Michigan State University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Garrett Sieloff completed a Master's Professional Project in the Department of Community Sustainability on a marketing campaign to increase water conservation on campus. The project, "Trust & the Tap: Strategies for Building Trust in the Michigan State University Public Water System & Reducing Reliance on Bottled Water" examined the environmental and social effects of bottled water and trust in drinking water suppliers and advertising. The project's theoretical model informed the development of the marketing campaign. The student benchmarked with campaigns from other schools and developed mock graphics and posters that could be utilized by the university to increase the use of tap water on campus.

Philip Montgomery, a graduate student in the College of Arts and Letters and a fellow of the MSU Leadership Institute, started a peer mentoring program through a Graduate Student Organization in his graduate program pairing incoming graduate students with established students. The program aims to increase a sense of belonging and connection from the very beginning of a student’s time in graduate school as a means of contributing to student success.

Anna Lee completed a Master's Professional Project in the Department of Community Sustaianbility that focused on increasing the understanding of the use of equestrian trails in the state by equestrians. Michigan has an over 1,300 miles of trails that are run by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR). Through the project, equestrian trail users were surveyed in 2020 about their experiences using the trails as well as recommendations to improve the management of the trails. The study found that the majority of respondents were supportive of having an annual fee for equestrians to use the public trails, which would provide funding to support trail management. Findings of the study were shared with the MDNR, which helped inform master planning efforts for the state's trail system.

Courtney Boursema, an undergraduate in the Department of Community Sustanability, worked with instructor Bob Wilson and Sustainability Office to propose legislation to expand sustainability education in Michigan Schools. The student presented the draft legislation to Office of State Representative Julie Brixie. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/csus-student-proposes-legislation-to-expand-sustainability-education-in-michigan-schools

Liz Stebbins and Sarah Galvin are graduate students within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and fellows of the MSU Leadership Institute who are working to create a “Community Orientation” to help get new graduate students engaged in the East Lansing community. They are planning a type of involvement fair where they will invite members of the community to come meet interested graduate students.

MSUvote is a non-partisan campus committee whose mission it is to increase the number of registered student voters, to inform and educate students on candidates and issues, and to bolster student participation on Election Day. Nine students participate on the committee with faculty and staff. The committee helps coordinate student voter registration drives and integrate voting information into events, classes and programming. Thanks to the committee's efforts, MSU showed a significant increase in student voting rates in the 2020 presidential election and was recognized by the State of Michigan through its Michigan Collegiate Voting Challenge for its Most Improved Voter Turnout, 4-year institution award. See IN-42 for more details.

The MSU Sustainable Wood Recovery Initiative (SWRI, aka MSU Shadows) repurposes wood from trees that are removed from campus due to disease, safety or other issues. An undergraduate student, Christopher Merchant, from the Department of Community Sustainability (CSUS) worked with faculty in CSUS and the Department of Forestry to evaluate the amount of carbon emissions offset by SWRI for his undergraduate thesis research. The study found that by repurposing the trees and keeping carbon sequestered, the SWRI program reduced carbon emissions by 50.15 metric tons over a two year period. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/reducing-campus-carbon-emissions-with-msu-trees

MSU IPF sponsored a team of students from Applied Engineering Sciences (AESC 410) and Supply Chain Management (SCM 472) for the project "Carbon Sequestration & Carrying Capacity of MSU Trees". This was a featured project as part of the College of Engineering's Design Day: "Currently, MSU has over 20,000 trees on campus and cuts down, on average, 300 trees per year. MSU would like to collect data and design a system that will allow them to not only understand but also manage the carbon sequestration capacity of campus. This project is focused on calculating the carbon sequestration value of Michigan State’s campus in order to have a better understanding of how MSU is contributing to the local and global environment. This includes a method for calculating carbon sequestration that allows IPF to easily calculate an updated value on a yearly basis. The team is also responsible for identifying the canopy coverage of campus and mapping areas of campus where trees can be planted. This will aid IPF in the future with their plans for tree planting on campus. The project also includes creating a process to score trees based on age, canopy cover, carbon sequestration, and DBH. This score helps IPF determine which trees are most valuable to them and helps them maintain the diversity of trees on campus. Upon completion of this project, IPF will have a method of calculating the carbon sequestration value of campus, a better understanding of where to plant trees in the future, and which trees are most important to them. All of these will aid IPF in maintaining the beauty of Michigan State’s campus for years to come. Student Team Members: Shiliang Lai, Xiaohan Jai, Alexa Johnson, Nicholas Habib, Ethan Wolf.

MSU IPF sponsored a team of students from Applied Engineering Sciences (AESC 410) and Supply Chain Management (SCM 472) for the project "Preventative Maintenance Program on Airflow Measuring Stations". This was a featured project as part of the College of Engineering's Design Day: "IPF monitors the airflow measuring stations (AFMS) in over 700 heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems across campus. These systems can become uncalibrated over time, however routine maintenance of airflow measuring stations is costly and time-consuming, especially when it is unnecessary. The overall goal of the project was to determine the most cost effective methodology for maintaining devices that control the correct amount of airflow for each facility across campus. The proposed methodology would reduce overall costs of the HVAC systems by allowing them to operate as efficiently and sustainably as possible. It would also decrease the need for maintenance by transitioning from a time-based maintenance approach, suggested by the AFMS manufacturers, to a demand-based maintenance approach by utilizing fault detection and diagnostic technologies. These changes would provide value by lowering the energy consumption of the HVAC systems, ensuring healthy indoor air quality, and maintaining a more accurate system operation. The final deliverable of the project was a proposed business case presented to IPF with cost and efficiency comparisons between new AFMS options, recommendations on how to better control pressurization, as well as methods for leveraging fault detection and diagnostics technology to ensure calibration of the AFMS devices." Student team members: Grace Deerwester, Justin Kainz, Alexandra Kocevski, Qianchgen Wang

MSU IPF sponsored a team of students from Applied Engineering Sciences (AESC 410) and Supply Chain Management (SCM 472) for the project "Energy Efficiency and Operations Dashboard" to assist with the implementation of its Automatic Fault Detection and Diagnostics (AFDD) system. This was a featured project as part of the College of Engineering's Design Day: "This project was aimed at developing a campus-wide dashboard for the purpose of displaying energy efficiency and operations. The final dashboard will ideally have the ability to identify where reductions can be made in overall energy usage by the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings. The dashboard will also include new ideas proposed to improve quality of life for people on campus. It was decided, based on sponsor suggestions, to highlight a few particularly insightful buildings on campus on the dashboard, which could in the future be rolled out for all buildings campus-wide. The chosen spotlight buildings encompass the many types of rooms that MSU has to offer including classrooms, lecture halls, labs, student dorms, dining halls, and study areas, as well as sports arenas. This dashboard is intended to highlight past sustainability efforts, as well as ideas for potential new efforts through improved facility operational efficiency. Various dashboard models will be proposed for consideration by the various stakeholders across MSU (students, faculty, Administration, IPF, RHS, etc.)." Student team members: Michaela Glass, Lexi McFall, Kate Wesche, Sydney Carmack, Josh Elias

The club Sustainable Spartans received $25,000 from the Ford Motor Company Fund College Community Challenge to install solar-powered lighting at bus shelters around campus. The students partnered with the Office of Sustainability, IPF, and CATA on the project. Students kept a learning matrix to document their learning experiences throughout the project which covered proposal writing, project management, team formation and coordinator, research, product evaluation, community surveys, purcashing, and reporting. Student team members: Ethan Jodoin, Alexa Marsh, Maggie Lapointe, Hannah Rusgo, Rourke Brummette, Olivia Charette, Arianna Farina, Trent Garner. https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2020/alexa-marsh-improving-safety-and-sustainability-on-campus

The Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment (RISE) program and the Student Organic Farm both grow and sell produce to various campus dining halls. In addition, the Bailey Greenhouse and Urban Farm is student run and produces herbs and greens year round. The students in RISE work with advisors and facilities workers to build the beds when the farm expands, learning collaborative team building skills in the process. Farming the space and selling to dining hall managers and chefs teaches the students about circular economy elements and sustainable economics. The Bailey Greenhouse and Urban Farm and Student Organic Farm are third-party certified organic, and the students learn and apply sustainable farming practices to the cultivation of the crops. The students who grow the food also eat at the dining halls that use that produce in their dishes. RISE students are enrolled in their program for credit, and are required to contribute to the greenhouses as part of that credit.

Student Life and Engagement (formerly RHS) sponsored a team of students for the project "Robotics in a Residence Hall Dish Room 3.0". This was part of an ongoing project and was showcased as part of the College of Engineering's Design Day: Michigan State University’s Brody Cafeteria provides roughly 1.6 million meals per year. The current process of sorting silverware can occupy several employees at a time in a wet and humid environment. With Brody Cafeteria being short-staffed, this task can cause mayhem in the work environment. Using automation, staff members can divert their energy elsewhere, thus creating a better work environment. Our project, which is a continuation of a Spring 2020 project, is to improve an existing robot that will help reduce human error when washing and sorting the silverware. There are a few technical problems that still need to be addressed: improving the efficiency and accuracy of the sorting process by developing automated object recognition software, and redesigning the robotic system to remedy the conveyor belt slipping issue. Student team members: Eric Smith, Firas Kaafarani, Mark Brown, Nick Dionise, Nick Coury

The club Sustainable Spartans partnered with the Office of Sustainability and IPF Landscape Services on two projects, both funded by MSU IPF. The first was the installation of MSU's first outdoor green walls. The second was the installation of a pollinator garden behind the new Minskoff Pavilion along the River Trail. For both projects, the student teams created a learning matrix to document their learning experience throughout the project and all students received formal recognition of their learning outcomes from the Office of the Registrar through the My Spartan Story program. Students were involved in all aspects of the projects including project management, budget, research, design, plant selection, installation and reporting. Student team members of the green wall project: Kevin Hayes, Jarrod Griffus, John (J.R.) Nosal, Darla Martinez, Mikale Walker, Jashanjot Singh, Samantha Eggett, Sam Zorn, Abraham Yum, and Arianna Farina. Student team members of the pollinator garden project: Arianna Farina, Michael Anderson, Ashley Jeon, Lauren Kim, Ben Adams, and Jack Moreland.

MSU IPF Landscape Services sponsored a team of students from Mechincal Engineering 481 for the project "Autonomous Mowing and Snow Removal."" This was a featured project as part of the College of Engineering's Design Day: "Landscape Services mows 1500 acres of greenspace in the warm months and, during the winter, is responsible for maintaining 57 lane miles of roadways, 220 acres of parking lots, 113 miles of sidewalks and seven parking garages. To assist in maintaining these spaces all year round, MSU IPF purchased the first SnowBot Pro in January 2019. The autonomous vehicle from Left Hand Robotics, Inc. has the ability to perform snow removal and lawn mowing. Our team was tasked with taking the necessary steps to ensure the safety and reliability of the SnowBot Pro on campus. With its 63-inch mowing deck, the robot mows three acres per hour. Although this is slower than human operators, it allows Landscape Services employees to spend more time on non-trivial tasks such as fertilizing. In the winter, the SnowBot Pro is equipped with a salter and broom that can clear sidewalks 14 times faster than a human. The GPS-guided robot uses radar and LIDAR sensors to detect nearby objects and react accordingly. Our team was challenged with creating a functional safety plan to establish success criteria that was sent to Risk Management for approval before the robot’s deployment on campus. With multiple scenarios, objects, and conditions, a testing plan was created and executed to statistically evaluate the safety of the robot."" Student team members: Nic Wiggins, Ryan O'Quinn, Torre Crown, Eric Stauffer, Jordan Odehnal.

Nikolay Ivanov, a graduate student within the College of Education and a fellow of the MSU Leadership Institute, is working on a project to support the sale and exchange of gently used household goods for students. With funding from an anonymous donor, Nikolay was able to support a year of an online bulletin board for graduate students. On this bulletin board, graduate students list items that they need or items they are looking to get rid of. He is designing the website and making decisions about how to ensure safety and sustainability of this project. This project provides a very practical outlet for students to feel connected to each other and to a community.

The MSU Mobility Center sponsored a team of students from Electrical and Computer Engineering 480 for the project "MSU Green Mobility App". This was a featured project of the College of Engineering's Design Day: "Our MSU Green Mobility App provides a way for the MSU community to learn about and utilize “green” modes of transportation. “Green” modes can be characterized as a method of transportation that does not rely on burning fuels or other natural resources. Some of the primary milestones for this project consist of implementing a routing feature to make the app more practical in day-today activities, adding Lyft as a ridesharing option, and pulling accurate, real-time information for both the CATA buses as well as the Amtrak train station. With the MSU Green Mobility App, the user can easily interact with the local map which provides several options for green transportation on campus. For each option, the user can determine the distance, the “greenest” way, the cost, and how long it will take to reach the destination. Depending on the option that the user selects, all possible routes will be displayed. The ultimate goal for our MSU Green Mobility App is to make MSU more eco-friendly by providing students and faculty with information about the “green” modes of transportation available on campus and how they can utilize them. If just 5% of people start utilizing these options instead of driving, CO2 emissions would go down, MSU could save money on parking structures, and students choosing to walk will be able to get across campus much easier."" Student team members: Steven Liang, Conner Rash, Nathan Rogers, Jacob Rumptz, Shuchong Wang, Paul Zeman.

MSU Bikes Services Center and MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities sponsored a team of students from Mechanical Engineering 480 for the project "Intelligent Defense System (IDS)." The work of this project took place over the entire 2019-2020 school year and was a featured project as part of the College of Engineering's Design Day: Due to the increasing number of people distracted by their cellphone use while walking or driving, the safety of cyclists is severely threatened. Our project is to develop a lightweight, portable and simple system that can alert cyclists to impending danger. There are several systems that have been implemented, including radar and camera detection. Neither of these systems is optimal. Radar detection is expensive, and the reaction time using camera detection is slow. We plan to create a distance sensor, which uses light that reflects the area around a bike. The system is lightweight, portable and inexpensive, making it a better alternative. A WiFi module will be used to transmit the signal. It will have a microcontroller for processing data and sending a signal to a band mounted on the bike. The band then vibrates, warning the cyclist of potential danger. The use of WiFi allows the system to be hands-free as well. Student team members: Yuanhui Zeng, Boshi Feng, Yue Gu, Ruhao Chen, Taozhan Zhang, Yongqian Gao.

The Surplus Store and Recycling Center (SSRC) served as a sponsor for the project "The Bindicator: Engineering students develop prototype for MSU Recycling". Seeking to streamline trash and recycling collection, SSRC looked to a group of 11 engineering students who formed a Capstone Team for the 2018 Design Day, an annual challenge hosted by the College of Engineering. During fall semester 2018 the student team met periodically staff to discuss the difficulties associated with managing campus waste collection and brainstorm how technology could lend a hand. Simply put, checking the status of up to 800 bins is labor intensive and time consuming. Moreover, staff are spending time servicing bins that don’t need emptying. Data collected during manual inspection indicates that 70% of bins are less than 50% full and do not require emptying at the time they’re scheduled to be serviced. The proposed solution explored by the engineering team was to develop and test a a bin volume monitoring system that can be checked remotely. The team developed and tested the Bindicator, a battery-powered sensor system that communicates with SSRC’s existing collections software. The prototype, developed entirely by the capstone team, indicates approximately how full the bin is and uses GIS to indicate its location. During Design Day, the capstone team gave a public presentation. “The technology isn’t new to the market,” one student offered, “but the affordability is. Companies today offer a similar service for $25 to $35 per bin per month, plus the purchase of a proprietary software, so our solution needs to be cost effective, comparatively,” said another team member. A third student added, “it needs to be rugged to debris and liquids, and to the outdoor elements.” When compared to the estimated price of services provided by an external company, the students’ innovation would allow for savings of thousands of dollars, said one team member. Additional research was conducted on the viability of the Bindicator after this Design Day project. It was determined that the in-house GIS bin monitoring system would still be too costly, and SSRC decided to update its route system to include some stops that are on-call.

Another project was the WasteNOT Event, which was focused around using plastic waste in art. In partnership with the SSRC, students from a Community Sustainability class worked with their course instructor as well as two instructors from the department of Art, Art History, and Design to collect plastic bags on campus and host an event at the Broad Art Lab. The event centered around plastic waste and upcycling opportunities. Activities included creating woven or crocheted pieces made from DIY Plarn (plarn is ‘yarn’ made from plastic bags); watching a film about the impacts of plastic waste on a particular bird; exploring fast facts about plastic production, recycling and waste.

An interdisciplinary team of MSU students from worked on a project to develop a Master Plan for the Red Cedar River on campus. A proposal was created on conducting onsite analysis to identify the areas most impacted by flooding and how those areas could be designed with low impact enviromental practices that would resolve stormwater issues while providing recreation opportunities for the campus community. The team had multiple faculty advisors providing feedback on the project and contributing to the student learning experience. The team submitted their project to the U.S. EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge and received an honorable mention. Student team: Amanda Wakefield, Mitchell Kreiner (Landscape Architecture and Horticulture); Angela Yuan (Environmental Studies, Sustainability, and Environmental Economics); Sam Linebaugh (Construction Management). https://www.epa.gov/green-infrastructure/2019-campus-rainworks-challenge-results#MSU

Fisheries and Wildlife course 868 has an experiential/service-learning component to the course, where groups of graduate students work with campus or external partners on projects. A team of three graduate students developed a climate adaptation plan focused on water resources for the university. The plan included strategies related to: education, outreach and engagement, funding, removing structures from the floodplain, updating codes for the built environment, wet weather optimization, water conservation practices, and green infrastructure. The plan was presented to the IPF Chief Sustainability Officer. Student team members: Chelsea Weiskerger, Alaina Bur, Laura Young.

The mruleICA Program @ MOSAIC is an innovative, intercultural engagement program, employing student leaders and is the only program of its kind in the nation. Working individually and collectively, these student leaders develop genuine relationships with undergraduate students and build community across difference, doing so through five engaged learning opportunities, or ELOs: Weekly roundtable discussions (RTDs) related to race, class, gender, and other social issues; Purposeful interactions and accompanied outreach; Regular acts of service and monthly socials; Training and education in foundational concepts such as race, class, gender, historical patterns and experiences in addition to contemporary social issues such as global migration, climate change; and Campus partnerships. https://mosaic.msu.edu/mruleICA-program/index.html

Cordelia Marting-Ikpe, a graduate student in the College of Social Science and a fellow of the MSU Leadership Institute, is looking at how to recruit more underrepresented minorities into the Geography Department. A possible focus of this work is strategic attendance at conferences or a pipeline to Chicago State, which does not have a Geography PhD program and is a minority serving institution.

Daniel Puentes, a graduate student in the College of Natural Science and a fellow of the MSU Leadership Institute, is working on a project to advocate for guaranteed transitional funding for graduate students who are forced to move to new labs or assistantships due to issues with their supervisor. There have been several other institutions who have recently launched programs like this, and Daniel is working with several assistant deans who are also interested in this idea.

Not pursuing

Hima Rawal and QI Huang, graduate students within the College of Arts and Letters and fellows of the MSU Leadership Institute, are working to address international students’ mental health. They want to build bridges to increase access to and decrease stigma of mental health services. They have been collaborating with the Office of International Students & Scholars as well as with Counseling and Psychiatric Services to create a Wellness Ambassador program where selected international students are trained to reach out to other international students to help them learn about mental health services on campus.

Samridhi Satija, a graduate student within the College of Natural Science and a fellow of the MSU Leadership Institute, is focusing on supporting women graduate students. She has collaborated with the Women*s Student Services office to host the Smart Start program, a program designed to help women with salary negotiations in professional settings. Salary negotiation skills are one way to address the wage gap that exists across genders.

Several projects highlighted in this credit reflect work of graduate students participating in the MSU Leadership Institute. The Institute exists to build a culture of leadership development among graduate students, professional students, and postdocs. The Leadership Institute is comprised of three main components: (1) The Leadership Summit is an intensive one day conference held every fall semester. (2) The Leadership Academy is an 8-week cohort style developmental experience where participants design and execute leadership projects. (3) Leadership Development Fellows work during the school year to build community and leadership within their own colleges.