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Sustainability Spotlight

GREEN AMBASSADORS

A growing network of Sustainability Ambassadors is striving to address sustainability on campus through a variety of efforts. Coordinated by KU’s Center for Sustainability, the current ambassador network is comprised of 30 staff and 18 faculty members representing a range of academic, administrative and support units.

Since their initial meeting in September, staff ambassadors have taken an active role in identifying what Sara Vancil, ambassador for the Office of Student Financial Aid, calls “new policies and practices that the university can effectively implement in its quest to have a sustainability-friendly campus.” Projects under discussion range from new opportunities for energy and resource conservation to environmentally friendly designs for departmental publications.

Faculty ambassadors will focus their efforts on opportunities to incorporate sustainability concerns into KU curricula, interdisciplinary research projects and service that will assist the campus. Bryan Young, ambassador and associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, sees the network as a means of addressing the changing needs of students.

“Students are very interested in sustainable practices,” Young said, “and we have an opportunity to help them focus and develop their interests to productive ends.”

The center considers the ambassador network to be a key component to moving KU in a more sustainable direction by generating new ideas, establishing partnerships and sharing information about sustainable research and practices with the campus community.

“Sustainability is more than just an alignment with a ‘green’ movement,” said Trevor Loney, ambassador for the University Advising Center. “It is about helping to create a culture where people invest in where they work and live. The ambassador network is at its core trying to help engender that culture on campus.”

The center is seeking additional ambassadors to lend their talents to these initiatives. To find out if your department has a sustainability ambassador or to join the network, visit the Center for Sustainability Web site at www.sustainability. ku.edu/ambassadors.shtml.

TOPONYMS

In June 1945, Gertrude Sellards Pearson, a 1901 alumna, and her husband, Texas oilman Joseph R. Pearson, donated $200,000 to help build student housing. In the next 15 years, two residence halls and three scholarship halls opened. One residence hall, named for her, still houses women; the other, named for him, now is home to the School of Education. Pearson, Grace Pearson and Sellards scholarship halls were named for members of their families. For more, see www.buildings.ku.edu.