Last modified: Monday, March 28, 2011
IU Office of Sustainability announces 2011 summer interns
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- In keeping with its core mission to engage Indiana University students in sustainability-related programming and research focusing on the Bloomington campus, the IU Office of Sustainability has awarded internships to 18 undergraduate and graduate students for the summer.
"Student sustainability interns have been powerful catalysts for change at IU since before the Office of Sustainability started in 2009," said Bill Brown, director of sustainability. "Their research is designed to lead directly to implementation, and many of our most successful initiatives resulted from their ideas and hard work. They do a great job of connecting academic and operational objectives for campus sustainability and they learn a great deal in the process."
Summer 2010 sustainability interns Anne Kostyo, Mckenzie Beverage and Melissa Greulich flex their muscles volunteering at the Bryan House garden.
Six of the 18 interns will work on new and ongoing programs which provide students, faculty, staff and community members with resources and support to live, learn and work more sustainably. These students, coordinating programs such as the Green Teams or Living Sustainably Off-Campus, will be mentored directly by the Office of Sustainability.
The remaining interns will conduct research and create programming under the mentorship of the working groups of the Campus Sustainability Advisory Board. Each of the seven groups (academic initiatives, energy and the built environment, environmental quality and land use, food, resource use and recycling, sustainable computing and transportation) is co-chaired by one IU staff member and one faculty member representing the operational and academic sides of the university, respectively.
"Michael Hamburger, Paul Sullivan and IU Task Force on Sustainability created an incredible network of faculty, staff, students and community members through the establishment of the working groups. Many of these groups have over 20 members, each of whom is passionate and knowledgeable about these issues," said Assistant Director of Sustainability Emilie Rex. "We realized just a year ago that it made good sense to provide each group with at least one intern with whom they could pursue their long-term goals. Each intern in turn received two expert mentors in the group's co-chairs, in addition to the support provided by the rest of the membership."
In addition to their summer of service, the interns will be enrolled in a one-credit seminar, which will seek to place the individual interns' projects in a broader context and help to develop a learning community among participants in the internship program.
The 2011 Summer Internship Program in Sustainability is being sponsored by the Office of Sustainability and by a number of IU's operational programs such as the University Architect's Office, the IU Division of Residential Programs and Services, Utilities Services and Transportation Services.
For complete information on the 2011 summer interns and their projects, see https://www.indiana.edu/~sustain/Intern/su_interns_11.html.
Interns and projects mentored through the Office of Sustainability include:
- Amy Allen -- Green Teams Program
- Rachel Fullmer -- Living Sustainably Off-Campus
- Ben Calvin -- Faculty/Staff and Student Orientation Guides
- Bridget Flynn -- Sustainability and the First Year Experience
- Will McHenry -- IU Energy Challenge
- John Hageman -- Greening of the IU Athletics Department
Interns and projects mentored through the Campus Sustainability Advisory Board include:
- Elizabeth Davis -- Academic Initiatives: Sustainability Research Clearinghouse
- Nolan Hendon -- Energy and the Built Environment: Utility Conservation Project
- Sara Dille -- Environmental Quality and Land Use: Fume Hood Efficiency and Labs 21 Pilot
- Jason Hewitt -- Environmental Quality and Land Use: IU Bloomington Wetland and Stream Inventory
- Stephanie Hopkins -- Food: IU Bloomington Campus Garden Initiative
- Sara Minard -- Food: Fall Harvest Festival
- Alexi Lamm -- Resource Use and Recycling: Hoosier to Hoosier Community Sale
- Meredith Dowling -- Resource Use and Recycling: No Waste Program
- Danni McPherron -- Sustainable Computing: Document Management Policies
- Katrina Folsom -- Sustainable Computing: Electronic Waste Collection
- Rachel Abrahams -- Transportation: Bike Friendly Campus Initiative
For additional information on the Office of Sustainability, visit https://www.indiana.edu/~sustain. For more information on the Internship Program in Sustainability, visit https://www.indiana.edu/~sustain/Intern/index.html.
