Sustainability

Georgia Southern is going greener one day at a time with a new academic concentration that provides students with the resources to promote sustainability practices on a global scale.

The concentration in environmental sustainability launched in January 2011. Lissa Leege, director of the University’s Center for Sustainability since its inception in 2008, sees it as a valuable addition to Georgia Southern’s academic programs while furthering sustainability efforts on campus and in the region.

“We will be the first in the state of Georgia to offer this concentration,” said Leege, “and the great value of this concentration is that it is interdisciplinary. We’re living in a world with limited resources, and this program will provide students with the skills and knowledge that they need to help solve these problems from different perspectives across many disciplines.”

According to Leege, the beauty of the program of study is that it encompasses every academic department, including political science, sociology, biology and engineering. “Sustainability is such a broad field,” she said. In order for a student to receive the designation of the sustainability concentration, a total of 18 credit hours must be completed.

“Students are required to take Global Sustainability and Innovation (TCGT 1530) as an intro course, followed by 12 credit hours to be selected from upper level classes in a broad range of departments including business, geology, biology, chemistry or political science,” she said. Leege is especially excited about a new three-credit hour practicum in environmental sustainability, the capstone course of the concentration. Students select a mentor of their choice in their home department, and with the mentor’s supervision, develop and implement a project to improve sustainability on campus or in the community.

As an example,” said Leege, “An education major could develop a sustainability curriculum for schoolchildren that integrates state performance standards, or a marketing major could work with a local organic farm to help them market their products. The possibilities are limitless.”

The unique structure and sophistication of the practicum, said Leege, is that students are getting hands-on experience by actively improving sustainability in the world. At the same time, with the interdisciplinary concentration involving all areas of study at Georgia Southern, she hopes that the practicum will enable students to actively think about how sustainability can affect other areas of living.

Sustainability & Innovation

Georgia Southern has long offered an introductory Technology, Science and Environment course for students, but a Center for Sustainability grant to professor Anoop Desai has enabled him to present a restructured curriculum with a global sustainability focus.

Desai and colleague Phil Waldrop use their backgrounds in technology and industry to teach multiple sections in the introductory course in the new environmental sustainability concentration at Georgia Southern. Additional support for this course and others in the concentration has been provided with new sustainability resources purchased by the Zach S. Henderson Library.

Students enrolled in this class are increasing their awareness of how sustainability links to every part of their
lives on a daily basis and the ways that global corporations are increasingly sustainable in their practices.

“This course is a gateway introduction to sustainability,” said Waldrop. He and Desai have noticed that students come from a variety of majors including business, advertising, marketing and education, yet surprisingly very few from science. Some of the semester’s topics include climate change and career opportunities in sustainability.

“Sustainability can involve any major on campus, and there are a lot of employment opportunities. It’s a great field for entrepreneurs, and the future growth potential is enormous,” Waldrop said. For example, Desai said, some professions could delve into alternative energy, which involves wind and solar power, or even learning the technology of electric cars.

However, sustainability wasn’t always at the forefront of most companies’ agendas. “In the 1990s, only about 10 percent of corporations worldwide were involved in responsible sustainability practices. Now that number has increased to around 70 percent, but there is still a long way to go,” said Waldrop.

Desai agreed that companies are now adopting sustainability practices, which will ultimately have a big impact on their profitability. “If we are to maintain our civilization and future, it is our responsibility to take care of our finite natural resources,” he said. The professors foresee tremendous global involvement from their students. “Sustainability is a topic that everyone should be interested in,” said Waldrop, “and people should realize that sustainability is going to affect their lives in one way or another.”

Improving Campus

A developing partnership merging the strengths of academic affairs and Physical Plant personnel have improved sustainability at Georgia Southern with the construction of the campus’ first bioswale.

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“Sustainability can involve any major on campus, and there are a lot of employment opportunities.” – Phil Waldrop

A landscaped area between Centennial Place and Watson Hall on Forest Drive, the site of a former drainage ditch, is now designed to remove polluted parking lot runoff that includes rubber from tires, motor oil, gasoline and antifreeze/coolant.

Since Spring 2010, faculty including professors Lissa Leege and Donald Slater, have worked with their biology and construction management students, respectively, on the site conversion. Slater’s students compiled background data on the location and produced a construction plan. Leege’s biology students completed a study on herbs, shrubs and trees that would effectively slow down runoff and absorb toxins at the site.

Their joint proposal was presented to University landscape architect Chuck Taylor, who lent his design skills to the project. Last fall, the bioswale was constructed by biology and construction management students under the direction of Physical Plant, and the area now consists of native vegetation, meanders, pools and stone that slows down the water flow. The work was made possible by two service learning mini-grants awarded to Leege and Slater and funding by Georgia Southern’s Physical Plant division.

Slater likened the process of the bioswale to that of a natural filtration system. “The check dams, which were made of riprap stone, slowed the storm water runoff so that the sediment and pollution could settle out and not be transported further downstream. The pollution products then have the time to percolate into the soil. This process is similar to that of an on-site sewage treatment drainfield,” he said.

“Through this project, students learned course content and got practical experience at the same time they were working with Physical Plant to improve campus sustainability,” said Leege. “In addition, the cross disciplinary collaboration was very valuable – my students learned as much from talking to construction management students as they did from doing the background research, and vice-versa,” she revealed.

Plans are already underway to construct a second bioswale on the opposite side of Forest Drive.

Water Reuse Project

The University and Statesboro community were recently united in a project to significantly reduce the 180,000 gallons of drinking water used each day on campus.

According to William Cone, Physical Plant project coordinator, the facility’s employees worked in conjunction with the City of Statesboro to install pipes across almost 50 acres of athletic fields including Allen E. Paulson Stadium and the RAC. The water supply originates from Bird’s Pond, a city retention pond on Langston Chapel Road.

“Georgia Southern picked up the city’s reuse supply main near Paulson Stadium, and extended the supply main and an irrigation main along Malecki Drive, crossed Akins Boulevard, and terminated in one of the existing ponds near the RAC,” said Cone. The RAC pond was then converted from stormwater detention to a reuse water supply for irrigating approximately 30,000 square-feet of University fields. According to landscaping manager Brian Hooks, the project enables the campus to reduce its water usage by at least 30,000 gallons per day.

The University’s responsible stewardship and cost-saving strategy of conserving the local drinking water supply effectively promotes environmental awareness among the campus and the community, said Cone.

“Changing the irrigation supply from potable in these high consumption areas will reduce the ever-increasing burden on our groundwater table and drinking water aquifer, and this aids Georgia Southern in reducing its impact on the environment.”

–Mary Beth Spence