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Ithaca College works towards greater sustainability
By Tori McClurg
With people like Mark Darling, the coordinator of resource and environmental management at Ithaca College, and Marian Brown, special assistant to the provost, the sustainability initiative at Ithaca College continues to grow.
The two of them are like, “one brain working together towards a similar goal,” said Darling.
He jokes that he is the, “better half of the brain,” but the camaraderie between these coworkers is almost tangible.
The two of them have been with the college for over twenty years and both are passionate about making sustainability a more prominent issue to every individual at Ithaca.
Ithaca College received a 98 out of a possible 99 points for a green rating score from the Princeton Review survey of environmental friendliness. The college will soon be the only college or university in the world with two platinum buildings on its campus. “Platinum” is a status that is chosen by the leadership in energy and environmental design or “LEED.” “Platinum” is a difficult status to obtain, in order to do so the building needs to demonstrate standards for environmentally sustainable construction.
The athletics and events center is going to continue to work towards increasing sustainability by being,
“Passively cooled, the big tower they’re building is more than just for show it actually is an old concept the Italians came up with in the 12th or 13th century, it may even be older than that, but when the sun strikes the building, it warms the air there and because the warm air is rising it tends to build cooler air that will move throughout the building” said Darling.
The sustainability initiative has been in place since 1989 it was first started by students. The students realized that without being institutionalized the program wouldn’t be effective because they needed people who were going to be around for a longer span of time to work harder to implement “green” philosophies.
The rescue and environmental management program recruited different management groups like residence life, facilities and environmental health and safety together to keep the program going. A junior Becky Webster is one of the six-eco representatives on campus. She works with Darling in an effort to spread awareness on campus by doing floor programs on sustainability such as energy jeopardy. Webster also offers a survey regarding students’ energy usage to allow students to measure their carbon footprints against one another.
The college has implemented a program called the sustainability café series. The college sponsors speakers each month to inform people about different aspects of sustainability.
Ithaca is a university that is prestigious for its efforts towards sustainability,
Darling said, “We’re really going to make people aware of the seriousness that is the issue and how important sustainability is, and how much more we can do and need to do.”
His goal is to make sustainability a more important issue to every member of Ithaca College by making it a part of the curriculum.
“Just opening door on what is possible I’d like to see part of what every student at Ithaca College learns be some basic things about sustainability,” said Darling.
Brown has similar goals for the near future,
“And to now see that sweet spot where you get academics and operations together students like it because they get to learn about it and they can see an impact and make a difference on where they live.”
Ithaca College has certainly broken ground on efforts towards being sustainable they are, “seeing a tremendous growth in those opportunities for students,” said Brown.
However, both Brown and Darling confessed that there is a lot more work to be done.
“People have to be told, it has to be made simple, and they have to be constantly reminded,” said Darling in reference to recycling on campus.
