Tennessee Technological University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

The Office of Sustainability hosts an annual tabling event during Sustainability in Higher Education Month (October) which spotlights campus, community and state organizations focused on sustainability. Students are able to connect to these groups and participate in their events and activities and for information on future jobs in sustainability.

The Office of Sustainability, comprised of a Sustainability manager and student workers, offers students monthly surveys to better expand sustainability knowledge on campus. These surveys are created and taken by students, and include topics such as the Bike Share Program, sustainable eating and shopping, energy, and recycling. They are distributed to the entire campus community by being placed in the Tech Times, TTU's e-newsletter. In addition to the monthly surveys, the Office of Sustainability offers a variety of events from film screenings to cleanups throughout the year to inspire and educate students about living more sustainably. The Office of Sustainability also host many themed weeks throughout the year such as EagleFIT Week in February, Water Week in March, Earth Week in April, and Sustainability Month in October. The Office also writes up newsletters each semester in order to share with students, faculty, and staff what we have been up to and what sustainability efforts and accomplishments are being made each semester.

The Student Government Association hosted a Student Wellness Day in the Fall of 2021.

https://www.tntech.edu/sustainability/index.php

https://www.tntech.edu/sga/initiatives.php

The Center for Energy Systems Research is an Accomplished Center of Excellence at Tennessee Technological University. Faculty members are from various academic departments including Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical and Bio Molecular Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology, and Mechanical Engineering. Faculty and students perform research on solar energy, energy storage, smart grid power systems, power electronics, wind energy, distributed power plant performance improvement, cement, concrete, bridge and structure health monitoring, flood flow modeling, advanced communications and cyber security. Graduate students and visiting scholars from around the world work on these projects. The major objectives of the center are to provide solutions to problems faced by energy producers and consumers, to expand opportunities for advanced training in these fields to Tennessee students, and to provide trained man power to solve present and future problems of the energy industry.

https://www.tntech.edu/engineering/research/cesr/index.php

Facilities' personnel give educational tours each semester of the on-campus, gas-fired steam plant and the central chilled water plant to engineering students as a part of their regular classwork.

TTU faculty and students at the graduate and undergraduate levels conduct research concerning the Food-Water-Energy Nexus. This research includes professors and students from multiple campus departments, including Environmental Engineering, Agriculture, Mechanical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering. The research spans across different themes, but has a connected purpose of conserving energy.

Additionally, Tech's Center for Energy Systems Research is an interdisciplinary center that performs research on solar energy, energy storage, smart grid power systems, power electronics, wind energy, distributed power plant performance improvement, cement, concrete, bridge and structure health monitoring, flood flow modeling, advanced communications and cyber security. The major objectives of the center are to provide solutions to problems faced by energy producers and consumers, to expand opportunities for advanced training in these fields to Tennessee students, and to provide trained man power to solve present and future problems of the energy industry.

https://www.tntech.edu/research/centersandfacilities/wrc/water-energy-food-nexus.php

https://www.tntech.edu/engineering/research/cesr/about-cesr/

The College of Human Ecology hosts a Friday Cafe once a week where students are in charge of menu creation, food preparation, and food service for the cafe. This opportunity is offered through the Quantity Food Production course and is supervised by a faculty member. In addition to that, the Dining Hall also has a new program called "Ozzi." The Ozzi machine is located outside of the cafeteria and works very similarly to a vending machine. Place the used Ozzi container in the machine, and it will dispense a coin for you to use the next time you need a to-go container. “These containers are the newest way we are implementing safety precautions while also keeping it green!” (TN Tech Dining). The Dining Hall makes it a priority to serve plant-based options daily.

https://www.tntech.edu/cahe/hec/friday_cafe/index.php

Additionally, students from all campus departments as well as campus faculty and staff members are given the opportunity to participate in free, interactive programs hosted by Campus Dining. Their programs focus on providing the necessary information to encourage informed choices on both the food we conserve and the ways we interact with the natural environment.

https://www.dineoncampus.com/ttu/sustainability

Tech's Shipley Farm & Oakley Farm are used by many different groups of students, faculty, and organizations to learn more about green industries, processing, and landscaping. The Agronomy and Soils students work on the Tech Farm to enhance their learning experience. The soils classes maintain flower beds in front of Oakley Hall. Nursery and Landscape Management and Turfgrass Management students work on the Tech Farm. The Biology Department has a greenhouse on campus. Under the Biology Department, several courses use the campus as a living lab. For example, Dendrology (AGHT 4350) surveys and identifies trees on campus and Field Botany (BIOL 3240) utilizes the greenhouse and identifies plants on campus. The Biology Department also began the Native Plant Garden in 2017 with help from the TN Tech Green Fee. This project is a prominent feature on campus that anyone can view, but that Botany courses study and maintain. The Native Plant Garden highlights different habitats within TN and the plants that live in them. Additionally, insect homes were added in 2018 to help promote pollinators (a proposal from the Student Association for Plant Sciences). In the summer of 2021, a mural was added to the Native Plant Garden to highlight local pollinators, plants, and animals. This mural project was a part of the Creative Inquiry Summer Experience grant. The Paul L. Hollister Herbarium at Tennessee Tech (HTTU) is also involved in research, education, and conservation. The herbarium provides resources for those interested in botany, ecology, floristics, ethnobotany, systematics, and wetland management. It actively participates in locating and documenting state and federal listed threatened and endangered species. In 2018, Tennessee Tech and the School of Agriculture began the Urban Gardening Initiative through a partnership with SeedFork of the Highlands and the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. The objectives of the program are to educate people on how to grow food and grow food locally on a small scale and then demonstrate the health benefits of growing foods and vegetables with cooking demonstrations. The Urban Gardens Initiative also provides Tech students with the experience of running the garden and collecting information to provide metrics on the impact in the community.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Local-Business/TTU-Shipley-Farm-153857874626048/

https://www.tntech.edu/cas/biology/greenhouse.php

https://www.tntech.edu/cas/biology/herbarium/

https://www.ucbjournal.com/urban-gardens-producing-good-results/

Mechanical engineering students and faculty work collaboratively alongside the Office of Sustainability using money provided by the Student Green Fee Program in order to purchase equipment necessary complete their senior research projects focused on sustainability. Research projects include the construction of a solar powered recycling vehicle and Project Regrind a project that utilized plastic water bottles to create filament for 3 D printers.

https://www.tntech.edu/sustainability/research-projects.php

Furthermore, the Campus Bookstore has a sell back program that encourages all campus students to sell their used textbooks to be reused. The book store also provides a rental option for many textbooks, so the books are reused instead of disposed. It also uses plastic bags that display a message that asks customers to recycle them and features a healthy snack section to encourage students to purchase more nutritious snacks when shopping.

https://tenn-tech.bncollege.com/shop/tenn-tech/page/sell-back-textbooks

TN Tech maintains a student-funded and student-led Bike Share Program. This program allows students to decrease their carbon footprints by offering a free and easily accessible alternative to using a car.

Tech also provides a free campus shuttle program.

https://www.tntech.edu/sustainability/bikeshare.php

https://www.tntech.edu/parking/shuttles.php

The TN Tech recycling program is run by student workers. These students get hands-on experience dealing with campus waste and waste diversion. With this program in place, the university recycles more than 250 tons of metals, plastic, aluminum cans, wood pallets, yard waste, tires, cardboard, paper, fluorescent tubes and ballasts, and wood each year. For Fiscal Year 2021, the University recycled 22.20% of its total waste produced and aims to recycle 25% by the year 2025.
A bulb crusher has been purchased as well, allowing for the diversion of shipping waste in that bulbs can now be broken down on campus.

The Office of Sustainability began its Recycling Education Campaign, Make a Difference-Purple Pride Going Green, in partnership with Communications and Marketing after receiving a $35,000 grant from TDEC in 2017. The campaign is an all-inclusive multifaceted initiative that aims to continuously educate all of TN Tech's student, faculty and staff & residents of Putnam County about recycling. Since the official launch of this campaign in the fall semester of 2018, ten new recycling stations with comprehensive signage have been placed around campus.

https://www.tntech.edu/sustainability/untitledrecycling-projects.php

https://www.tntech.edu/sustainability/recycling-education-and-outreach.php

TN Tech offers water related courses and research within the undergraduate and graduate programs of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. There are projects within this department on campus studying storm water as it flows through and away from campus. In addition to the opportunities offered in the Civil and Environmental Department, the TN Tech Water Center serves as the home grounds for all water-related research (biodiversity,enabling technologies and tools, water-energy-food nexus, and water security and sustainability) and projects on campus.

The Office of Sustainability also hosted an annual Water Week during the Spring semester in recognition of World Water Day. This week featured a clean-up of the campus wetlands, a social media water conservation awareness campaign, and a celebratory tabling event full of university and local water-related groups. The Office chose to partner with the company Cupanion to participate in their Fill it Forward Program. We have given out close to 500 reusable water bottles to students at events like World Water Day, Sustainability Day, and New Student Orientations.

https://www.tntech.edu/engineering/programs/cee/index.php

https://www.tntech.edu/research/centersandfacilities/wrc/

https://www.facebook.com/TTUSustainableCampusCommittee/posts/1267714593387891

The Student Government Association (SGA) serves as the representative for the students of the university and strives to make decisions that improve the university. This governing body created the Green Fee Program in 2004, and since then has banned the use of Styrofoam products on campus and expanded the Green Fee from $8.00 (Bill F05-01) per student to $10.00 (Bill S18-017) per student.

https://www.tntech.edu/sga/

Putnam Proud Annual County-Wide Clean-Up is something that TN Tech participates in every year. This year, we had a wide array of student groups participate such as The African Student Union, Student Government Associate, Student Members of American Chemical Society, Engineers Without Borders, and Water Professionals

https://www.cleancommission.com/

The Green Fee was established by the TTU student government association (SGA) in 2004. This fee of $8.00 (Bill F05-01) allowed for the creation of the TTU Office of Sustainability. The Office of Sustainability and the Sustainable Campus Committee, which is a group comprised of students, professors, and faculty members across various departments on campus, oversees the use of this established Green Fee. The fee has been used to fund the campus Bike Share Program, establish solar panels on campus, fund sustainability-focused research projects, and much more. In Spring of 2018, SGA voted to increase the Green Fee to $10.00 (Bill S18-017).

https://www.tntech.edu/sustainability/index.php

The TN Tech Fitness Center encourages the campus community to get fit while giving back to the earth by exercising in its Green Fitness Room. The Green Fitness Room consists of equipment designed to convert the energy exerted by users into energy used to power the Fitness Center. This room is equipped with upright bikes, ellipticals, and recumbent bikes that all contribute to power generation. The Student Green Fee helps to fund the new eco-friendly pool filtration system.

http://www.tntechoracle.com/news/view.php/1033266/Community-keeps-fitness-center-going