May 3, 2007
Etc: Campus news and notes
GREEN POWER: The UW was recognized recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the 2006-2007 Individual Conference Champion for purchasing more green power than any other school in the Pacific-10 Conference. The EPA has been tracking green power purchasing among collegiate athletic conferences through its College & University Green Power Challenge, with 33 schools and 16 conferences participating nationwide.
The UW beat out its conference rivals by purchasing nearly 15 million kilowatt-hours of green power annually, representing 6 percent of the school’s annual purchased electricity use. Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro. It is considered cleaner than conventional sources of electricity and has lower carbon dioxide emissions — a greenhouse gas linked to global climate change. Purchases of green power help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide.
The EPA estimates that the UW’s purchase is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power more than 1,200 average American homes each year. This purchase will have the impact of reducing the equivalent amount of CO2 emissions from more than 2,000 passenger cars annually.
SERVING SCHOOLS: UW Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity employee Loueta Johnson, Yakima Valley GEAR UP director, has been awarded the 2007 Washington Association of School Administrators Community Service Award. Superintendents bestow this award on a community member whom they feel has done the most to help the students in their schools. Loueta was nominated by Toppenish School District Superintendent Steve Myers.
ROAD CLEANUP: Kudos to the staff of the College of Forest Resources’s Center for Sustainable Forestry at Pack Forest for completing another “Adopt-a-Highway” road cleanup on April 25. Pack Forest staff collected 15 bags of litter, eight bags of recyclable materials, four tires, three computer monitors and one television along the three miles of road the center has adopted.
PREEMINENT PODCASTS: UW Advising Podcasts developed by advisers Clay Schwenn and Kurt Xyst have been selected as recipients of an Outstanding Advising Technology Innovation Certificate of Merit from the National Academic Advising Association. The podcasts, which provide information about advising programs at the University, were chosen on the basis of their content, interactivity, clarity and creativity.
BOOKED: Charles Johnson, UW professor of English and noted author, is the subject of a new book published by the University Press of Mississippi. In Charles Johnson: The Novelist as Philosopher, leading scholars examine Johnson’s literary corpus and address the author’s major themes, ideas and influence. The book’s editors are Marc C. Conner and William R. Nash.
DEFENDING DEOMCRACY: Peter Soverel, part time lecturer in the Jackson School of International Studies, has been accepted as an Academic Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He will participate in an educational program that focuses on the threat of terrorism to democracy.
