This proposal looks to continue to develop a student run farm at the Horticultural Pomology Farm on the southeast corner of Lincoln and Windsor. As a partnership between the campus horticulture program and students, the farm will significantly contribute to campus food needs by supplying produce to University food service operations. This will allow the campus to move toward a more sustainable agricultural model and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with food transportation. Student volunteers and Crop Sciences employees will harvest, process and deliver fresh crops to University Dining Services, which will pay the prevailing market rate for the produce. This model should allow the project to bring in adequate funding in the near future, and the requested funds will be used to propel the farm to achieve self-sustaining operations in 2011. Further, a sign will inform the community of the farm’s presence and open houses will be held to introduce students and staff to this sustainable agriculture operation. This continued and expanded project will provide tangible evidence of campus commitment to responsible sustainable behavior. Thus, the Student Sustainability Committee is in favor of funding the fully requested amount of $25,000.

The Prairie Project is a faculty development workshop with the objective of preparing faculty (and aspiring faculty) to teach on issues of sustainability and to introduce such material into existing campus coursework. The project will reach an interdisciplinary group of 18 faculty members who teach courses reaching thousands of students, and helping achieve campus objectives around sustainability education. This workshop will also serve as a pilot project for larger workshop activities in future years. Committee funds will be used to provide a modest honorarium for participants, who undertake to make modifications to a course that they will teach next year. This workshop is being hosted by the campus Office of Sustainability, and funding support in equal amounts is also being provided by the Office of Sustainability and the Environmental Change Institute. Thus the Committee recommends funding this program in the amount of $5,000.

For FY2010, the Student Sustainability Committee chose to solicit proposals for the development or enhancement of courses related to sustainability jointly with the Environmental Change Institute. Such a program allows the Committee to select proposals to support, while leaving project management and administration to a better-suited entity. The program received ten proposals for consideration, out of which the following six proposals were chosen for funding:   ENGR 298 – LINC Bike Sharing – Prof. Bruce Litchfield - $5,000   LA 390/590 – Landscapes, Sustainability, & Human Health – Prof. Bill Sullivan - $2,420   PHYCS 150 – How Nature Works – Prof. Scott Willenbrock - $4,790   GEOG 130 - Social Science Approaches to Environment-Society Relations – Prof. Tom Bassett - $5,000   ME 470 – Senior Design – Prof. Stephen Platt - $4,000   BADM 532 / 533 – Sustainable Product and Market Development for Sustainable Marketplaces – Prof Madhu Viswanathan - $5,000   The ECI is committing $13,420 in support of an additional course and matching SSC allocations to two of the above courses. All courses participating in this program will meet program requirements established by the ECI and SSC, submit materials to the ECI for archiving and participate in the ECI’s annual symposium. Thus the Committee recommends funding this program in the amount of $26,210.

This proposal looks to improve the energy efficiency of campus computing by expanding the use of thin client hardware and infrastructure. The effort will build on previous successful thin computing studies, scaling up the initiative to make thin clients available to a wider campus audience. Thin clients use 95% less energy than traditional desktop computers, which can significantly reduce campus energy expense and carbon emissions. Further, thin clients have a 10 year life-span, compared to the 3-4 year useful life of a traditional desktop computer, resulting in better utilization and ultimately less e-waste. To encourage the expansion of this more sustainable model of computing, this project seeks to make thin clients available at reduced costs for campus units. $40,000 of the grant would fund thin client devices, licenses, and associated Terminal Server client access licenses (CALs) at a rate up of to $200 or 50% of costs, whichever is lower. At least 200 thin clients will be made available at discounted rates for campus units; additional funding will come directly from units’ allocated budgets for replacement computer hardware. Purchase commitments for atleast 100 devices have made made by the College of FAA, and additional commitments have been made by Swanlund System Services and Campus Recreation. The remaining $5,000 of the grant would compensate Webstore/CITES for server/virtual machine investments. As more and more locations will have thin clients visible, students, faculty, and visitors will realize the benefits of this sustainable computing solution. Thus, the Student Sustainability Committee is in favor of funding the fully requested amount of $45,000.