Green fee to fund student grants
While the exact allocation of the Blue Goes Green Fee revenue is yet to be decided, Mark Blaiser, student sustainability coordinator, said $30,000-$33,000 will go toward the Blue Goes Green Grant Program.
The new grant program was designed to allow students access to the Blue Goes Green Fee funding through submitting ideas for sustainable projects that can be conducted on USU’s Logan campus, Blaiser said.
The fee brought in $2,211 during the recent summer semester and $46,162 during the fall semester. The fee only applies to students at the USU Logan campus and does not exceed $3 per student. Blaiser said he predicts the fee will bring in about $94,000 for the entire year. Blaiser his beginning the process of finding additional funding sources including private donors and alumni so he can “return every stone possible,” he said.
During the 2011 ASUSU elections, the Blue Goes Green Fee was proposed in hopes of propelling sustainable initiatives at USU, after it was initially turned down by the fee board. Students approved the fee with 2,305 votes, while 1,952 voted against it.
“Mark was hired the third week of September,” said Samuel Abbott, director of Students for Sustainability, “he created a request for grant proposals, and he has created three internship positions that are going to be available — and just a lot of groundwork for organization of the student office.”
Prior to his coordinator position he led a non-profit organization in Minnesota. His job as coordinator is made possible through the student fee, Blaiser said.
USU’s Office of Student Sustainability will select three student-interns with designated roles — outreach, programs and website builder, Blaiser said.
Blaiser said definite amounts that will be allocated toward the coordinator and intern positions have not been determined.
Abbott said the first due date for sustainability project applications is tentatively set for Nov. 14, but may be extended a few days, depending on how many are submitted.
The Office of Student Sustainability will decide on multiple due dates, throughout the school year, to keep the adrenaline of USU’s green movement, he said. A “rigorous” application process was created, to ensure the student projects are an efficient and effective use of student fee money, Blaiser said.
When doors close for this round of applications a committee, composed of eight appointed students — one from each college — along with one of the hired student-interns, the College of Natural Resources Dean Nat Frazer, assistant Professor Roslynn Brain, two representatives from the sustainability council, Facilities Director Ben Barrett and Blaiser, will assemble to evaluate which sustainability projects are promising enough to be granted funding, Abbott said.
“It’s a good, well-rounded committee,” Blaiser said, “because we want to make sure when a project is selected there is a strong student voice.”
While those who were in favor of the fee are ready to enhance USU sustainability, some students feel the burden of accumulating student fees. Students who recently started their academic careers at USU paid for the fee without knowing what it was for.
“I think it would be great if the university would do a better job informing students what they are paying for with their own money,” said undeclared freshman Brayden Smith. “I know $3 isn’t going to kill me or anything, but students have the right to know that. It’s not like I’m ignorant. I did Connections. I read up on things.”
Perhaps, many don’t realize how many programs on campus would like to have this funding, said Mikey Rodgerson, president of the USU College Republicans. Rodgerson said USU is a microcosm of society and a fee in college is similar to a tax. On the level of a society, what student fees are, in essence, is socialism, he said.
“It’s taking my ability to choose away,” Rodgerson said. “They’re taking money away from all students to give to a few students.”
Rodgerson also disagrees with the way the organizations that pushed the Blue Goes Green Fee used students’ money through advertising costs to “lobby them for more money,” he said. “It’s only $3,” Rodgerson said “and next semester it will only be another $5, and right now it’s only $400.”
Jack Greene, a Sustainability Council staff member, said now is the time students understand the pertinence of addressing and improving the state of Earth’s environment, atmosphere and resources.
Information concerning the Blue Goes Green Fee is online and when sustainability projects are selected, detailed information on the projects will also be posted online. Greene said the Office of Student Sustainability will try to reach students through numerous colleges’ and organizations’ designated weeks.
Greene said the biggest issue with education on environmental issues is it hardly exists in elementary and secondary schools. Students aren’t taught to think long term when it comes to the effects of not conserving, he said.
“Things are going to hell in a handbasket faster than scientists predicted,” Greene
said. “The track that the industrialized world is on is causing us horrendous damage. We are using more than the world is producing. It’s overriding natural systems, and if those go down, we go down with them.”
USU is doing sustainability the right way by making students the center, Greene said.
Compared to universities throughout the U.S., USU sustainability has some catching up to do Blaiser said.
However, in Utah, USU is one of the top schools making sustainable efforts, Greene said.
Rodgerson said his opinion on the fee does not come from his desire to neglect protecting the Earth, but he does question whether or not the fee was put in place simply for the sake of “going green.”
“We live in a bad economy,” Rodgerson said. “Prices for everything go up. No one is getting raises, and then the school has the audacity to propose an Astro-Turf fee.”
“I don’t think the fee is outrageous,” Smith said. “I just wish it was more clear what I was paying for.”
– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu