A collegiate guide to college selection, The Princeton Review, named Linfield College among 286 sustainable colleges in the United States.
The guide is supported by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating environmentally friendly buildings.
Creating sustainability, providing efficiency and finding ways to become more “green” has finally paid off for Linfield.
The Princeton guide begins by describing Linfield as a school that “aims to mitigate the effects of global warming in the Pacific region through a combination of education, campus life and community outreach.”
The guide identifies strategies such as reducing the energy of pumping steam from the boilers that heat the school that students have taken to make the campus more environmentally friendly.
There are additional projects that have been created on campus to make Linfield more viable.
“Greenfield has made a program for installing light bulbs all over the community in order to be more sustainable,” junior David Kellner-Rode said. “The light bulb installment will also provide solar panels. We also had a large Power Shift West conference and we have supported bike transportation as a different means of getting around.”
Kellner-Rode has been the president of Greenfield since the beginning of the school year.
Many students on campus have observed other sustainability methods, such as Trayless Tuesdays, the new garden next to Renshaw Hall and a composting bin in Dillin Hall.
“Over the last 10 years, the college has saved an amount of natural gas that is equivalent of the amount of electricity used in almost 700 homes in one year through its energy conservation efforts,” the guide stated about Linfield.
Organized alphabetically, it gives each college a chance to explain why it is sustainable. This is important because the methods for sustainabilty are a large factor when students choose a school they may attend.
Freshman Haydn Nason said that Oregon is far more sustainable than her hometown of Billings, Mont.
“I would say it is important when choosing a college to know whether or not they are sustainable,” she said. “It makes a difference since more and more schools are promoting energy efficiency.”
For more information visit www.princetonreview.com/green-guide.aspx.

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