Monika Leininger
Mleinin1@uwyo.edu
The newly titled ‘Sustainability Coalition’ has joined forces with other student led organizations on the University of Wyoming campus.
The coalition hopes to work together to make the campus more sustainable, viable and environmentally friendly.
Last year the campus sustainability committee decided to organize a group of student leaders from various RSOs and departments. Kim Zafft, member of the campus sustainability committee, said she is excited to see the coalition take form.
“Students and the committees were happy with the outcomes from last year and decided to do it again this year,” she said. “The first meeting was last week. At that meeting the students decided to call the group the ‘Sustainability Coalition.’”
Meghann Cranford, student leader of the coalition, said she believes working with other organizations to be an advantage of the coalition.
“The coalition is a great way to bring groups around campus working on sustainability projects together,” Cranford said. “We want to have a central location for ideas and projects – we want to work with each other more instead of having different groups do different things.”
The sustainability coalition collaborates with the sustainability club, the ENR club, ACRES student farm, RenUW, Nordic Ski Team, RHA and Multicultural Association of Student Scientists.
The coalition allows other organizations to work in unison towards a similar goal. Meghan Kent, secretary of the UW Nordic Ski Team, emphasizes the significance of sustainability and environment to their organization.
“Sustainability is super important to our team,” Kent said. “We are very environmentally minded – we interact with the outdoors everyday. With the threat of climate change, our sport is becoming threatened because we rely on snow to be able to ski.”
The coalition plans on working together to produce different events and movements around campus.
“The Sustainability Coalition will plan earth week activities, provide updates on individual RSO events and select projects for the Sustainability Coalition,” Zafft said.
Zafft said she assures that with a more administrative organization, the campus sustainability committee will foster this group by providing support, structure and history to the coalition each year.
The group hopes to work together over the next year on projects that will benefit both campus and the surrounding community.
“The group has smart, motivated students that have the ability to advance environmental and economic sustainability at the University of Wyoming, and that’s exciting,” Zafft said.
The sustainability coalition will meet again in the beginning of December, if any other student led organizations are passionate about sustainability and would like to join the coalition, Crandford said to contact her.
