About the FAMU Green Coalition

In October 2006, I proposed that the FAMU Faculty Senate establish a Green Campus Committee to facilitate sustainability efforts on campus; I was named chair. Shortly thereafter, Aaron White, a grad student and member of the FAMU Environmental Sciences Student Organization, contacted me, and we hatched plans for a sustainability group on campus.

About a dozen faculty, staff, student and community members attended our first planning meeting on Dec. 11, 2006. We tentatively named ourselved the FAMU Green Campus Group, and we elected co-chairs: Professor Beth Lewis of the School of Architecture and I were chosen to represent faculty; Aaron and, subsequently, Markita Samuel (selected by the Student Government Association) were chosen to represent students. Membership, we decided, would be open to faculty, staff, students, administrators, community members, government representatives or anyone else interested in promoting sustainability issues in the greater FAMU community.

This presented an immediate challenge. Since we weren't strictly a student group or a faculty group, we didn't neatly fit into the university structure. After some discussion, the FAMU Green Coalition, as we decided to call ourselves, became a committee of the Faculty Senate, which allowed us to establish an account within the FAMU Foundation to handle our funds.

I created our first logo (an image of a compact fluorescent light bulb) in time for our first "Change a Light for Daylight Saving" campaign in 2007. A local PR firm, Kidd Group, designed and donated our current logo.

2007

We got started the first week of classes spring semester 2007. One of our first goals was to establish a mission statement:

To partner with campus, area and governmental resources to help protect and enhance the well-being of the greater Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University community on environmental issues.

We met twice a month throughout the semester and crafted an ambitious agenda to educate the campus community about issues of sustainability and to become active in environmental issues. We hosted six showings of the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” with discussions after two of them, plus showings of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and “Kilowatt Ours." After several meetings with representatives of the City of Tallahassee energy services unit and other people within the community, we created our first “Change a Light for Daylight Saving” campaign, which took place on March 11, 2007. We recruited 80 volunteers to distribute about 2,300 free compact fluorescent light bulbs to city residents.

Volunteers for the first “Change a Light for Daylight Saving” campaign came from FAMU, the City and area high schools and
community groups. We distributed about 2,500 free CFLs (thanks to the City) to Southside residents of Tallahassee.

We sponsored a recycling effort at “Be Out Day”; placed displays at the Earth Day celebration at the State Capitol; participated in “Step It Up 2007” at the First Presbyterian Church; created a bookmark, which we distributed at the movie showings and at the “State of the Black College” event; implemented a recycling pilot project in the School of Journalism & Graphic Communication building; and participated in the Energy Star pledge program.

In October 2007, we beat FSU in the first Campus CANpaign Challenge, collecting more aluminum cans than the Seminoles as part of the citywide CANpaign. (RIGHT: Beth Lewis, former Co-Chair of the Coalition, holds the Campus CANpaign trophy with FAMU President James Ammons.) We obtained nearly 2,000 signatures from students and alumni, petitioning Dr. Ammons to consider establishing a sustainability council at FAMU; he established the FAMU Environment & Sustainability Council in January 2008. The Coalition received a Council for Sustainable Florida Award, plus a Golden Image Award from the Florida Public Relations Association, for the “Change a Light” campaign.

2008

In 2008, the FAMU Green Coalition collaborated with the Environmental Sciences Student Organization to host the “Focus the Nation” teach-in on Jan. 31, joining more than 2,000 other universities, high schools, businesses and other groups hosting similar teach-ins that day. We hosted 25 different workshops, panels and movies, focusing on solutions to the global warming crisis. We received another Golden Image for this event. In March 2008, we hosted the 2nd annual “Change a Light for Daylight Saving” event.

In fall 2008, we reorganized, dropping our affiliation with the Faculty Senate and becoming a student-run organization. Officers were elected in September and October for the new
E-Board. Fall 2008 activities included participating in the second-annual Campus CANpaign Challenge, collecting recyclables at FAMU homecoming game, and working to establish a recycling program in campus buildings.

2009

In spring 2009, 33 Rattlers and students from Florida State University and the University of Central Florida traveled by bus to Washington, D.C., to join 12,000 young people for the 2009 Power Shift conference. While there, we lobbied the Florida legislative delegation to vote in favor of clean energy. The Coalition worked with the City of Tallahassee to sponsor the “3rd Annual Change a Light for Daylight Saving” event. We provided free water and water bottles to participants in the FAMU Relay for Life. And we collaborated with FSU on “Focus the Nation” in April.

ABOVE: FAMU, FSU and USF students participants during a pit stop on the bus
ride home from Power Shift 2009; this was the first time some students had seen
snow. BELOW: Lobbying Congress during Power Shift 2009 in Washington, D.C.

Fall 2009 began with several events during Welcome Week, including recycling cardboard boxes discarded during move-in. On Sept. 11-12, we hosted the first Green Summit, featuring workshops on the implications of global climate change, plus sessions dedicated to planning future action. More than 100 students attended at least one session over the two days of the Summit. A few weeks later, members volunteered to help plant greenery around the new multi-purpose exercise facility on campus. The two weeks before Homecoming, we sponsored a plastic bottle recycling program and awarded $100 to the group that collected the most plastic bottles. The Coalition was one of several sponsors of “Tallahassee 350” at Lake Ella on Oct. 24, International Day of Climate Action.

On Nov. 14, we volunteered to help with the citywide “Cans for Ca$h” campaign (see RIGHT). We won, by default, the 3rd Annual Campus CANpaign Challenge by collecting more aluminum cans than FSU or TCC. We volunteered in the morning to unload, weigh and dump thousands of cans turned in by city residents. This is always a fun activity, despite the "can juice."

Here's a video of what the day was like.

At the end of the semester, we hosted the “Sustained Giving for Sustainable Living” campaign to raise money for United Way. We offered to match the winning group’s donation up to $350.

To contact the FAMU Green Coalition, go to our Web site at www.famugreencoalition.com or write to us at famugreencoalition@gmail.com. You may also find us on Facebook.