'Green' Campuses: Workshop to focus on environment

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
News Services Editor

The program is designed for students, faculty and staff who want to conserve both financial and natural resources by learning more about instituting "green" practices on their campuses. It is sponsored by the UB Environmental Task Force and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), in conjunction with the Association of Higher Education Facilities.

Keynote speaker will be Julian Keniry, director of the NWF's campus ecology program and author of "Ecodemia: Campus Environmental Stewardship at the Turn of the 21st Century." She will discuss "Environmental Stewardship and Higher Education: Progress on Green Campuses" at 9:15 a.m. in the Student Union Theater.

The program will feature speakers who have instituted a broad range of envi ronmentally friendly practices on campuses throughout the U.S., including Rochester Institute of Technology; Brown, Cornell, Syracuse and Rutgers universities; the University of Toronto, and UB. Representatives of local and state government and industry also will be featured.

"There has been a nationwide acknowledgment that institutions of higher education need to transform education and research in environmental technology, policy and engineering into public policies both on and off their campuses," said Joseph A. Gardella, chair of the UB Environmental Task Force and professor of chemistry.

"We at UB are proud of our environmental accomplishments and anxious to learn from our colleagues at other campuses about their successes so that we can continue to improve.

"We hope that a regional working group will result from this conference so that we may continue to meet and cooperate on ways to improve the 'greening' of campus operations in this community."

At the same time, he said, the program will address the realities of campus environmental stewardship at a time when campus budgets are tight.

Ronald Nayler, UB associate vice president for university facilities who served as the first chair of the Environmental Task Force and who, along with Senior Vice President Robert Wagner, was responsible for instituting many of UB's environmental initiatives, will discuss "Competing Priorities and the Challenge of Campus Greening."

"The competing priorities that face campus leaders today mean that advocates for change and for environmentally responsible practices must take into account the administrative realities and the fiscal climate at their campuses," said Nayler. "Building credibility through evolutionary changes often sets the stage for future transformative efforts."

Concurrent workshops will be held on Friday, Oct. 18, that discuss environmental innovations in dining services, energy, hazardous materials and waste, landscaping, grounds and transportation, purchasing and office practices, and solid waste and recycling.

The session on Oct. 18 is geared to administrators, operational staff, faculty and students concerned about these areas, while the session on Oct. 19 is designed to provide training to student environmental leaders and activists.

For more information, contact Joseph Gardella at 645-6800, ext. 2111, or gardella@acsu.buffalo.edu, or Walter Simpson, UB energy officer, at 645-3528 or enconser@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu.