Students can expect four new bike racks to be installed near the Classroom Building by April 10, courtesy of the student green fee. This is only one of the many projects in the works by the Green Fee Committee, which assembled on March 31 for their monthly public meeting.
The committee, made up of students, faculty and Facilities Management staff, works a 3 dollar fee, taken from each student every semester, to promote energy saving and sustainable practices on campus. They are often implementing smaller, more manageable projects while continuously planning for larger, more costly ones. The bike racks, as well as 24 new motion sensors (14 in Center for Inner City Studies bathrooms and 10 in the main campus tunnels) about to be installed, are among the relatively simple, less expensive projects.
At the meeting, the committee agreed that a large, visible project should happen soon. The Green Fee Committee has wanted to host a solar project for some time, but such a project has always been cost prohibitive. Members of the committee have continued seeking proposals from different companies and researching possible government grants that could significantly bring down the cost. Currently, the committee is looking at using solar power for heating the pool in the Physical Education Complex.
The other possible ambitious project discussed at the meeting was replacing the roof on the B Building with a “green roof”, or a complicated rooftop garden, designed to improve insulation while increasing habitat and vegetation in urban environments. Prices for this type of project can range anywhere from 6 to 25 dollars per square foot. It increases the life of a roof, possibly turning a 20-year roof into a 50-year roof. Such a rooftop garden has many educational possibilities, too, but the logistics of getting students on the roof, and the possible liability of doing so, are limiting factors to exploring those possibilities. If this project were to happen, the aim would be to get the green roof up and running before making it accessible and safe for students and community members.
The next meeting will be held on April 22 as an open community event during the upcoming Earth Day celebration. Guest speaker and expert on green technology, Dave Hampton of HamptonAvery Architecture, will be answering the committee’s questions regarding current and future projects. Everyone is welcome to attend and ask questions or propose ideas to the committee. For more information on the student green fee, go to the committee’s Web site at http://www.neiu.edu/~greenfee.