The 2015 iCAP suggested creating a summer program, with this concept: "5 to 10 students will be selected each year for a 10-week summer program to conduct full-time research under the supervision of a faculty member to develop the scientific skills most important to success in a professional career (designing a research problem/experiments, problem-solving, interpreting results, communicating one’s science to various audiences, working in a team). Students will conduct research on real-world problems related to sustainability at the campus level, in their communities or the national/global level. They will learn to apply various tools, such as life-cycle analysis, cost-benefit methods and impact analysis, to assess, evaluate and design sustainable approaches to meeting societal demands. Through this project and experiment-based learning approach, student teams will be able to address real problems facing the campus and work together to propose solution."

Project name changed from "Sustainability Immersive Experience" to "Sustainability in Study Abroad".

Old project description:

A sustainability immersive experience is an educational program that concentrates on sustainability and its three dimensions: social, economic, and environment. The University of Illinois offers several opportunities for students to explore indepth solutions to major sustainability challenges.  Some examples include Study Abroad, Learning in Community courses, or internships that focus on sustainability.  Below is an example of an immersive program offered in the College of Business. We would be delighted to include additional opportunities.  Let us know about your program!

Students from the Sustainable Product and Market Development for Susistence Marketplaces class travel for immersion in the context and to conduct market research during part of the winter break.  The field trip has been conducted in Chennai and Bangalore, India.  Students observe households in urban and rural subsistence contexts, as well as retail and wholesale outlets.  Students interview low-literate, low-income individuals in urban and rural settings regarding product ideas for group projects.  Students also visit educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and corporations engaged in the development of innovative programs and technologies for subsistence contexts.  The field trip geared to visiting the environment of the urban and rural poor requires considerable planning and rehearsal, and has been a transformative learning experience for the students.  Spring semester is spent converting concepts to workable prototypes, and developing manufacturing, marketing and business plans.

Hi Thurman,

A recurring topic that’s come up in our zero waste conversations has been the desire to track and display more metrics under the zero waste theme on the iCAP Portal. Grind2Energy data was one metric that was brainstormed, as it relates closely to our Zero Waste Objective 5.5, “Plan for organic waste.” Since Dining already tracks that data, it would be easy for us to get it up on the portal. Would this be something that you’d be in favor of us doing? If so, any input on how the data is displayed (by month, or annually)?

Thank you,
Daphne

Hi Daphne,

Fate has it that I will be seeing the Grind2Energy people tomorrow at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago. I would like to see if this is something that can by automatically updated from our system. They may have some functionality for this and if not, it may be some thing they could create and would be a selling point for them. I will find out the possibilities. I would rather that this be auotmatic so that the data is always current and nobody can "drop the ball" along the way.    

THURMAN ETCHISON
Assistant Director of Dining - Facilities and Equipment
 

On April 10, 2023 Jennifer Fraterrigo sen the following email:

Dear Mr. Whitman and Tim,

The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Working Group (iWG) recently approved recommendation Engagement005 from the Engagement iCAP Team for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics to formally join the Green Sports Alliance. The expectation is that doing so would increase the visibility of campus sustainability efforts and put UIUC on par with fellow Big10 institutions that are integrating sustainability into athletics. Additional details are provided in the attached recommendation.

The Formal iCAP Procedures include a section on campus unit responsibilities upon receipt of a recommendation, and we respectfully request your response to this recommendation by May 5, if possible. If you have any questions regarding this recommendation, we are happy to jump on a call with you to discuss it.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Fraterrigo

---------------

On May 2, 2023 Josh Whitman responded:

Jennifer,

The Division of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA) approves the recommendation to formally join the Green Sports Alliance at the $2,500 Premier Membership level. Assistant Athletic Director Tim Knox will be responsible for coordinating the implementation for DIA.

Josh

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On May 4, 2023 Jennifer forwarded the previous thread to Sarthak:

Hi Sarthak – one more!

Please mark this as successful on the portal; response below.

Thanks,

Jen

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On May 20, 2023 Morgan White responded to Jennifer:

Hi Jen, Daphne, and Betsy,

I suggest we invite Tim Knox to a meeting, to see what support he may need from F&S and iSEE in this endeavor.  What do you think?  Or has something like that already happened?

Thanks,

Morgan

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On May 22, 2023 Betsy Ligget replied with the following email and attached documents:

This is great news, thank you for sharing! I’m happy to join a meeting with DIA regarding Green Sports Alliance, please let me know when I can assist with the transition. The last annual membership invoice (10-13-22) is attached and is for the Nov. 1st, 2022 - Nov. 30th, 2023 time period.

I have also attached the 2021 membership letter for everyone’s files.

Thanks again,

Betsy

There is a sustainability program called "reverb" which is for music festivals.

Done:

• Header: remove "at" between UI and UC
• SSC project embedding:
  • Here’s the SSC dev site project example page Sammy shared with us last year.
  • Here’s the iCAP Portal project collection embedding test page I showed at our meeting this morning. It’s currently embedding 12 projects from the SSC collection on a test site, using this list of SSC categories:
    • Education and Justice
    • Energy
    • Food and Waste
    • Transportation and Infrastructure
    • Land, Air, and Water

Discussion:

• Question about a TODO: "Collections page: Add image upload option". At a previous meeting we had this TODO, but what was the context? Was it to have a thumbnail for each Collection? Or a banner image?
• Should we link to "Take Action" project from homepage?
• Archiving projects
  • Add "Archived" checkbox?
  • Add "Archived" to Visibility options?
  • Add "Archived" to Project Status options? (probably not - this mixes the status of the project itself with whether we still want it to show up on the site)
  • Remove from nested listings, still publicly available?

TODO:

• SSC project embedding: add category filtering options
• (long term goal) look into importing information from another source, e.g. SSC students without iCAP Portal access can put together info in a structured format for automatic import into iCAP Portal
• Show "no content" message under Metric Chart when no tracking records exist
• Look into Collection embedding again, à la Drawdown Solutions Library Sammy had found ("Filter by sector or area of action" section)
• Metric search/display:
  • Theme (via connected Project, i.e. Theme -> Project -> Metric)
  • Most recent updates as of: (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
  • (Internal only) Last updated before (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
• (Low Priority) Make column headers click-sortable on Projects by Project Status page
• Fancy project layout mockups - keep tweaking #3 to improve contrast
• Discuss metrics
  • Metrics with lots of data
  • Consider how to handle old metrics that no longer track new data. Archive somehow?
  • Fun with math (e.g. combining multiple metrics)
  • Calculated Metrics on Dev site

On May 17, 2023 Morgan White, Daphne Hulse, and Marc Alexander met to discuss the future of Dump and Run.

• F&S will need to provide public functions stuff for YMCA dump and run sale in the fall (use SSC funding - what is left)

• We will need to create a MOU including what all this means for YMCA and long-term funding for their sale and our spring move out

  • Be sure to include that F&S will support the August sale in a public functions capacity, and supports the continued use of Stock Pavilion

• Honor the partnership with the YMCA

  • MOU get marc’s perspective, morgan’s perspective, pete’s perspective, housing’s perspective

• Be clear that there is a spring collection and august sale. They are separate events but all under the Dump and Run name.

  • Phrase example: “The Campus Bike Center is a collaboration between UIUC and the Bike Project of Champaign.”

    • Dump and Run: “Dump and Run is a collaboration between University YMCA and UIUC.”

  • Collaboration means that we sometimes work in different capacities as the university can be so much larger than a small organization

  • Daphne to draft a MOU for F&S-Housing and F&S-YMCA

    • “…Based on x y z background this is how we intend to move forward in our partnership over the years. One year time intervals automatically renewed each year unless a party decides something should change or cease…”

• Recurring expenses could be argument among us internally to determine who should contribute (Morgan thinks this is a Pete question)

  • Student fees can go to anything

  • State funds to Housing is slightly limited

  • State funds to off campus entities is very limited

• Timeline

  • Get the MOU signed and approved before move in weekend, so we can proclaim it the way we planned to

  • August for YMCA to rubber stamp it

• As a general reference, it is good to get things written down and signed on a MOU with existing leadership who support these initiatives, so they continue even when leadership changes

Provided basic overview of the Dump & Run 2023 operations, successes, and areas for growth and opportunity

Provided basic overview of contamination reduction strategies at UIUC, and emphasized the significance of education and outreach as a means to reduce contamination

Sarthak & I met on 5/1/2023 and 5/15/2023 to work on the BFU application. 

The current version of the log we are using is attached below.

Please follow the link below to read about the 2023 Arbor Day celebration, which was celebrated on the main quad. 

https://fs.web.illinois.edu/Insider/2023/05/04/arbor-day-2023-on-the-main-quad/

The following is an email sent by John Marlin on May 16, 2023:

As most of you know I am retired from campus and involved in other off campus conservation activities. I will no longer be overseeing the Burrill Hall native planting.

During the pandemic, maintenance at campus native plantings by volunteers was not allowed.  This coupled with very dry conditions caused deterioration of several sites including the one at Burrill Hall. F&S bought the woodland wildflowers for the planting and the Entomology Department installed them and provided some maintenance in conjunction with some students.

Department head May Berenbaum has put together an effort to revitalize the planting and has some limited funding for some maintenance of the native plants.  F&S plans to make some changes in part of the area and the path is to be restored.  Daniel Bush will initially work with the native plants and supervise any students. 

In the past weeds removed from the site were placed by the two square concrete benches and I notified Ryan Welch who had the maintenance crew remove them.  I assume a similar arrangement can be made possibly with Mr. Dalby as the contact.

This site was quite popular with people walking past and provided a good instructional resource, especially the area near the sidewalk.  I hope that this will continue.

John C. Marlin

Dennis Dalby replied:

Thank you John,

It was nice meeting you today to gain some of your tips and input regarding the planting and upkeep of this area.  I’ve been working with Ryan Welch and SIB to get this area brought back up to its current level and look forward to its improved upkeep with the discussions that we had today.  We’ll be working with Ryan to have a wood chip path added once again and will add a few small plants of our own within the areas that we (MCB) will maintain.  SIB will maintain the areas of the native plants.  It will look and function much better once all is in place.

Thanks again for stopping by to share your experience,

Dennis

Collections began at 10am on Monday morning and continued through 3pm on Saturday afternoon. More than 16,000 pounds of household items were donated to Goodwill through the program. Salt & Light collected 3,500 pounds of soft items (clothes, bedding, linens