UI Green Campus Initiative

Engineering Students Band Together to Try
To Help Environment

By Traci Finch
The Daily Iowan
Monday, November 15, 2004

Trips to Mexico, a campuswide career fair, and a Green campus initiative involving the "Turn off the Lights" campaign are all activities some UI engineering students have added to their résumés in the past two years.

Engineers for a Sustainable World, a group made up of mostly UI engineering students that promotes sustainability locally and internationally, has only been officially active for a little over a year and a half. It consists of 25 regular members.

However, the students, described as "very dedicated," have already received national recognition for their efforts.
UI junior Mark Kresowik (right) and sophomore Gabriel Hoy post stickers urging people to save energy in the IMU. The pair are members of the Engineers for a Sustainable World; they have posted more than 600 stickers around campus. After hearing about students' international service work of what was then known as Engineers for a Sustainable Future, the national organization Engineers Without Frontiers changed its name to Engineers for a Sustainable World.

"Once they met us, they liked the sustainable concept, so they took our name," said Marcelo Mena, one of the founders of what then became the UI version of the group.

The group, whose members have had discussions with a NASA scientist about global warming, was formed after an engineering honors symposium in April 2003.

"We were meeting constantly," Mena said, adding that the UI's group is much more progressive than the national chapter.

"We could use our engineering skills for the benefit of the environment."

One of the first major issues the local group tackled was water education in impoverished countries. A group of 10 students traveled to Xicotepec, Mexico, to raise awareness about the water cycle.

"There is a better way of living that does not involve being sick all the time," said Georgette Stern, a graduate student in biomedical engineering. The Iowa City native joined Engineers for a Sustainable World when it was formed because she wanted to see the university act more environmentally responsible.

"This is important to our college campus, because college is where so many of us learn about life," she said.

A recent collaboration with Facilities Management, UI Student Government, and other student organizations such as i-Renew has brought the engineering group's message directly to students by decorating light switches around campus. The posters, which proclaim "Save Some Green ... Turn it Off," have been placed in every general-education building on campus.

The energy-saving campaign comes after UI President David Skorton's General Education Fund Task Force recommended that the university reduce the annual utilities budget by $1.5 million over the next three years. The posters, provided by MidAmerican Energy, will stay up for approximately six months.

"[Engineers for a Sustainable World] is helping our effort to spread the word about energy conservation," said Don Guckert, the associate vice president for Facilities Management. He called the group's members a "positive influence."

UI Student Government President Lindsay Schutte, who calls herself an "environmentalist who can't come to meetings," sees the need for an energy-conservation group on a college campus.

"It's definitely one of the most pressing issues that our generation can take on," she said.

E-mail DI reporter Traci Finch at:

traci-finch@uiowa.edu