Welcome back, Wildcats! I hope you are all ready for a great new school year. This year we have a lot on tap as far as sustainability projects and events go. But first I believe an introduction is in order. My name is Duncan Reid, and I am the Sustainability Coordinator here at Linfield College. I graduated from Linfield in 2010 and I now serve the community by working with students, faculty and staff on sustainability projects of all kinds. You can consider me to be your sustainability counselor of sorts.

If you have questions about sustainability programs or simply want to discuss an idea please do not hesitate to reach out and contact me. You can usually find me in my office (Cozine 109), in the garden or walking around campus. Come and say hi sometime!

For those of you who are new to our campus community, you may have noticed that sustainability is an integral part of our community at Linfield. The Green Team talked to colloquium groups during your orientation programs and provided opportunities for recycling and composting at the welcome picnic. For those of you who I haven’t had the chance to get to know here are a few things that are happening this year with sustainability:

First off, as a part of our Zero Waste project, we are piloting a few new recycling and composting bins in a few buildings on campus including Elkinton, Frerichs, T.J. Day, HHPA and Riley. New bins will also shortly be featured outside of Dillin next to the solar powered trash compactor. Please help us by using these bins properly. If you have questions or comments about these we would love to hear them. You can also look out for opportunities to participate in these new systems at upcoming campus events. One thing to note about the compost: our compost goes to feed local pigs so please do not throw anything in there that a pig couldn’t eat. Thank you in advance for helping us reach Zero Waste!

This week has been busy for our office. Thank you to all of you who have come out to participate in the farmer’s market, the wood fired pizza dinner, the lecture on “The War on Agriculture” and the gardening workshop. These are just the first of many events that we have already planned for this semester.

Coming up this month:

9/13-15, 2 p.m. Friday–2 p.m. Sunday, Greenfield Retreat, Westwind (Oregon Coast) 9/18, 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m., Sustainable Agriculture Internship Presentation, T.J. Day 219 9/22, 3 p.m.-5 p.m., Composting Workshop, Renshaw 106

Feel free to contact me for more information about any of this. Thanks again everyone and I look forward to a great year building and participating in a sustainable community here at Linfield.

Duncan Reid