The Collegian » Greeks clean up their neighborhood

The Collegian » Greeks clean up their neighborhood: 

Various members of Fresno State Greek sororities and fraternities participated in Sunday’s Greek Cleanup, an event coordinated through Associated Students Inc.

Participants in the event picked up trash and cleaned up areas neighboring the Fraternity and Sorority Mall between Millbrook and 6th avenues. Students present also cleaned up the area housing a group of fraternity houses on Shaw Avenue across the street from the Fresno State campus.

“So what we’re doing is just trying to clean up the areas around the Greek sororities and fraternities,” said senior Melissa Ellis, an ASI community affairs coordinator.
[...]

But one problem prevalent in the Greek mall is vandalism in the form of graffiti. Several markings could be seen around gates in Greek housing and up and down the sidewalks of Millbrook Avenue.

Joe Devane, president of Fresno State’s Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity chapter, said graffiti is a recurring problem in the area.

“That’s the most annoying part because we’ll go ahead and clean it up the day after we see it—and then it’s right back there the next day,” Devane said.

“The best thing we can do is continuously clean it up. If we do that, maybe that will annoy them to the point where they stop because they realize that it’s not going to be there for long.”

Live Earth - SigEp style

Today is the "Live Earth" series of concerts, calling attention to global climate change and asking us to think of how we can make a change to help out.

I was thinking about how that would or could apply to SigEps and realized that being aware of our environment is very much in line with the Fraternity's cardinal principles of Virtue, Diligence, and especially Brotherly Love.

All day long as the concerts were being broadcast everyone watching was reminded to "think globally and act locally" by doing one small thing to make a difference. I saw an ad /psa in the London segment that suggested that you only boil enough water for the one cup of tea you are preparing. (Yes, tea. I TOLD you it was the London segment.) If everyone did that, it would save the energy required to light 700,000 street lights for a year. Small change. Big effect.

So what can SigEps do at the individual, chapter, and national level to help out in the effort to reduce energy use, and by extension the creation of greenhouse gases? I have a few ideas, maybe some of you readers can suggest more.

• INDIVIDUAL
• There is another name for having a designated driver - carpooling. A good idea whether you are headed to a party or just out to a movie.
• Public transportation is not nearly as bad as you may think. In fact it is quite good in many places. How to make it better? Use it. When the rider numbers increase the providers will have incentive to make even more improvements in scheduling and placement.
• When you head to class or work, adjust the thermostat a few degrees up (summer) or down (winter). It won't take long to readjust when you get back, and you will save some money.
• CHAPTER
• Florescent bulbs use one forth the energy of "regular" bulbs and last up to 5 years before they need to be replaced. Consider how many lights are in the chapter house. The savings in electric bills will be immediate and continuing.
• Does the chapter recycle? Many cities have recycling programs along with garbage pickup. If the house is on campus and the school is not recycling, ask them to start. In the meantime a weekly trip to a local scrapyard to sell all the empty beer cans could net a nice profit.
• How about a project with a local organization to fix up a home for needy occupants? Insulating and caulking and fixing cracks can make a big difference in heat loss.
• For that matter, make sure the chapter has adequate insulation and that doors and windows fit snugly.
• Make sure the filters on the air handling equipment are changed out regularly. Follow the manufacturer's guidelines.
• HEADQUARTERS
• Take a Leadership role in encouraging other fraternities and college campuses to be more "Planet Friendly". A report from NACUBO shows it really pays off.
• Incorporate guidelines for increased energy efficiency into the AVP "housing" training material.
• Add "planet friendly" practices to the metrics used to determine Buchanan Cups.
• The Housing Corporation could set "green" standards for newly constructed houses to meet. Renovations should also use practices and materials to minimize the "energy footprint".
• Oh yeah. Make sure that the HQ building is up to speed with all the suggestions, too.

I do not claim universal knowledge here. Some of these things may already be in process. Great. Others may take some economic or even political will to put into effect. That is what Leadership is all about though, isn't it? The point is that if we really want to be a fraternity that is "Different", we should be one of the groups that is making a difference. Lets set an example for other fraternities to follow in this area, as we have in others.

Leave a comment. Do you have some other suggestions? Have you or your chapter done something special to help the planet? Do you think this is all "a bunch of tree-hugging hippie crap"? Tell us about it. Thanks.

Trashed: Much left behind at colleges

Time to pack up the car and head home for summer. But wait. What about all that s**t that just somehow grew in your closet/room/apartment. You'll need to rent an 18-wheeler to get it all home. You can't just leave it - or can you?...

DAVIDSON, N.C. --With 1,700 students, Davidson College may be small. But you'd never know it when you see the stuff students leave behind at the end of year.

In a large room at a fraternity house, stacks of clothing, furniture, lamps and electronics were already piling up days ahead of last Sunday's graduation. Mixed in were odds and ends that could only wind up together in a college trash pile: a pair of giant Homer Simpson slippers; a collection of Pokemon cards; a batch of fashion disaster dresses you can only hope were costumes from a campus theme party called the Five Dollar Prom.

("Five Dollar Prom", eh? Now THAT would be an interesting party theme.)

But recently, much of the flotsam and jetsam of Davidson's spring has at least avoided the Dumpster. Last year, students collected enough goods to fill the frat house about 10 times over - twice as much as the year before - and turned the material over to local charities.
[...]
Davidson isn't the only college trying to put its student left-behinds to better use. Next Saturday, up to 10,000 people are expected to descend on Penn State's Beaver Stadium to pick their way through 62 tons of student detritus at the annual "Trash to Treasure" sale, which has raised more than $200,000 for the United Way. Boston College collects up to 100,000 items annually for dozens of community groups. In the 15 years since its program started, the University of Michigan has channeled 123 tons of "gently used" student gear back to the community.
[...]
"There's a growing sense of the cost," said Lisa Heller Boragine, who started an organization called Dump & Run that helps recycling and resale programs at about a dozen colleges. Nor do schools like having trash pile up during prime parental visiting time.
[...]
Boragine, who started a resale program at the University of Richmond when she was teaching there, said she can tell the difference between a school with a $20,000 price tag and a $40,000 one just by looking at what gets left behind.

"Instead of the dollar-store scissors, you'd probably find the $7 ergonomically correct scissors," she said. Rather than a hand-me-down TV that no longer works, there is a year-old one that is too heavy to ship.

Mostly, however, the left-behind items are the predictable, timeless staples of college life: casual clothes, low-grade furniture, countless unopened Ramen noodles. Penn State's sale features about 4,000 carpets, along with stacks of sweaters and T-shirts running down a row 100 feet long and 3 feet wide.

There is probably a partnership opportunity here for a chapter that wants to be more friendly to the environment. Better to reuse or recycle that to end up in a landfill.

www.centredaily.com | 05/21/2007 | Trashed: Much left behind at colleges