Originally published November 5, 2010
The greenreportcard.org annual College Sustainability Report Card granted Bradley a C- this year, a slight increase from last year’s D.
The grade was derived from surveys of administrators and students, as well as information collected by a team of researchers from April to September.
The report card has several categories, including student involvement, climate change and energy, green building and food and recycling.
“We had a more complete response than we did a year ago,” said Vice President for Business Affairs Gary Anna. “We went through each area before the report card came out. We went with the committee that meets weekly and agreed to focus on areas where we could get immediate feedback.”
Anna said one of the upcoming improvements will be accessible recycling bins in all the dorms by the end of this semester.
“We want all of the primary residence halls to have recycling tubs like in the lobby spaces of Williams [Hall] and University [Hall],” he said. “We want to focus on the residence halls so freshmen and sophomores are more aware of it.”
Other future endeavors could involve solar energy, grocery store shuttles and cleaner water.
“If we put up the new engineer building, it could potentially have some solar energy capabilities,” Anna said. “We could also look to run a shuttle to a grocery store, which would not necessarily be for just an environmental purpose, but it would save a few rides. And if we keep receiving positive feedback from the filtered water fountains for water bottles in U-Hall, we’ll look for a couple other sites to put them in.”
One of the grade boosters was the student involvement section, up to a C from a D last year.
Student Environmental Action Coalition President senior Sarah Redenius and Vice President sophomore Heather O’Keefe said the increase was due to greater awareness on campus.
“Revamping U-Hall was a huge impact on campus with the water and the recycling bins,” Redenius said. “It will do even better when we spread that throughout the rest of the dorms.”
O’Keefe said improved recycling was a huge step for the campus, but improvements can still be made.
“We want to try and implement [recycling] into the system, like it would be the janitors’ job,” she said. “The recycling used to build and build and build, and it got pretty gross.”
Redenius said SEAC is aiming to greater community and campus involvement.
“The Peoria Sierra Club is trying to get better landfill opportunities, and we’re trying to get SEAC on that,” she said. “We want to bring them on campus more. We’d also like to have more speakers and learn how things are done so we can make improvements.”
Anna said the goal is not to manage the report card, but to get the best results from initiatives.
“There are plenty of things we can do,” he said. “Other regional institutions are pulling Bs or Cs, but we have to identify some additional areas for improvement. We are not satisfied with a C-.”
