It is just a little piece of land, an acre carved out of expansive UConn agricultural fields, just north of the main campus in Storrs.

But on it Zbigniew “Polik” Grabowski ’08 (CLAS) and a team of young farmers are striving to grow a future that, in some respects, looks remarkably like the past.

The EcoGarden produces hearty vegetables without the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers for food prepared in UConn dining halls, below.

Photos by Peter Morenus

Grabowski, a senior ecology and evolutionary biology major, is a leader in the University’s EcoGarden Club that works closely with the EcoHusky student group (ecohusky.uconn.edu) to organize “green” campus initiatives and events.

A word you will encounter frequently on links to the student group’s pages is “sustainable.” It is a term used more and more as the dialogue over global warming and alternatives to fossil fuels continues to heat up.

EcoHusky is nothing less than an engine driving a vision of sustainability that is utterly transforming the University, says Grabowski.

“Much of the change that’s necessary at the University needs to come at a very fundamental, individual level,” he says.

“But the feedback between individual behavior and the individuals participating in the University is also a critical factor in determining what kind of future we all get to live in.”

Sustainability is the hallmark of the EcoGarden, where students employ time-honored agricultural practices—such as composting, crop rotation and companion planting—that help to conserve water while producing hearty crops without pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

Sustainability, says Grabowski, also means fresh, locally grown products for which consumers don’t have to pay the surcharges tacked on products grown or manufactured far away and shipped hundreds or thousands of miles. In fact, food produced by the EcoGarden is used in the UConn dining halls.

While sustainability may be viewed differently by others, there is a clear and consistent thread—it is about being environmentally friendly, using various resources more efficiently, and reducing dependence upon petroleum-derived fuels that threaten to bankrupt the nation and contribute to climate change that could make Earth decidedly less hospitable for life as we know it.

Martin Fox, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and some of his students are working closely with the EcoGarden Club to develop a sustainable building that will serve as a meeting place and office for the program as well as a prototype for what he hopes will be many more such buildings on campus.

“It will incorporate as many ideas about sustainability as possible,” he says. “Energy is linked to everything. Water, food, products, transportation — it’s all energy.”

The EcoHusky student program, launched in 2004, plays a central role in fomenting and focusing student engagement.

It is guided by a core group of highly committed students and has helped to significantly improve the University’s recycling program and raise awareness about issues such as energy efficiency and water conservation.

Beyond that, it helps to manage environmental outreach activities year-round, holds regular weekly meetings and disseminates information about sustainability initiatives through a growing group of nearly 500 students.

“I’ve been involved with EcoHusky for four years, and every year, we get bigger turn-outs at our events,” says co-coordinator Bianca Lopez ’08 (CLAS), a senior ecology and evolution biology major.

“There are many more groups now than when I was a freshman. This idea has really caught on.”

Last spring EcoHusky played an instrumental role in the management of UConn’s initial participation in Recyclemania, a 10-week national college and university recycling competition; the EcoHusky 5000 Road Race, a fund-raiser for sustainability initiatives; and the University’s wildly diverse Earth Day.

Recyclemania, a yearly national recycling competition managed by EcoHusky, motivates thousands of UConn students to recycle their old athletic shoes to form a “Mount Sneaker” in the center of campus.

Photo by Peter Morenus

That annual celebration of spring and renewal includes a cook-out featuring locally grown food; an outdoor market; “Mount Sneaker,” an effort to collect thousands of pairs of used athletic shoes for a recycling project sponsored by the Connecticut Recyclers Coalition and Nike Corporation; a bike ride to generate awareness for the UConn Community Bike Plan, an initiative launched last year in cooperation with the UConn Transportation Institute and the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) to encourage greater use of bikes on campus; an eco-fashion show; and a sustainable living book fair and conference with a slate of prominent writers at the UConn Co-Op.

With increasing student advocacy for the environment, the cross-currents between their often innovative programs and official UConn programs are generating a host of collaborations that are changing the face of the University.

When, for instance, Rebecca Gorin joined UConn’s Department of Dining Services four years ago, she brought with her both formal training at the Culinary Institute of America and extensive experience working with natural foods in both restaurants and a retail store.

At Whitney Dining Hall, she has gradually been transforming the University’s approach to food acquisition and consumption, developing a program called Local Routes, which supports use of organic and locally grown food products.

“At Whitney Dining Hall, we source ingredients from several local farms and producers,” she says.

“Our produce vendor, The Fowler & Hunting Company, has a strong commitment to supporting local and regional growers.”

Last January, chefs, culinary managers and food service administrators throughout the Northeast flocked to Whitney for a National Association of College and University Food Services workshop about ways to use sustainable foods during winter months.

This demonstrates how things have progressed since Richard Miller was named the University’s director of environmental policy six years ago in the midst of the extensive transformation of the campus under the UCONN 2000 and 21st Century UConn programs.

“My mission was to improve the University’s environmental performance, overseeing compliance issues related to construction and operational activities as well as the development of policies and plans to reduce our ecological footprint. Back then, most people didn’t know what sustainability meant. We had a 15-year-old recycling program, but it was underutilized and in need of a serious overhaul,” says Miller, who also worked closely with Facilities staff and multiple departments across campus on water conservation initiatives that have become standard practice for the University’s operation of its water supply system.

Early on, Miller recognized the University had a tremendous opportunity to define itself as an environmental leader. One initial step was taken with the planning for the Burton Family Football Complex and Mark R. Shenkman Training Center, which became the first athletic facilities in the nation to earn a Silver rating under the U. S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

It was the first such structure certified at UConn and it followed the creation of a Green Campus Fund by the UConn Foundation, which allows alumni and others to direct their donations toward sustainability efforts at the University. The fund was another first among U.S. public universities.

Miller notes that while many of the sustainability changes at UConn are the result of new policies, many more developed from the engagement of an increasingly activist student body.

Indeed, students have embraced the “green revolution” more enthusiastically than any social movement in years, says Dan Britton, sustainability coordinator in the University’s Office of Environmental Policy, which has a 25-member senior advisory council that recommends ideas to President Michael J. Hogan and works to engage the University community in environmental stewardship.

“Student awareness of environmental issues is much greater today than it was just a few years ago,” Britton says.

“We see more and more students who want to get involved with these issues and who are pressing for stronger environmental policy.”

At UConn, sustainability is not only a philosophical idea that has found a rapt audience, but also a vision of environmental health that is reshaping the University in myriad ways.

On March 25, President Hogan signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (PCC), which pledges UConn’s support, along with other public research universities nationwide, to develop specific action plans, including both academic and operational goals and metrics, to create more environmentally sustainable campuses.

It also commits the University toward becoming a carbon-neutral campus by reducing the use of fossil fuels through a comprehensive plan that will call for more renewable energy sources, alternative fuels and energy efficiency measures, among many other systemic and behavioral changes over the next 40 years.

And, last April, it was not surprising that the environment was a prominent part of the revised academic plan setting the direction and priorities for UConn’s future.

“A major goal of the new plan is to promote environmental education for environmentally responsible citizens,” says Veronica Makowsky, vice provost for undergraduate education and regional campus administration.

Many professors are already approaching the issue from different vantage points. Over the past year there were more than 10 courses covering environmental and sustainability issues and no fewer than 34 degree options in many different academic disciplines.

With the continuing activity of students and faculty, it appears that — with an assist from the yellow sun — Husky Blue is turning the UConn campus Green.

Researching green transportation

Students and faculty are working together to find ways for UConn to reduce its carbon footprint — the toll that human activities have on the environment.

Norman Garrick, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is advising a group of students researching a plan for a bike-share program that would make it easier for UConn commuters to park on the campus periphery and borrow bikes to go from place to place.

“Our over-dependency on cars is perhaps the leading reason why so many of our central cities are struggling to regain urban vitality,” says Garrick, who compares the UConn campus to a small city and is known for commuting on his bicycle.

“The campus is the right size for a bike-share program, especially if we don’t continue to spread out,” he says. “The challenge here is to find ways to avoid sprawl-type development on the periphery.”

In the process of developing these kinds of environmental options, UConn professors are challenging their students to understand sustainability as they seek ways to redefine our relationship with energy.

Photo by Peter Morenus

In late March and early April the University’s Biofuel Consortium — a team of students and professors in chemical engineering, chemistry, plant sciences, economics and business — hosted its third annual sustainable energy symposium.

In two years, attendance at the event, which attracts industry and government leaders and representatives of the investment community, has increased by 200 percent.

For the first time, the agenda this year was expanded to two days to accommodate an array of research initiatives showcasing UConn’s place on the cutting edge of such clean energy technologies including fuel cells, solar energy and biodiesel fuel, many of which are rapidly transforming the Connecticut economy.

The genesis of the Biodiesel Consortium was another student-driven inspiration. Three summers ago, chemical engineering students Greg Magoon ’06 (ENG) and Joanna (Asia) Domka ’04 (ENG), ’06 M.S. began exploring the idea of turning waste vegetable oil from Dining Services into pure biodiesel fuel.

With help from Richard Parnas, associate professor and director of chemistry materials and biomolecular engineering, and Joe Helble, adjunct professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, they developed a small facility that produced six gallons of the biofuel that summer.

From that humble beginning, biodiesel has quickly become a kind of engineering capstone.

“Every major university is interested in biofuel,” says Parnas, “but few have integrated it into the formal curriculum as we have.”

Some chemical engineering students, such as Matthew Boucher ’07 (ENG), now a UConn graduate student, have adopted it as the launching pad for their careers. Boucher built a prototype for a new biodiesel reactor as part of his thesis.

By this fall, the department will be generating 50 gallons of biodiesel weekly, recycling used oil from UConn dining halls as well as from Pratt & Whitney, which sponsors a biodiesel lab where up to 10 undergraduates can be found at any time around the clock. Tested to quality standards, the fuel powers the University’s shuttle buses.

“This interdisciplinary approach to environmental issues is an extremely important component of the new academic plan,” says Gregory Anderson, vice provost and dean of the graduate school.

“We have an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in the area of environmental sustainability and it’s very important that we seize that opportunity.”

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