Southern Oregon University
EN-3: Student Life

The Ecology and Sustainability Resource Center (ECOS) is a student organization that strives to expand environmental awareness and stewardship. ECOS operates a productive and educational community garden, with garden plots available to students and members of the community. Along with a multitude of events, ECOS offers ink cartridge recycling, houses an environmentally-themed library, provides free coffee mugs and water bottles, and loans reusable dishware to groups on campus. Additionally, in partnership with the Outdoor Program, ECOS operates a Bicycle Program that rents out bikes, provides a bike tool shop and bike mechanics to assist students in learning to repair their own bikes, and enhances the bike culture at SOU through group rides, workshops and other educational events. The Outdoor Program (OP) itself is a student organization focused on educating students on outdoor adventure skills and ethics. The OP has utilized the campus farm stand to supply food for OP events and contributes as a team to offering sustainable, organic, and healthy foods for trips as much as possible.

The Ecology and Sustainability Resource Center (ECOS) student organization operates an organic garden on the SOU campus, founded more than ten years ago. More than 70 garden plots are made available to students and community members. Organic farming techniques are employed at the garden. A small orchard of fruit and nut trees grows out front and an information kiosk stands by the front gate. The spacious, 40-foot greenhouse is a welcome resource for growers as it allows us to start our seedlings in the cold days of March and April and can also be used for winter growing. SOU is also home to the Farm at Southern Oregon University: A Center for Sustainability. The student-led organic Farm produces healthy, sustainably harvested food for the SOU community. It is a hub for education, student and faculty research and community outreach to the Rogue Valley. Projects on The Farm inspire a generation of ecologically-committed leaders who promote a vision of living and working sustainably in community and on the land. The Farm features SOU's first campus farm, which is being developed on 5 acres of land. This food is used to reduce food insecurity throughout the campus community and to provide long-term financial support for The Farm. Produce being grown on the farm includes: strawberries, lettuce, kale, kohlrabi, spinach, garlic, melon, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, green beans, carrots, winter squash, broccoli, onions, potatoes, arugula. The Farm at Southern Oregon University: A Center for Sustainability uses its harvest for a CSA program that is open to all staff, faculty and students on campus. The CSA runs from Memorial Day through the end of October. All CSA participants receive a fresh box of produce each week during the harvest season. All produce for the CSA is grown and harvested by students on the campus farm.

The Farm at Southern Oregon University: A Center for Sustainability is a student-run enterprise that provides students with hands-on experience in sustainable agriculture, program development, fundraising, leadership, volunteer coordination, event planning, marketing, business incubation, and other lifelong skills. Students working for the Farm run the student farm stand, which is held on campus once each week throughout the growing season. Students are responsible for operating the farm stand, from the harvesting of the produce to marketing and selling products. The farm primarily serves SOU students through sales to the campus dining facilities and through a CSA. Faculty, staff, and community members may also participate in the CSA program. All seeds grown at the Farm are required to be non-GMO.

In 2013, students voted to renew their self-imposed green fee of $10-$15 per term. A portion of the fee is allocated to the student-managed Green Fund, totaling approximately $90,000 per year for sustainable projects. The Green Fund is governed by the student government's Environmental Affairs Committee (EAC). Projects seeking funding from the Green Fund must submit a proposal to the EAC for consideration. EAC, comprised of all students with a staff adviser, evaluates projects for their impact on campus sustainability and return on investment among other values, helping students to build skills and gain experience in responsible investments and governance. SOU's Green Fund is entirely student-initiated and student-governed.

The Ecology & Sustainability Resource Center (ECOS) student organization organizes the annual Earth Day event on campus. In recent years, this has expanded into Earth Week, with sustainability-related events hosted by various campus groups throughout the week of Earth Day. Earth Week activities in 2018 featured more than 20 events including a gender non-conforming clothing swap, no straw challenge, film screenings of various films related to sustainability, pollinator habitat planting, decorating reusable shopping bags, bike ride to a local lake, and more. ECOS also partnered with the Sustainability Council, the Native American Studies Program and the Oregon Indian Education Association Conference to host Tara Houska as the keynote speaker for the conference and Earth Week in 2017. Tara Houska is a citizen of Couchiching First Nation and a tribal attorney based in Washington, D.C. She was born and raised in International Falls, Minnesota, and was a triple major at the University of Minnesota, where she also earned her law degree. Since completing her studies, she has exclusively advocated on behalf of tribal nations at the local and federal levels. Her work has incorporated traditional knowledge and values, as Tara is a long-time student of Midewiwin. Her environmental justice efforts have ranged from grassroots organizing and media work to clerking for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Southern Oregon University also hosted a presentation by a biologist, educator, and member of the Cayuse and Walla Walla Nations Gabe Sheoships. His presentation, "How do We Create Equitable Spaces Within Our Public Lands?" facilitated a discussion to explore what a relationship with nature means, how we can provide inclusive and equitable spaces within our public lands and natural areas, and how we can begin to work toward healing severed relationships with our land. Another speaker addressing sustainability was James Salzman who spoke on "The History (and Future) of Drinking Water." Sponsored by the Environmental Science and Policy Department, this presentation was heavily marketed to students and served as mandatory or extra credit for many classes. Other campus speaking events related to sustainability include: "Generation Food: Global, Systemic and Hopeful Ways to Feed the World" with Dr. Raj Patel; Dr. Vandana Shiva on Seed Sovereignty, Food Security and Climate Resilience; "Climate Reality" with Bill Bradbury; and Bobby Seale speaking about the Real Black Panther Party and how all human rights issues today are intertwined, interdependent, and interrelated with ecological environmental problems, political issues, and global economics. "Religion and Reality" presented by Dr. Mark Shibley, in which he examined, empirically, variation in belief about climate change across and within various religious traditions, thus testing the hypothesis that religion can’t accommodate scientific knowledge. SOU also hosts an annual Social Justice Conference, featuring presentations that share cultural, academic and political strategies in the following areas: - Employment - Education - Justice - Healthcare - Gender and Sexuality - Environmental Responsibility - Race/Ethnicity Each year, the conference includes at least one presentation focusing on the relation between social justice and climate change.

In February 2016, SOU's Oregon Center for the Arts hosted a lecture by Ryan Pierce, on his large-scale landscapes that explore strange visions of our world affected by climate change. During Earth Week 2016, the Schneider Museum of Art exhibited In Scene, a group exhibition of eight artists who explore the state of the natural world in modern times through video, installation, site-specific outdoor installation, sculpture, and photograms. In 2018, in honor of Earth Day, the Center for the Visual Arts on campus put out a "Call for Art". They asked for applications for artwork that pertains to climate change, pollution, extinction, recycling, sustainability, and anything else deemed related to the environment.

The Outdoor Program practices Leave No Trace principles on all of its trips, which are organized throughout the year and accessible to the entire campus community. Trips include activities such as biking, climbing, whitewater, hiking, backpacking, SUP, and other adventure trips. Leave No Trace is taught in all staff trainings and is integrated into the Outdoor Program's leadership philosophy as well as the planning and documentation of every trip.

Other campus themes have included Civility and Happiness. For the 2014-2015 academic year, the campus theme was Revolution, including a presentation entitled, "Relentless Revoluntion: This is not your Father's Mother Earth." This presentation explored sustainability-related questions on the impacts of population growth on agriculture, government, municipalities, climate, etc. For the 2015-2016 academic year, we celebrated the campus theme of Exploring Reality. Campus theme events (which were free to the public) included a presentation on "Religion and Reality" examines, empirically, variation in belief about climate change across and within various religious traditions, thus testing the hypothesis that religion can’t accommodate scientific knowledge.

The model residence hall room open for tours highlights several sustainable living principles including recycling bins, bike hooks to hang bicycles, power strips, and an energy star refrigeration unit. For several years the student-governed Ecology and Sustainability Resource Center (ECOS) has partnered with Health and Wellness Services to provide Health and Sustainability Workshops for students. These workshops give students the opportunity to learn sustainable life skills such as: how to make kombucha, growing garlic, sprouting, fermented foods, beekeeping, DIY canning, and small space gardening. Furthermore, for the last two years ECOS has offered workshops that teach students how to make sustainable health care and household good products, offering do-it-yourself tutorials on how to make lotion, chapstick, all-purpose cleaners, soap, and scrubs. Additionally, the campus community garden offers several gardening workshops each year, including seed starting, garden bed preparation, and gardening 101.

There are numerous sustainability-focused student employment opportunities at SOU, including positions within the Ecology and Sustainability Resource Center, the Sustainability and Recycling office, and the Farm at Southern Oregon University: A Center for Sustainability. The Ecology and Sustainability Resource Center (ECOS) employs 9 student workers. These positions include the Bike Program Manager, Campus Garden Coordinator, Civic Engagement Coordinator, and the ECOS Student coordinator. Professional development includes internships and volunteer positions as well as paid positions. Also, students are given the opportunity to move up in the program and take on more responsibilities as they progress over the course of their college career. The Sustainability and Recycling office employs a student Sustainability Coordinator Assistant and a student Zero Waste Education Coordinator. The Zero Waste Education Coordinator organizes and administers activities throughout the year for the SOU campus and community which focus on waste reduction and practices such as reducing, reusing, recycling and composting. This may include hosting educational workshops, tabling at campus events, coordinating recycling events, and/or leading SOU's participation in the national recycling competition RecycleMania. The Zero Waste Education Coordinator may also work with various campus departments and organizations to develop practices and procedures for hosting zero waste events on campus. The Coordinator works closely with the Sustainability & Recycling Coordinator to provide waste education to the campus to improve SOU's overall recycling and diversion rate. The Student Sustainability Coordinator Assistant organizes and administers campus events, activities, challenges, and workshops to improve sustainability literacy for the campus population. This may include developing programming, organizing energy competitions in the residence halls, coordinating green teams, and/or maintaining a social media presence to engage students, staff, and faculty in campus sustainability efforts and to encourage sustainable behaviors. The Sustainability Outreach Coordinator may also work with various campus departments and community partners to organize events, identify conservation strategies, or complete sustainability projects in their area of interest. In 2018, the Sustainability & Recycling office also added a Sustainability, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator position. This position works with entities throughout campus to bring sustainability and DEI issues together. The Outdoor Program employs a Service & Stewardship Coordinator student worker to facilitate partnerships with community organizations such as KS Wild, so that the program can maintain presence and be good stewards of the wilderness. The Farm at SOU: A Center for Sustainability employs 5 part time student employees as: a Farm Director, Farm Assistant, Outreach and Communications, Education and Research, and Farm Operations. The Transportation Options Coordinator works with the Commuter Resource Center, ECOS, and DriveLess connect to help students understand the region's transportation options. Funding for this position is provided by Rogue Valley Transportation District and Oregon Department of Transportation. (http://news.sou.edu/2015/11/sou-rvtd-win-award-for-transportation-options-outreach/)