AU recognized for green efforts
(08/30/12 4:13am)
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Delivering American University's news and views since 1925 | Thursday, September 28, 2023
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University Center and Student Activities offices have been rearranged this summer to increase student access to SA advisers.
AU offices have reduced the amount of paper used on campus this year because:
Student Snapshot, the section of the AU portal where students can view their tuition bill, GPA and schedule, will start showing more information on student finances in early June.
Thirty-two AU organizations collaborated to celebrate the planet, raise awareness and help fund environmental efforts during Earth Week.
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The Office of Sustainability’s composting efforts hit a roadblock when AU’s composter was mandated to stop accepting food waste in December for “fail[ing] to contain the foul liquid leaching out of the organic matter it was [composting],” said Lydia DePillis in her March 7 article in the Washington City Paper.
Barbara Romzek will become the new dean of School of Public Affairs on July 1. She will succeed William LeoGrande, who has been the dean of the SPA since 2003.
AU currently ranks first in RecycleMania’s waste reduction competition, but it’s not over yet.
The chief lobbyist of the NRA argued that protecting constitutional rights ensures a just society at a speaking event March 7 in MGC.
AU will increase the minimum donation level for President’s Circle recognition by $1,500 starting May 1.
As more and more AU courses go “green,” Blackboard has become an eco-friendly blessing for some professors and a nightmare for some students.
What do a rabbi, a GE official and an oil independence specialist have in common? They all presented at a conference for AU’s Center for Israeli Studies and Kogod School of Business Feb. 7 in the School of International Service building. The conference, “Greener, Cleaner, Better: Israeli Innovation in Greentech,” presented advancements in renewable energy, electric cars and the global impact of green technology. It featured three separate panel presentations. Michael Granoff, the oil independency policy head for Israeli company Better Place, gave a keynote address on electric cars. Granoff explored why electric cars have not caught on in the United States, while they are a major innovation in Israel. “U.S. politicians will lump all energy solutions into one energy conflation, and then say there is no silver bullet to the situation,” Granoff said. However, Granoff said he believes companies like Better Place are providing energy solutions. Better Place, an electric car company that is looking to accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation, sees the future of cars and the planet directly linked to transitioning from fossil fuels to electricity, Granoff said. The average American household spent $4,000 on gasoline in 2010, approximately $2,000 more than a decade ago, Granoff said. Better Place’s electric cars run on 100-mile rechargeable batteries that can be exchanged at “battery switch stations” that are robotically run, Granoff said. In Israel, a 100-mile battery allows consumers to drive a sizable distance and has prompted a high demand for the cars. However, the same cannot be said for the United States, Granoff said. Better Place builds their system similar to a cell phone network system: •Build up a network of charging stations in urbanized areas, •Focus on the main arteries to-and-from the cities and •Reach the surrounding regions. Better Place looks to make electrification both practical with its battery switch stations and affordable with monthly pay plans that are set at a fixed price until 2016. “Transportation is indispensable, but cost has not always been predictable,” Granoff said. “This makes it predictable.” Panel members at the conference covered a wide gamut of other green technologies including solar and water. Joshua Bar Lev, co-founder of the solar and thermal energy company Brightscource, spoke about the potential of power plants that utilize natural reusable resources such as the sun. “Combine geography and policy to get your projects underway in a way that makes sense and is marketable in that area,” said Bar Lev, referencing solar fields in the southwestern deserts in the United States that Brightscource is looking to install. Eilon Adar, director of the Zuckerberg Institute of Water Research, presentation’s theme was that academia is not implementing enough of its research in the field of green technology. Less than 4 percent of academic ventures reach the consumer, and, more often than not, ideas get published in journals and then die on shelves, Adar said. However, the final panel, Rabbi Fred Sherlinder-Dobb, Eco-Sense’s past president Scott Berman and AU alumna Allison Gold, tried to end on a more positive note. “Kermit the Frog said it best: ‘It’s hard to be green,’” Sherlinder-Dobb said.
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Imagine an AU without trashcans.
Fifty-four more girls registered for sorority recruitment this spring than in spring 2011, according to Student Activities’ Panhellenic recruitment records.
AU will transition to a paperless payment system for all employees in February, in its continued effort to become a more environmentally conscious and sustainable campus in February.
From sleeping on sidewalks to organizing vigils in McPherson Square, AU students in Occupy AU and other student groups are giving their continued support for the Occupy D.C. movement. Here are what each group is doing to support the Occupy movement.
An AU student is taking a different approach to conflict resolution in Africa by selling jewelry made by Ugandan communities.
Students living on campus elected Cindy Zhang as president of the Residence Hall Association Nov. 3 after former RHA President Peter Reifsnyder resigned Oct. 27.