Texas State’s Faculty Senate contemplated campus sustainability and conservation efforts after reviewing a campus research fellow report at its Sept. 8 meeting.
Professor of horticulture Dr. Tina Cade presented Faculty Senate with research collected by her and her graduate assistant that measures the perceptions of sustainability initiatives within the Texas State community.
“The purpose of this study is to develop, administer and analyze a survey that looks at our entire campus community, faculty, staff and students, and determine their awareness of and attitudes toward current and potential sustainability initiatives,” Cade said.
The survey collected examined how people felt about the university’s water and electricity usage, questioned if Texas State has taught students to live stainable lifestyles and how people can be more involved in community service efforts.
Survey results state 45.94% of respondents rate the university’s sustainability efforts as moderate with some improvements needed. Additionally, 54.01% of respondents believed collecting rainwater on campus is extremely important and 45.40% also thought adding sustainably workshops to promote sustainable lifestyles was extremely important.
The Senate agreed action needs to be made in decreasing the university’s carbon footprint. Some members suggested more opportunities could come under new leadership support once President Denise Trauth retires. A few efforts considered were planting more trees on campus, painting building roofs white rather than maroon and allowing campus buildings to have an automatic shut-off motion detector lighting.
As of now, Faculty Senate will continue collecting information from the campus community and will work together to decide what stainability efforts to pursue.
The Senate also voted to keep the past year’s Faculty Development Leave review process, which is a program sponsoring development leave projects for tenured faculty.
Faculty Senate chair Lynn Ledbetter announced that the senate will receive a Title IX presentation on Sept. 22 and decided not to change the Council of Chairs representative requirements for the Honors College and University College after the colleges elected chair representative and it was revealed each college only had one chair for the council.
Survey results push Faculty Senate to promote campus sustainability initiatives
The Quad area sits empty, Tuesday, March 31, 2020, at Texas State. On March 19, Texas State, following many other universities across the U.S., made a decision to move courses online for the remainder of its spring semester. During a normal week at Texas State, students flood through the Quad on the way to and from their classes. Often times, students walk through the area conversing or listening to something in their earphones. Student-led organizations also occupy the area handing out flyers and pamphlets for events and organization information, giving out food and more.
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