Sustainability Initiatives Coordination
Many students, faculty, and staff, believe that coordinating the various sustainability efforts at Marlboro is a necessary task to furthering the initiative as a whole. There have been many different courses, community projects, and coordinating initiatives on campus fueled by the ethic of sustainability. But the campus must understand the various projects. This page is dedicated to understanding the web of sustainable initiatives that Marlboro has had.
How to Use This Page
This page is the hub for sustainability project coordination and a central repository for information dedicated to ensuring continuity across generations of students, faculty, and staff. List items on this page with just enough information so people know what it is, then link to a new page to include more information (putting double square brackets around words will link to a page with that name or create a new page if it doesn't already exist). Cite your sources whenever possible. Please add whatever information you have to inform the community.
Current Projects
List projects that are current and active.
- Farm Greenhouse The Farm Committee is planning to build a permanent greenhouse for the farm.
- Local Foods Festival A group from the Intro. to Ecological Sustainability class is organizing a festival for May 8, 2009.
- Alternative Energy Feasibility The EAC has made recommendations for which feasibility studies regarding alternative energy generation on campus should be carried out with money from the Getty Grant.
- Add more here
Long-term or Ongoing Projects
List projects that are on the back burner for now or that are expected to take years to complete.
- Greening from the Heart Wide-reaching environmental action campaign begun in 2007-08 and led mostly by students and OP staff.
- OP Remodel and Addition Begun in Spring 2008, the OP began remodeling its meeting room with recycled and other environmentally friendly materials and with substantial student labor to model green building practices; an addition was also planned.
- Boiler Replacement Many students know that there are oversized and inefficient hot water boilers in campus dorms; what most haven't heard is that Dan Cotter is aware of this issue and has a long-term plan to replace them, as financial resources allow.
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Projects in the Planning Phase
Discuss and plan projects here.
- Fenced Recycling Dock In a binder in the OP are suggestions to build a more attractive enclosure for the recycling area by the dining hall.
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Relevant Committees
Any group that has business dealing with sustainability issues. On your pages, tell us what you're working on and what you've accomplished. If you have a separate website, link to it from this page, instead.
- Environmental Quality Committee A Town Meeting committee charged with running programs to reduce campus resource consumption and to improve campus environmental quality; consists of five TM members.
- Environmental Advisory Committee A committee appointed by the college president to advise the college president on environmental issues; contains faculty, staff, Grad Center, and student representatives.
- Farm Committee A Town Meeting committee charged with organizing the pursuit of small-scale agriculture at the College; consists of eight TM members.
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History of Sustainability at Marlboro
Discuss things that have happened here. If there's a particular report or document, put it in the next section, though you can talk about its historical context here.
- Energy Crisis in the 1970s The energy crisis in 1973 spurred a group of community members to look at energy conservation and alternative sources.
- Greening from the Heart Not yet all in the past, though its accomplishments should be
- Campus Energy Meetings A group of interested community members met a few times in fall 2007 to discuss energy use on campus and how to conserve.
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Marlboro-specific Resources
The information bank for reports, documents, data sheets, studies, and other resources to help all community members make informed plans when they approach sustainability projects. The better informed the community, the more likely individuals will make good decisions. Upload original documents to "resources" on the left sidebar, link to the upload directly from this page, and create a new page about the document to discuss it or point out its highlights. Listed in approximately chronological order.
- The Feasibility of Converting Marlboro College to Energy Self-Sufficiency Using Alternative Sources of Energy, 1974. (download 114 mb or lite version, 5 mb) Comprehensive 107-page report describing possible alternative; conducted by a group of students on a National Science Foundation grant.
- The Design, Construction, and Preliminary Evaluation of a Solar-Wood Heating System for a Rural Vermont College, 1975. (download, 66 mb) Describes the solar-wood heating system installed by students at cottage 2 on a second NSF grant; also contains a paper on the energy conservation behaviors.
- Ashley Bies' Plan, 2005. (download from library) Document pages 130-145 discuss the Current Use Program with regard to the College's forests and some of the history of the forest management.
- Morgan Rhodewalt's Plan, 2005. ( download from library) Document pages 52-67 propose a restoration of the land around the Rice-Aron library.
- Electricity Use, 2007. (download) An Excel spreadsheet of the invoices for each building on campus and for the campus as a whole from 1998 to 2007.
- Heating Oil Use, 2007. (download) An Excel spreadsheet of the invoices for each building on campus and for the campus as a whole from 1999 to 2007.
- Propane Use, 2007. (download) An Excel spreadsheet of the invoices for each building on campus and for the campus as a whole from 1998 to 2007.
- Vermicomposting with Marlboro College Food Scraps, 2008. (download) A comparative study undertaken in the Spring 2008 Agroecosystems course; indicates that red wiggler composting worms are willing to eat Marlboro College food scraps, though they seem to do better with scraps from organically grown produce.
- Renewable Energy Project Cost Estimates and Pre-Proposals, 2008. (download) In 2008, Brattleboro-based Tad Montgomery & Associates conducted a meta-feasibility study on the Getty Grant for alternative energy; lists cost estimates to carry out feasibility studies for various sources of alternative energy.
- Open Letter Regarding GFTH, 2009. Adam Katrick wrote a letter to the EAC and others on campus about the accomplishments of the Greening from the Heart campaign and future directions of the campaign and other campus environmental efforts.
- Thermal Imaging Report, 2009. Thermal House (http://www.thermalhouse.com/, Jamaica, VT) conducted a thermal imaging study of College buildings to see where we were losing heat. A draft of this report was delivered to Dan Cotter on April 29, 2009, but is not yet available to the general community. Check back later for more information.
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Grants
General Resources
Develop and discuss resources about sustainability topics such as solar energy, recycling, and food systems in general. Not specific to the Marlboro campus.
Please see Noah Burke, Kenton Card, Mairead Delaney, Nicole Hammond, Isaac Lawrence, or Nick Legowski to discuss further