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Normally when green and red are together, people know the Christmas season is upon them. But now when people around Fairfield see red and green, they may start thinking about the environment, thanks to a newly designed website at Fairfield University.
The Fairfield University Green Movement website, “Red=Green: Sustainability at Fairfield,” just finished a major overhaul to improve its usefulness and ability to promote an eco-friendly campus. Different aspects of the Green Movement are displayed on the website, including how students can get involved, how professors are infusing the eco-friendly message into their classes, and how Fairfield University is improving environmentally on the whole.
Why the changes? “The old website was extremely out of date and did not contain nearly all of the initiatives that are currently going on,” said Dana August ’11, the Co-Director of Projects for Leaders for Environmental Action at Fairfield (LEAF). LEAF is a new project-oriented club that encourages campaigns to teach students and staff how to live more eco-friendly lives. “For example, we updated the information about the Co-Gen facility, the new student group LEAF, faculty and student research projects involving environmental stewardship, and other facility advancements we’ve made,” said August.
The goal for the new website is to show accurately the environmental initiatives occurring among the students, faculty and administration so that people can remain up to date on the environmental events on campus. The website also contains information regarding the Environmental Life Residential College, where sophomores can live amongst others who want to limit their environmental impact. Juniors and seniors can also go on to participate in a Build-A-House Community Program focused on green initiatives, such as Earth House.
Overall, the website is designed to benefit students and provide them with more ways of getting involved in the effort to have a greener campus. “It is geared for educating both future and current students,” August said, “and we will be adding to it as more of our initiatives are established.” Now more than ever, students want to find ways to promote eco-friendly lifestyles. The new website and the LEAF group not only promote activities through the clubs, but also help students develop their own projects in order to convert the campus to a more sustainable community, said Dana.
Currently, LEAF is planning Earth Week activities for the campus and is organizing a trip to Washington, D.C. to join Power Shift, a clean energy youth rally. Information regarding these topics and more, including the organic campus garden and other ongoing green initiatives, can be found on the website at www.fairfield.edu/green or on the LEAF Facebook page.
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