are receiving this email, it is because you helped provide key data and insights during this process. We sincerely appreciate your efforts and contributions to our campus sustainability efforts – completing this report and achieving this result would not have been possible without you!

    Best,

    Miriam

    Miriam Keep
    Sustainability Programs Coordinator

    Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE)

  4. Introductory meeting with Housing

    Following are the notes from our meeting with Housing about their potential Fleet Management Plan. The meeting took place on 6/13/2025 at 9 a.m.

    Attended by - Sarthak Prasad, Shawn Patterson, Matt Brown, Aaron Lewis, Jessica Hauserman

    • We did introduction
    • Jessica is the Office Manager
    • We are looking for a single point of contact
    • Not reinvent the wheel - not dictate
    • What are we trying to do?
    • 12 year replacement plan
    • What is the useful life of the vehicle
    • Fuel consumptions, idle time,
    • Conversations about what would be the correct path
    • Right-sizing the application
    • We need to purchase a vehicle - what type of vehicle can be purchased
    • Matt Brown -
      • They make some purchases of heavier duty trucks based on what the tasks are, the weight of those things
      • Some small transit vehicles
        • Ford transit
      • They are looking for a huge number of things
      • Availability, right sizing, - have some issues with that
      • They are retiring 20 year old vehicles or more
      • They are finally out of pre-2000s vehicles this FY
      • They are now updating
    • How we might interact with these goals= planned rotation vs force rotations
      • Deterioration of these vehicles
      • Shawn -
        • The prices have skyrocketed
        • Digging deep - if we have a process in place.
        • If this is the goal, we can do what we can
        • What is the most feasible thing. The university is not going give us so much money to buy whatever we want
        • Housing is the first department we are reaching out
        • Same or similar fleet as F&S
        • We can share our expertise
        • Build a group and plan as to what can be done to improve iCAP goals
    • Looking to identify a contact person
      • Start off with Matt Brown and then direct conversations to other departments
      • Various fleets (4)
        • Facilities and Maintenance
        • Building services
        • Student Affairs Technology for Housing
        • Dining - Dell
      • Jessica has helped with costs and ownership of vehicles
        • To maintain or to fuel
        • There is data
      • If the iCAP wants to put a number before we rotate
        • Put a high number, like 15 years.
        • Some vehicles are used less
        • Vehicle by vehicle basis
    • Aaron -
      • Has it ever been discussion - drive thru car was on campus to remove debris and gunk - to improve the life?
        • Shawn -
          • Frame - Rust or something
          • Parts are no longer available for that vehicles
          • Undercarriage -
            • $100k to get the equipment
        • Deterioration of the body
      • Rust and under carriage - vehicles deteriorate
    • Next Step
      • List and come up with an operation plan
      • For one of the fleet operation or all 4 fleet? Evolving plan
      • Create a Teams Channel
      • Give them a skeleton plan to give to Housing
        • They will fill in what they can do - Based on the F&S Green Fleet Plan
        • The objectives we came up with were through NAFA and based on F&S fleets
      • Maybe a follow up in the end of July 2025
    • Matt asked about Idle time sensor
      • GPS sensors that we operate with
      • Not every vehicle is the same
      • External GPS system
    • Idle Times are related to Fuel Consumption
    • Matt and his team will get a shot on the plan and get back to us
    • Housing fleet is at a certain level - swap one for one
      • Very occasional and sporadic that they add a vehicle
      • They can commit to not adding to the fleet
  5. iCAP Portal Admin Meeting - June 13, 2025

    Associated Project(s): 

    Agenda

    • Celebrations
    • Michael's updates
      • Recommendation pages: changed sort order for Recommendation Updates
        • Old sort order: Applicable Date (descending), Created Date (descending)
        • New sort order:Applicable Date (descending), Status (by its order in the dropdown listing, descending)
      • Project pages: column widths issue
        • When project update contains an element with a fixed width larger than the column, it was causing the left sidebar to expand to fill as much space as possible. Fixed by setting maximum column widths.
        • Follow-up question: should we strip formatting from project update teasers? Since they're often copy-and-pasted from elsewhere, they tend to bring in their own formatting, which can sometimes look strange.
    • National Research Programs analytics
    • Discussion about Recommendations - May 19, 2025
      • See notes for updates
    • Discussion about Metrics - May 19, 2025
      • See notes for updates
      • Discuss metric naming convention

    Discussion

    • Project Update teasers
      • Let's strip out HTML from project update teasers
      • How does it impact embedding project updates?
        • Won't impact them - their Project Update descriptions are defined separately
    • Recommendations on Project pages
      • Decided to make each Recommendation's title a link
      • Decided to remove the table of Recommendation Updates for now
      • Will consider whether to display the Recommendation titles & statuses in a table - current list is clean, but table would be good for quickly identifying the statuses of the various projects
    • Discuss metric naming convention [deferred to next meeting]

    TODOs

    • ✅ Strip out HTML from ALL project update teasers
    • ✅ Add expand/collapse to Recommendations listing on Project pages
  6. Discussion about Metrics - May 19, 2025

    Associated Project(s): 

    Sarthak Prasad, Michael McKelvey, Morgan White, Quinn Connolly, Miriam Keep, and Tiffany Jolley met to discuss iCAP Metrics improvements - specifically, displaying metrics with large numbers of tracking records and combining multiple metrics on a single graph.

    Discussion/Decisions

    TODOs:

    • Michael to investigate Highcharts as a replacement for Google Charts
      • Maintain tabs showing individual targets
      • Allow selection of graph type (bar, line)
    • Michael to investigate calculated/combined metrics:
      • Show multiple metrics on single chart
      • Stretch goal: automatically calculate percentage against a baseline metric (e.g. Solar Farm 1 and Solar Farm 2 as percentages of Total Energy Use)
    • Michael will add theme maps embed code to theme pages
    • Remove objective numbers from beginning of metric names (see Objectives Dashboard)
    • Discuss metric naming convention in next iCAP Portal group meeting
  7. Discussion about Recommendations - May 19, 2025

    Associated Project(s): 

    Morgan White, Miriam Keep, Elizabeth Murphy, Tiffany Jolley, Quinn Connolly, Sarthak Prasad, and Michael McKelvey met to discuss how best to cross reference iCAP Projects and Recommendations.

    Discussion/Decisions

    • Rec's link to
      • a Team,
      • Associated Project(s),
      • Objective(s), and
      • Future Updates project
    • What to include on the team pages?
      • example logged in and logged out
      • For now: decided to hide the sidebar listing of associated Recommendations and show the list of recommendations w/recommendation updates in main section
      • Discuss how to display the recommendations (and recommendation updates?) in next large group meeting
    • What to include on the iWG page? and the Sustainability Council page?
    • How to get to recommendations from the Home page?
      • Through link to iWG - decided not including a direct link to Recommendations page
    • Could these be based on theme instead of team? What to show on a theme page?
      • Decided not to show list of recommendations on Theme pages; get to recommendations through iCAP Team linked in description
    • Which projects should be associated? should it just be by objective and future updates..?
      • Associated Project(s): Don't include iWG and Team projects; just a minimal list of associated project(s)
      • Further Updates Will be Posted To...: 1 new project spawned by recommendation (if applicable)
    • How to remove the summary pages?

    TODOs:

    • Show associated recommendations on projects linked via "Further Updates Will be Posted To..." field
    • Add time-based filter on Recommendations listing page (e.g. last 5 years)
  8. EV Infrastructure Study at Peer Universities

    Check out our new report on EV infrastructure, based on a survey of peer universities. The study examines how institutions across the country are planning, funding, and implementing EV charging solutions to support campus sustainability and evolving transportation needs.

    The insights gathered will inform our campus’s approach to EV infrastructure development and long-term mobility planning.

    Attached Files: 
  9. School of Art and Design Re-Fashioned Fashion Show

    Associated Project(s): 

    School of Art and Design Re-Fashioned Fashion Show

     

    The annual School of Art and Design fashion show is back! Re-Fashioned will be presented at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 10, in the Siebel Center. Admission is free. Students from the Studio Arts Fashion Concentration will be presenting over 100 one-of-a-kind ensembles. Wearable works of art walk the runway, combining sustainability and creativity in a fun event for the whole family. 

     

  10. CTAC spring 2025: meeting recording and presentation

    The Campus Transportation Advisory Committee (CTAC) met on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 from 1 - 2:30 p.m.. Following was the agenda for the meeting:

    • Introduction – Morgan White (5 minutes)
    • Old Business
      • F&S TDM Status Update – Stacey DeLorenzo and Sarthak Prasad (25 minutes)
      • Lincoln Ave Corridor Study (North of Florida Ave) – CCRPC (15 minutes)
      • Bike Share Updates– Sarthak Prasad (5 minutes)
    • New Business
      • EV infrastructure research – Bhagyashree (10 minutes)
      • E-bike research – Bhagyashree (10 minutes)
      • Air Travel Emissions research – Karina Jang (10 minutes)
      • 2025 Transportation Survey – Sepideh Azizi (10 minutes)
    • Community Updates – (5 minutes) 

    Please see attached the slides from meeting. To view the recording, please go to https://uofi.box.com/s/f9vq8w52a4tjmu154ecuspfyfjqb9784.

    Attached Files: 

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