Staff and Student Involvement
Over the years, many students and staff members have been involved with sustainability related projects on campus.
In an article published by Broadside on September 15, 2008, it discusses a student led group named GMUEA, the GMU Environmental Awareness group. It was founded roughly a year ago from the article's publication date (Fall 2007). The main goal of the group is to make students more aware about the environment and participate in the club's projects.
As mentioned in the article, last spring, they did a campus clean up of litter and moved Mason's native plant area from a construction area to a safe zone. As said by the club's president Jose Gayoso, "People do care about the issues."
In this article, freshman Ethan White strikes all his classes every Friday to protest about climate change. One motive behind the strike, as stated by him, "So, by striking I'm
saying 'why should I be in class when there is no future to be had?" Most students had questions about the strike, where White states that GMU should reinvest it's money in the energy sector to sustainable school programs.
Appearing in the previous section of newspaper perceptions, the context here is a bit different. People at Mason do care about making a sustainable future, and in this case, they petition in hopes of making the campus a better place to be.
This article discusses the Mason Grounds Shop to create bee havens on campus by planting a variety of garden flowers or wildflowers. The Grounds Shop is supervised by Archie Nesbitt, which oversees all landscaping on GMU.
People have a positive reception of these additional gardens and havens, as the same article talks about Molly Baldovin, an assistant to one of the directors in the School of Music. She enjoys the additional color and life it brings to campus.
One of the articles that was found to be including staff involvement towards campus sustainability. Not only do students care about a sustainable future.
This newspaper article discusses the student and professor led invitiative to construct a wetlands ecosystem in Mason Pond. It was led by associate professor Changwoo Ann to "bring a living ecology to the pond that had grown sedimentary over the years."
Ann also runs a website named EcoScience+Art, which aims to collaborate art with science at GMU to bring people across multiple fields to create a sustainble future. The Rain Project is one project under this initiative, the goal being to clean the water in Mason Pond to create a sustainable habitat.
Another case of staff involvement towards campus sustainability and involving students in the class to learn about why sustainability matters.