Imagine What We Could Do With a Green Fund!

Since the signing of the American College and University President's
Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) and the creation of the Office of Campus
Sustainability (OCS) by Chancellor Robert Khayat in 2009,
sustainability initiatives at Ole Miss have significantly increased.
Smart energy meters, recycling bins, and a bus system are just a few
of the great things the OCS (in tandem with other groups) has
implemented at Ole Miss. There is no doubt many of these initiatives
can and need to be expanded and improved upon but it is important to
give credit where credit is due. It is in this vein that I would like
to brag a bit about two new initiatives put forward by Ole Miss.

I am proud to say that Ole Miss now has a solar panel system that
produces a little over 100 kilowatts of electricity! The system is
mounted on the roof of the Center for Manufacturing Excellence (CME)
and is composed of 431 solar panels and produces enough energy to
power the CME as well as put clean, renewable electricity back into
the UM grid for use by other facilities. Initiatives like this are
critical in reaching our goal of carbon neutrality.

As I mentioned earlier many of the initiatives put forward by the
Office of Campus Sustainability need to be improved and expanded. How
about another bus route? The O.U.T. (Oxford-University Transit) bus
system has recently added a new line to their existing 4. A new Purple
Line has been added to the O.U.T. system to address the lack of bus
lines running on the weekends. This will give students the opportunity
and ability to reduce their carbon footprints by not using their
vehicles even on weekends, when previously only 2 bus lines ran. The
new Purple Line is also great for students who do not have vehicles
and were finding it difficult to get around town on the weekends.
Additionally, there will be a new lunch-time shuttle to the Oxford
Square, increasing the options for mass transit in Oxford.

These initiatives come at a time when sustainability "green"
initiatives are a hot topic at Ole Miss. This past semester students
from Campus for Clean Energy had a successful campaign to get a Green
Fund on our campus (what is a green fund? go to
http://tgifberkeley.com/index.php/links/start-your-own). This semester
Green Fund legislation went through the Associated Student Body and
then will go to university administration for final changes and
approval. The Green Fund would be a great addition to the
initiatives already in place and will be a steady source of funding
for more and more sustainability initiatives on our campus.

This blog was written by Zachary Jarjoura, a graduate student at Ole Miss. He is a fellow working to establish a green fund at Ole Miss