Indiana University

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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Last modified: Thursday, June 14, 2007

IU announces new sustainability interns

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 2007

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- As part of a rapidly expanding effort to address issues of environmental and social sustainability on its Bloomington campus, 13 undergraduate and graduate students at Indiana University have been named recipients of internships in a new sustainability internship program.

Coordinated by the IU Task Force for Sustainabiltiy, the interns will work with IU faculty and staff to gather data about the current status of sustainability on the Bloomington campus and to survey the sustainability activities of peer institutions. All of the information gathered will be compiled during the summer and used to develop a framework for campus sustainability that the task force will present this fall.

The IU Task Force for Sustainabiltiy, which was established in March 2007 by Terry Clapacs, vice president for administration, is co-chaired by Paul Sullivan, deputy vice president for administration, and Michael Hamburger, professor of geological sciences. The sustainability internship program is jointly sponsored by the offices of Michael McRobbie, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs and IU's president-elect, and Clapacs.

Funding for the summer internship program was secured at the end of the spring semester and a call for applicants was issued to the student body in late April.

"We were absolutely overwhelmed and encouraged by the enthusiastic response to our internship announcement," said Hamburger. "We received over 200 applications from an extraordinarily well-qualified and engaged group of students. It bodes well for the future of IU -- and our society."

Benjamin Schultz, lecturer in IU's Kelley School of Business, and Nicole Schonemann, director of the Community Outreach and Partnerships in Service Learning, are the coordinators of the summer internship program.

"The internships provide students with an opportunity to focus on areas of interest and to apply skills acquired in the classroom to an important societal problem," said Schultz.

In addition to their individual projects, the interns will come together for seminars, discussions and tours of IU's critical environmental operations, including the university central heating plant and chilled water plant.

"When the interns might otherwise be working quite independently, bringing them together throughout the summer encourages them to share and build on each other's research," said Schonemann. "This also provides them with the opportunity to develop a sense of both collegiality and community interested and engaged in these issues."

The summer interns and their areas of responsibility are:


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