During the spring of 2008, Linfield made a commitment to provide a sustainable campus. The Advisory Committee on the Environment and Sustainability was created in 2007 to guide sustainability projects on campus.
Recently, grants were distributed to students whose ideas supported the commitment.
Fred Ross, co-chair of ACES and senior adviser and assistant to the president, said that he and W. Glenn Ford, vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer, created ACES to aid the commitment to campus
sustainably.
“Anyone can create an application at any time of the year,” Ross said. “If it is a good idea and takes less than $5,000 to create, you can apply.”
Some of the grants awarded include the funds to build an on-campus bike center that will use “green” materials, such as solar panels, to generate light for rider’s safety; tools for the existing Bicycle Co-Op to provide maintenance and bike repair; a composting machine; and trail repairs on the Tryon Life Community Farm in Portland.
The funds were created through a renewable and sustainable energy program, which grants about $30,000 a year to support the campus through ACES.
Junior Sammi Mack, vice president of the Gardening Club, said the club applied for one of the major grants and was rewarded.
“Our goal is to eventually have enough produce to put into Dillin,” she said. “It would be a great way to involve the campus and let them know what the Garden Club is doing.”
In the meantime, the club has spent funds on planting, building a greenhouse, creating a fence around the garden and, eventually, produced a shed.
The goal the committee acknowledged when signing the commitment last spring was to eventually get down to zero carbon emissions. The college’s name is now on the Web site for the president’s commitment to sustainability among colleges and institutions.
Mack said that without ASLC, their club advantages would be different.
“If we didn’t have the renewable energy and sustainability funding, we would have a much smaller garden,” Mack said.
For more information about how to apply for a grant, go to www.linfield.edu/sustainability.html.
For more information on the president’s commitment to living sustainably, go to www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org.

Lauren Ostrom
Features editor Lauren Ostrom can be reached at [email protected]