PICA Summer Jobs Available

The Program in Community and Agroecology (PICA) is hiring for 4 paid gardening positions this summer. The positions are part-time, starting after finals and ending early September. The pay rate is $9 per hour.

 Permaculture Workshop

PICA is a living/learning program located at the Village in the Lower Quarry. PICA strives to promote sustainability on campus through organic gardening programs, the development of a compost waste management system, hosting sustainability related events, collaborations with other student organizations, and holding seminars which link academic knowledge with hands-on experience in the field. It is a vibrant educational environment in which to study sustainable living and food systems. For more information about PICA click here. 

 PICA Garden Liaison Job Description

This student will connect the PICA garden with other campus gardens during Summer 2013. He/she will coordinate skill shares, collaborative garden projects, and shared workdays between the gardens. The Garden Liaison will also work with a team of students to maintain the educational gardens at the Sustainable Living Center (SLC) and help train new leaders in the student gardens on campus. Garden responsibilities includecomposting, greenhouse propagation, watering, planting, weeding, mulching, pruning, organic pest management, harvesting, crop planning, and leading garden workshops.

PICA Garden Summer Worker Job Description

They are hiring three PICA Garden Summer Workers. These students will work to maintain the educational gardens at the Sustainable Living Center (SLC) and assist with other program needs. Garden responsibilities include composting, greenhouse propagation, watering, planting, weeding, mulching, pruning, organic pest management, harvesting, crop planning, and supporting garden workshops. Must be willing and able to work outside for long hours, move heavy objects, trap pests, and perform repetitive tasks such as weeding and mulching as needed.  The work would be for 3 hours per day, 3 days a week.

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PICA is seeking students with an interest in sustainable food systems, who are committed, hard-working, able to work well individually or as part of a team, and follow-directions with limited supervision. Preference will be given to students who plan to live on campus at PICA housing in The Village for the 2013-2014 school year.

  

Please email your resume and cover letter to Bee Vadakan at vvadakan@ucsc.edu and state which position you are applying for. Be sure to include your phone number so we can reach you promptly.

If you are interested in a summer position, in addition to submitting your resume, please come to volunteer for a shift working in the garden. The available shifts are Wed, May 29^th from 1:30pm-4:30pm and on Friday, May 31^st from 9-12. Please email Bee Vadakan what shift you plan to attend.

Applications are due by Sunday, June 2nd at Midnight

Zero Waste Events: Student Perspective June 2013

As the year comes to an end the Zero Waste Team has been wrapping up some amazing pilot projects that got launched this year.  Along with the successful Bring Your Own Mug (BYOM) campaign, collaboration with PTAGS on paper towel removal from the dorms, collaboration on the creation of the position of Student Sustainability Advisors, and the Green Lab Certification Program, the Zero Waste Team has been working on the Zero Waste Commitment for student organizations on campus and a zero waste commencement 2013!

Zero Waste Event Commitment 

The goal for this pilot project is to increase the number of Zero Waste events on campus. Since a Zero Waste Event often requires more planning and support than a normal event, we hope to address this by providing training, materials, planning and volunteer support to help student groups make a commitment to Zero Waste. A Zero Waste Event (or a “Zee Wee” as nicknamed by Wikipedia) is an event that follows sustainable practices to send the least possible amount of waste to the landfill. This involves having a waste station to sort out trash, recyclables and compost. Check out the Sustainability Office  How to Hold a Zero Waste Event Guide  or the Plastic Free Blog  to learn more.

Milestones:

1. Made a pitch and conducted brief trainings for Tri Chi Sorority, CARe Project, Chinese Student Association, Student Union Assembly
2. Created an official logo to build a visual identity for the campaign
3. Designed a Zero Waste Event Kit to be given out to orgs in the Fall
4. Created a Trash Talkers’ pamphlet in collaboration with SEC
   
   Are you tired of waste at your events? Want your organization to be greener and help UCSC achieve Zero Waste by 2020? If interested in making the Commitment Pledge to make a future event zero waste, contact us now at zerowasteucsc@gmail.com  

Zero Waste Commencement 2013

The Zero Waste Team is working on making graduation at all ten colleges a zero waste event this year. Graduation is a wonderful opportunity to show the entire student community and the many visitors that our campus is committed to sustainability and our Zero Waste goal by 2020! We’ve partnered with Candy Berlin, Program Coordinator, UC Santa Cruz Dining, Zaunna Wells, Operations Manager, UC Santa Cruz Conference Services, Steve O'Neil, Bookstore, and Bob McCampbell, Executive Director Bay Tree Bookstore to make all ten college graduation ceremonies zero waste!

By providing waste stations for attendees to recycle and compost their waste, selling and giving away reusable water bottles at each ceremony with water refill stations, and promoting Zero Waste through signage and trained “Trash Talkers” to redirect recycling and compost from the landfill at the ceremony, we are truly committed to achieving our Zero Waste goal by 2020!

Chancellor Announces Sustainability Challenge

On May 21st, students, staff, faculty, and community members gathered in the Stevenson Event Center for the 5th Annual UCSC End of the Year Sustainability Celebration. While enjoying food from UCSC Catering, students spoke with attendees about their project posters that represented the work they have done this year.

Around 2 PM, Chancellor Blumenthal took the stage, speaking about the accomplishments of our campus this year and recognizing those who have participated in various certification programs, those who have just completed their first year of sustainability work, and those who are graduating this year. He also announced his new campaign, the Chancellor's Sustainability Challenge and invited everyone to participate in it next year. He will be spearheading the Chancellor's Sustainability Challenge to encourage all of us on campus to do our part to reduce waste. Stay tuned for more information about how you can get involved next year!

Throughout the event, there were also six presentations from students, staff, faculty, and community leaders about the sustainability work that has happened on and off campus. Presentations included the Green Labs program, the Bike Transit Planning Team, Real Food, the Green Wharf, and more!

After presentations, the People's Bike Generator was available for anyone to ride and power music. Lacey Raak, UCSC Sustainability Director, took it for a stationary spin, as did Sarah Latham, Vice Chancellor for Business and Administrative Services, and John Barnes, Campus Architect. To see photos from this event and read the project posters that were submitted, view our Facebook album here.

UCSC to Go Paper Towel-Free in Dorms Next Year

UC Santa Cruz is going paper towel-free in the residence halls next year after a successful pilot program at Stevenson College this year. Following years of student interest in this project and discussions with administrators and staff all over campus in the past year, the University has decided that in order to support our goals of zero waste by 2020 and to promote more sustainable behaviors among students in our residence halls, paper towels will no longer be provided for drying hands in shared residential restrooms. After all, 34% -- by volume -- of the waste coming out of the residence halls is paper towels. That's a lot of waste that can easily be reduced by simply removing the towels from these restrooms.

Instead of providing wasteful paper towels, students will be asked to bring a supply of reusable cloth hand towels to school with them in the fall, just as they will bring their own reusable bath towel and other supplies. Students, if you'll be living in the residence halls next year, don't forget to pack your own reusable hand towels!

This is an exciting accomplishment that not only makes sense (10 years ago, there weren't paper towels in the residence halls, anyway), but it shows that student-initiated projects can really achieve campus-wide change. It sometimes takes time and conversations with many different stakeholders, but it is possible to see a sustainability vision for the campus come to fruition.

Congratulations to everyone who has been working on this project, including Path to A GreenerStevenson, the Sustainability Office Zero Waste Team, and many other students, staff, andadministrators who made this possible. Special thanks to Sue Mathews, the Associate Vice Chancellor in Colleges Housing and Educational Services for being the institutional leader who helped make this project a reality.

Read about the history of this project in Stevenson College and why the campus is choosing to remove paper towels.

Summertime Dining Updates

UCSC Dining has some summer updates and reminders to share:

Looking for a container to hold refreshing water in these upcoming summer months? Green water bottles are back in stock at all of the dining halls and cafes on campus! Ditch the disposable water bottle and get yours today--discounts on refills, too.

Staying for the summer? Three dining halls on campus will be open all summer long, so plan to come enjoy breakfast, lunch or dinner there. No need to drive off campus--eat fresh and eat local! Dining will be stocking up on plenty of organic greens and vegetables for their salad bars along with yummy fruits from the UCSC Farm! And if you're looking for a coffee fix this summer, select Perk locations will also be offering summer hours! In addition, there are staff dining discounts in effect all summer long.

Check the Dining website for details including open locations and times.

Bike Transit Team Identifies Safety Improvements

Represented by a logo showing the progression of humanity from ape to modern human to cyclist, a trio of UCSC students have created a proposal for the City of Santa Cruz that identifies high priority resolutions to unsafe bicycling areas on the west side of Santa Cruz.

To promote bicycle riding in the city of Santa Cruz and reduce carbon emissions, the City of Santa Cruz Climate Action plan includes promotion of biking as an alternative mode of transportation. To help City of Santa Cruz meet the needs of current and future cyclists in Santa Cruz, an isolated study of transit to and from the University of California Santa Cruz has been conducted by the Impact Designs: Engineering & Sustainability through Student Service (IDEASS) Bicycle Transit Planning Team (BTPT).

Brenden Fant (Environmental Studies '13), Austin Seller (Environmental Studies and Biology '13), and Anthony Siao (Environmental Studies and Technology Information Management '14) worked on the project with Ross Clark, the City of Santa Cruz Climate Change Action Manager. The team compiled data from three sources and used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to construct maps outlining frequently used roads, road quality, and cycling collision locations in order to "increase the level of safety for cyclists in high traffic corridors," said Fant.

The BTPT accumulated data through a survey regarding the most utilized streets during transit, which was taken by nearly 450 students, staff, faculty, and community members. The team then quality tested these roads with a Bike Environmental Quality Index (BEQI) developed by the San Francisco Department of Public Health that surveyed the safety and usability of roadways for cycling, which included assessing such factors as the speed of vehicle traffic next to the bike lane, the width of the bike lane, if there is parallel parking adjacent to the bike lane, the quality of the pavement surface, traffic calming features (street signs reminding drivers and cyclists that bikes may take the lane, sharrows, etc.), bike parking, and other factors.

"One of our biggest accomplishments in this project was completing the BEQI for sixteen routes," Fant said. "It was a combination of going and riding roads and taking notes to document conditions for each block and looking at Google Maps to confirm conditions we might have missed." In addition to the GIS mapping,  this was one of the most time consuming aspects of the project.

Finally, they combined this data with the cycling and motorist-related collision report data from the City of Santa Cruz over the past 10 years. "We wanted to really focus on accessibility for all of the people of Santa Cruz to ride bikes and feel safe doing so," said Seller. "Hopefully many of them will become bike commuters as a result."

The BTPT presents their findings and an overview of their project at the Fifth Annual UC Santa Cruz Sustainability End of the Year Celebration on May 21.

Using the combined results mapped by GIS (click here to view the maps), the team has identified priority areas for improvements.This prioritization, which features suggestions such as adding more lighting to Bay Street, improving King Street as a bicycle boulevard, intersection improvements on Laurel Street, and more. To read their full report, click here.

They presented to the Santa Cruz City Council on May 28 to provide recommendations that can help the City achieve their biking and carbon emission plans by 2020. To watch their presentation and hear feedback and support from the City Council members, click here. They are also in touch with People Power to discuss how to move ahead with this project and implement the recommended changes.

If the evolution of humanity leads to everyone cycling, then this project is helping to bring us into the future by "providing safer and more accessible roads for students so they can feel more confident about riding their bikes," said Siao.

If you have questions or comments for the team, leave a comment below or email Brenden Fant.

To learn more about the IDEASS program and apply for next year, visit the website. Interested in learning about another IDEASS project from this year? Click here to read about a project that's reusing cooking grease for fuel on the Santa Cruz Wharf.

June 2013: Innovative Approaches to Sustainability at Other Campuses

Here are a few selections of the innovative approaches to sustainability taking place on other college campuses. Each of these examples was chosen because they represent ideas that UCSC could potentially implement in some form, or in some cases, already has begun to. If you see something here that you want to make a reality at UCSC, contact the Sustainability Office and we will help you direct your ideas toward fruition!

College Divestment Campaigns Sweep U.S. Universities
At about 300 colleges across the country, young activists worried about climate change are calling for divestment from fossil fuels. So far only a few small colleges have opted to drop investments in fossil fuel companies, but many campaigns are currently active, from Rhode Island to North Carolina to the Bay Area.

UC Davis Student Union Building Features Exhibit on Water and Sustainability
The Sustainability Showcase has opened its second exhibit for viewing on the first floor of the Memorial Union. The theme of the exhibit is Water: Fact or Fashion and features disposable water bottles and issues surrounding water quality and use. It aims to focus attention on related safety and equity issues on a global scale, as well as issues that hit closer to home, such as the Central Valley, where tap water is unsafe due to high concentrations of nitrates from agriculture.

UCSD Campus Rooftops Serve as Launch Pads for Sustainability Efforts
By the end of 2013, 34 structures on UC San Diego’s campus and its affiliated sites will be equipped with solar photovoltaic panels. Recently, the university also unveiled a vegetative roof, atop Revelle College’s LEED Platinum-certified Charles David Keeling apartments. In addition, more than a dozen wireless sensors that determine the optimal times to gain and expend energy are now poised on UC San Diego rooftops. Solar hot water heating and water collection systems are located above some of the very buildings where UC San Diego students live and learn about climate change and ways to conserve, reuse and recycle.