University of Nebraska - Lincoln
EN-3: Student Life

Sustain UNL is the prominent student organization dedicated to encouraging students to live, learn, and lead for the environment. Sustain UNL has hosted workshops, community service events, fundraisers, socials, and weekly meetings to help interested students take the next step towards being good stewards of the environment. The ASUN Environmental Sustainability Committee is the student government’s main outlet for sustainability initiatives. The Committee presents new opportunities and facilitates continuing projects every year that foster environmental stewardship, knowledge in sustainability, and community outreach. ESC has been highly active since its inception in 2011, and continues to engage UNL in improving campus sustainability. The Environmental Leadership Program is a program targeted at developing Freshmen and Sophomores into leaders in sustainability on campus. Twenty students are paired with an ESC member to assist with their projects. The ELP class facilitates the Sustainability Roundtable every Fall, bringing together local experts in areas such as waste, food, water, policy, transportation, energy, and more. In the Spring, ELP implements their own project original to that year’s class.

Students at UNL have the opportunity to participate in a student run organic farm located on East Campus. Bugeater Farm provides experiential learning for students interested in gardening, operating Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), or supporting local food grown by their peers.

Alumin8 is an aluminum recycling startup by College of Engineering students that converts aluminum cans into recycled specialized aluminum products to be sold online or other reusable products like silverware that are donated to the local homeless community. Their cause helps minimize the metal waste generated by removing aluminum from this flawed sustainability cycle and transforming it into more permanent forms. Alumin8's two-pronged strategy allows them to tackle aluminum waste while establishing relations between local university students and the homeless.

The Green Fund Selections Committee consists of 7 voting, student members and is advised by Prabhakar Shrestha, UNL’s Sustainability Coordinator. With help from an external board of subject matter experts, these 7 students review grant proposals and make recommendations to senate about which projects should be funded. Every year, 4 students will be elected to the committee by the student body during ASUN elections, and then 3 students will be appointed by the ASUN appointments board.

Each Fall Semester, the Environmental Leadership Program ran by the ASUN Student Government hosts a Sustainability Roundtable. The event is a workshop where students interact with local experts in areas such as water, waste, food, energy, transportation, and policy in the context of sustainability. Each Spring Semester, the ASUN Environmental Sustainability Committee hosts "EarthStock," a month-long celebration of Earth Day. EarthStock features a multitude of events, but also includes speakers, artists, documentaries, art, and discussions on sustainability available for all students and community members to attend. The E.N. Thompson Forum's mission is to bring a diversity of viewpoints on international and public policy issues to the University and the residents of the state to promote understanding and encourage debate. Over the past two decades, the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues has established itself as one of the preeminent speakers series in higher education. In 2011-2012, the Forum focused on water and global security. In 2015-2016, the focus was activism, one speaker included Bill McKibben, who spoke about climate activism. The Heuermann Lectures focus on addressing issues related to world-wide security in the areas of food, natural resources, and renewable energy for people, as well as on securing the sustainability of rural communities where the vital work of producing food and renewable energy occurs. Over the past five years, these agricultural lectures bring distinguished speakers to the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources to address topics of interest and importance.

The ASUN Environmental Sustainability Committee hosts many events during April for EarthStock. Cultural arts is always included in the festivities through displays, local artist performances, local art exhibitions, poetry, and film media. The Lincoln Environmental Arts Festival, or Leaf, is a celebration of environmental appreciation in Lincoln. The festival provides free events allowing UNL and greater Lincoln communities to experience and admire the culture of Lincoln and the natural environment preserved throughout. The focus is to inspire those involved to take action in making positive changes to our environmental resources at risk. This festival’s top priority is to use the influence of popularization to overexpose what should be an ethical norm. UNL Park(ing) Day is part of a global movement where citizens, designers and activists collaborate to change parking spots into habitable, park-like spaces for a day. The event began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a metered parking stall into a temporary public park. The local project is directed by Peter Olshavsky, assistant professor of architecture at the university, and sponsored by the American Institute of Architects' Lincoln chapter, BVH Architects, The Clark Enersen Partners, Clark Architects Collaborative 3 and Schemmer.

Outdoor Adventures offers students opportunities to engage in the natural world around them, while instructing all participants to use 'leave no trace' principles and offset all carbon emissions from travel using the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

The Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) is targeted at developing Freshmen and Sophomores into leaders in sustainability on campus. Twenty students are paired with an Environmental Sustainability Committee member and assist on their projects. The ELP class facilitates the Sustainability Roundtable every Fall, bringing together local experts in areas such as waste, food, water, policy, transportation, energy, and more. In the Spring, ELP implements their own project original to that year’s class. (http://asun.unl.edu) EcoLeaders is also sustainability-themed housing in one section of a dorm through the Learning Community program. EcoLeaders live and work together to work on a variety of sustainability projects in their own dorm and the community.

The UNL Office of Sustainability hires interns during the summer and school year to assist in projects to enhance campus sustainability.