University of Florida Office of Sustainability

The Research and Education Task Force of the UF Sustainability Committee invites you to discuss our proposal to generate campus-wide interdisciplinary Program for Sustainability and a Healthy Environment at UF.

We have been asked to develop a Legislative Budget Request (LBR) for consideration by the University and by the Florida Legislature. Your input is very valuable to us and we hope you attend the presentation next Friday, March 2, at noon in the Rion Ballroom

The Office of Sustainability will graciously provide lunch for participants, but we ask that you RSVP to Prof. Tanzer at tanzer@ufl.edu or Prof. Ankersen at ankersen@law.ufl.edu by next Tuesday afternoon.

We envision this program to coordinate all the excellent teaching and research already being done at UF and help leverage our collective resources for maximum advantage nationally and beyond. We are not proposing a program that either duplicates or competes with existing efforts.

Please, join us next Friday at noon in 404 Reitz Union. If you are unable to attend but interested in being involved, please let us know.

Eva Czarnecka-Verner

Tel: 352-392-2400

The following is the agenda for the Research and Education Task Force of the UF Sustainability Committee lunch discussion for proposal to generate campus-wide interdisciplianry Program for Sustainability and a Health Environment at UF.

1. Welcome & Background - Eva Czarnecka, Chair, Sustainability Committee
2. Our vision: Practicing Theory: Theorizing Practice - A campus-wide academic program on sustainability - Kim Tanzer, College of Design, Construction, and Planning
3. The Campus as Laboratory: The Office of Sustainability - Dedee Delongpre, Director
4. The State as Laboratory: Sustainability Service Learning and Extension - Tom Ankersen, College of Law
5. Facilitated Discussion - Bruce Delaney, Florida Natural Resources Leadership Institute
6. Next Steps - the political process
7. Meeting adjourned

In my opinion, Sustainability Communities must urge their Congressmen and Senators to create, sponsor Legislation, which establish Legislative measures to begin limiting green house gas emmissions from commercial transportation vehicles and obvious production technology, which may be improved without exorbitant expense. For example, in the commercial trucking industry, in my opinion, by 2009 all Commercial Trucks must, "must" be required to install auxiliary power units on all commercial trucks in order to enable the prohibition of idling of commercial vehicles while the commercial truck is stopped and Driver resting or in a temporary pause for map evaluation or other temp stops. The idling is costing large commercial trucking companies at a 1 million dollars per day and more in fuel costs just for truck idling. How much green house gasses are created by commercial truck idling?

I strongly believe that Truckers have the right to keep themselves cool in summer months and warm in winter months, however, idling a large diesel engine in order to keep the small cab and sleeper-birth of a commercial truck cool or warm is very irresponsibly-extravagant. In my opinion, strick measures must be established as soon as possible of with regards to commercial truck idling! I support Al Gore's efforts 100% to build awareness regarding pollution and green house gas problems, however, next step plans must be realistically established and set in motion of the establishment of production systems upgrade goals and new Legislation, which enable and facilitate immediate next step efforts to revitalize, modernize, Greenizate the Traditional Industrial Complex.

If responsibilities continue on the behalf of the Industrial Complex to allow old production technologies to continue to pollute and emit high levels of green house gasses, in my opinion, the Industrial Complex, at some point in time, in the near future will be negligent of Genocide.

Sincerely,
Ross McClelland

There will be a meeting of the Academic Programs Subcommittee on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 at 9:30 a.m. in the Assistant VP's Conference Room in Building 700.

Minutes of the Sustainabilty Committee LBR Subcommittee meeting December 27th, 2006 Building 700, Administrative Offices, Physical Plant.

The Sustainability Committee LBR subcommittee met on December 27, 2006, from 9:30 am to 12 pm in Building 700 at the administrative offices of Committee Member Allan Preston. Notice was posted on the Office of Sustainability Committee website and all Committee members were invited to attend.
Committee members attending were Chair Eva Czarnecka, Allan Preston, Llinda Crider, Kim Tanzer. Tom Ankersen attended and offered to serve as staff liaison to the sub-committee.

The meeting began with Tom explaining his reasons for resigning from the committee and reaffirming his willingness to have the Conservation Clinic serve as staff to the committee for the purpose of advancing the work the Clinic began on academic programs in the Summer and Fall of 2006. Tom explained that sunshine law requirements would make it difficult to serve on the committee while staffing it and that the committee might make better use of him and the Clnic in a staff capacity. He also recommended that the committee review sunshine law requirements and offered to conduct that review.

Tom described his meeting with the Provost at which he resigned as a committee member and discussed with her the prospect and process for a legislative budget request proposal that would meet with the Provost's criteria and University priorities. According to Tom, key among these is ensuring that the request fits within the University's values as evidenced in the strategic plan, does not duplicate or otherwise enhance other programs in the state, represents a well thought-out program as evidenced by a thorough review of programs in state and at peer and other institutions. Any proposed program must have the support of the deans of participating colleges as evidenced in their annual program review. Preference was expressed for recurring as opposed to non-recurring state funds, and renovation rather than new construction for any contemplated physical space. Including campus operations aspects of the UF sustainability initiative could be contemplated. The proposal format remains the same as in prior years, but can be more elaborate if necessary.

The subcommittee then developed a short questionnaire that would serve as the basis for a survey of peer and other campus academic sustainability programs and Allan Preston was charged with formalizing this for distribution to the committee. Eva will charge individual committee members with calling/e-mailing the directors or other responsible faculty/staff at other programs to document their experiences/lessons learned in order to inform the LBR development process. Other programs and their contact information are listed at Appendix 4 of the Conservation Clinic's sustainability report. The Clinic will compile the results of the Committee survey.

The Committee then deliberated on the substance of an academic proposal and developed an outline for a program with the working title: "Program for Sustainability and a Healthy Environment." Tom redacted the discussion in draft outline format, a copy of which is attached and which will be presented for discussion by the committee as a whole at its next scheduled meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m.

Thomas T. Ankersen
Legal Skills Professor and Director
Conservation Clinic
Center for Governmental Responsibility
University of Florida Levin College of Law P.O. Box 117629
Gainesville, FL 32611-7629
352-273-0835 (voice)
352-392-1457 (fax)
ankersen@law.ufl.edu
http://conservation.law.ufl.edu

Minutes from the Academic Sustainability Subcommittee meeting on December 27, 2006.

The meeting took place from 9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. in Bldg. 700. The following members attended the meeting: Tom Ankersen, Linda Crider, Allen Preston, Kim Tanzer and Eva Czarnecka-Verner.

During the meeting, members focused on generating ideas regarding writing the Legislative Budget Request for creating the "Program for Sustainability & Healthy Environment" at UF. Tom Ankersen is going to provide more detailed description of the minutes from this meeting at a later time.

However, the Academic Subcommittee URGENTLY needs help from the remaining Committee members to survey what other universities accomplished in the area of sustainability-related academic programs. A guiding list of questions will be provided by Tom to help us do the research.

I would like to ask the following Committee members to survey the following peer institutions (based on Tom's Appendix 4) and report to the full Committee as soon as feasible. Please let me know if there are any such reports for Committee meeting on January 10, 2007.

Arizona State University - Eva Czarnecka-Verner
Columbia University - Linda Crider
Duke University - Dedee DeLongpre
University of Michigan - Martin Gold
University of Minnesota - Mark Hostetler
Missouri Southern State Univeristy - James Ferguson
Oregon State University - Stephen Mulkey
Portland State University - Charles Kibert
Michigan Technological University - Allen Preston
Florida International Univeristy - Eva Czarnecka-Verner
George Washington University - Don Rockwood
Penn State University - Kim Tanzer
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania - Laura Ruhl
Ithaca College, NY ??
New College of California ??

If there is a problem and you are unable to help the Subcommittee, please contact me.

Eva

Eva Czarnecka-Verner, Ph.D.
Belvedere Professor of Biological Sciences
A. Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
The Chair of the Sustainability Committee
University of Florida
Microbiology & Cell Science Department
Bldg. 981, P.O. Box 110700
Museum Rd & No Name Rd
Gainesville, FL 32611-0700
Tel: 352-392-2400
Fax: 352-392-5922
E-mail: evascar@ufl.edu

In my opinion, Green Industrialists must establish a Formal Lobby a Green-Bureaucracy-System in order to represent Green Industrial Production Technology Systems which will enable a green revitalization and clean up of traditional Industrial Complex, to include: Green International Standards Commission-Council, Green International Quality Commission-Council, Regional, National and International Green Chambers of Commerce, Clearing House for the positioning of Engineering Talent, Inventions, Patents and Products, Green Programs currently in progress, a Green Inventors Bureau, and Green Associations.

Sincerely,
Ross McClelland

There will be a meeting of the Academic Programs Task Force on Friday, February 9, 2007, at 12:30 p.m. in 231 ARCH.

The agenda for the February 9, 2007, Academic Programs Task Force meeting is as follows:

1. Continue any discussion from 2/7 Sustainability Committee meeting shortened due to lack of time.
2. Review status of LBR discussions to date and refine LBR proposal.
3. Plan format for discussions with broader faculty affinity group.
4. Other

There will be a meeting on Tuesday, December 5, 2006, at 3:30-5:00 p.m. to be held at the Center for Governmental Responsibility at the Law School. This meeting will be specifically for the subcommittee on Academic Programs, but all committee members are welcome and encouraged to participate.

The proposed Agenda is:

1. Review of meeting with Provost for the full committee
2. (If necessary) An update on teh Sustainability Mini-grant program
3. Update on the University-wide certificate planning for Legislative Budget Requst (LBR)
4. Provost Fellow situation

Sustainability Committee
Academic Programs Subcommittee
Meeting Minutes
December 6, 2006

The following Sustainability Committee members were present for the subcommittee meeting:

Tom Ankersen
Linda Crider
Mark Hostetler
Stephen Mulkey
Allen Preston
Kim Tanzer
Eva Czarnecka-Verner

The subcommittee members selected Tom Ankersen as the Chair of the Academic subcommittee who will direct further work on the LBR. Stephen Mulkey was very helpful in providing insights into his experiences in writing an LBR on the Program in Land Use Dynamics. It was very informative and very helpful. The Academic subcommittee will meet one more time in December to continue working on the LBR.

As of today, 8 out of 20 Committee members replied to Eva’s call regarding the joint meeting with the Infrastructure Council on December 12. Only 2 out of 8 are able to actually be present at that meeting. Eva will provide this information to Peggy Carr with the request that the meeting be postponed until a later time.

During the next meeting (date and agenda will provided later):
1. Linda Crider and Allen Preston will provide report on the meeting with Focus the Nation
2. Tom Ankersen will provide a report on the progress with the LBR
3. Kim Tanzer will report on the status of the campus wide certificate in sustainability efforts
4. Jeff Burkhardt will discuss the status of the mini-grant program.

Additionally we need to start discussions regarding a strategic plan for campus sustainability and the Indicator’s Report.

The meeting was adjourned.