As climate change and protection of natural resources has become an increasingly large issue in the United States and around the world, college campuses are striving to employ "greener" practices. Recycling programs, hands-on environmental educational programs and the implementation of cleaner sources of energy are emphasizing more sustainable living practices at almost all colleges in the nation.

Brandeis is no exception, as efforts are being made to make the campus more eco-friendly with the development of the Brandeis Sustainability Fund, which was created to help students implement their own sustainable ideas on campus and also to educate students on the importance of living sustainably.

One recent Brandeis effort was the "GO GREEN & Beyond" program that took place at the beginning of this year's midyear orientation. It was led by four students who took Prof. Laura Goldin's (AMST) Environmental Studies Class, "Greening the Ivory Tower." This is a hands-on course in the fall semester that focuses on the study, design and implementation of sustainable practices.

As a final project, students Robyn Blumberg '11, Elana Reinholtz '11, Amira Mintz-Morgenthau '12 and Jordan Longert '11 chose to design their own individual ways of making the midyear orientation more sustainable and environmentally educational.

Longert came up with the idea of having an "eco-tour" in which midyears were taken on a tour of Brandeis that showcased the most sustainable locations across campus. Longert was responsible not only for organizing the tours but also for leading several of them.

"As a senior, I felt like I never had anything to educate me about this type of stuff until this year," Longert said in an interview, emphasizing that students have the right to know what is happening on campus when it comes to sustainability efforts.

"Students really needed to know the second they got here that Brandeis really does want to become a more sustainable environment, and we really are trying to make an impact not just on campus, but also in Waltham," Longert continued.

The tour featured nine stops, beginning with the examination of the porous pavement designed to reduce water runoff on the walkway between the Village and the Shapiro Admissions Center and concluding with a visit to the rooftop gardens of the new Mandel Center for the Humanities. Also included on the tour were the solar panels on the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center; the Chapels Field Wetlands behind the library, which serve as a basin for water runoff that would otherwise flood Chapels Field; and the highly energy-efficient solar trash compactors located throughout campus.

The other three students involved in "GO GREEN & Beyond" also incorporated their creative ideas into orientation. Blumberg ran the "Give & Go Move-In Market," a program that gathered up unused belongings left behind by students studying abroad, which were then either sold to midyears or donated to several different charitable organizations, including the Global Thrift Store in Waltham.

Mintz-Morgenthau created a "green quiz" for the midyears to fill out, while Reinholtz undertook the task of keeping the entire orientation paperless. Rather than all orientation materials being printed, a compressed zip file was sent to each new student's e-mail address to avoid unnecessary paper waste. While the group originally applied for a grant from the BSF for the purchase of bamboo flash drives to give to every midyear, the idea was rejected in favor of five other student proposals, which were awarded a total of $47,000.

While the five BSF projects are currently in the works, according to Janna Cohen-Rosenthal '03, sustainability coordinator at Brandeis, because the students are heavily involved with their design and development, the date of the completed implementation of all the ideas is not yet clear.

"I really want the students to act as the managers of their projects. … It was the students' idea, it is the students' money, and part of the value is having the real-life experience of implementing a project," Cohen-Rosenthal said.

The BSF and "GO GREEN & Beyond" midyear orientation are only the beginning of the plans to make Brandeis a more eco-friendly campus in the future, according to Cohen-Rosenthal. In 2007, University President Emeritus Jehuda Reinharz signed the American University College Presidents' Climate Commitment, an agreement signed by hundreds of other schools to eventually become climate-neutral campuses.

This means that the campus must drastically change the way that it thinks about and uses energy. "The biggest long-term goal is to become climate-neutral by 2050, and we also set some short-term goals for next 5 years," Rosenthal said. She stressed, however, that focusing on just one aspect of sustainability on campus would not help Brandeis attain its ultimate goal. "You really have to be doing a little bit of everything," she said. When comparing the overall efforts of Brandeis to become more environmentally sustainable with those of other schools, Cohen-Rosenthal is optimistic but also feels that there is plenty of work to be done.

"We are not at the top of the pack, but we are definitely not at the bottom. I think we are doing a lot of things that we should be doing," she said.

One setback to Brandeis becoming a more sustainable campus is the fact that there has been little recent investment in upgrading many aging buildings, as the focus has instead been on building new ones, according to Cohen-Rosenthal. Instead, she believes that Brandeis has been most successful in terms of education and student projects.

"That is where we have been excelling. Things like the BSF [and] the 'Greening' class where students do hands-on projects are examples, and especially in doing the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System report, I have realized that we are very strong in those areas. We have to move forward in other areas, but we are trying," she said.

STARS, a program designed to provide a framework for colleges and universities to gauge progress toward sustainability, is an account of all energy consumption across campus that will likely be released later this month. After its completion, it will be easier to "see the full picture of sustainability and see the areas in which we are lagging," she says.