University of Tennessee at Knoxville
EN-3: Student Life

There are many sustainability-focused student organizations on campus that in cooperation with the Office of Sustainability to affect change on campus. The list below is not exhaustive but only identifies groups that the Office of Sustainability has worked most closely with.

Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville (SPEAK) is a group promoting general environment education and service. They operate a community garden located at the UTK Culinary Institute. They also host biweekly meetings to discuss environmental topics, often including experts in various fields as guest speakers.
https://volink.utk.edu/organization/speak

The Compost Coalition is a group of students that are dedicated to increasing education about compost as well as increasing access to compost bins where students, faculty, and staff can dispose of organic material. Since 2021, they’ve been operating a composting pilot in several residence halls across campus as an experiment to assess the need for and convenience of residential composting.
https://volink.utk.edu/organization/compostcoalition

Plastic Free UT is a student organization dedicated to banning single use plastics on campus. They aim to accomplish this by advocating for legislation in the SGA as well as supporting initiatives that reduce single use plastics, such as the Eco2Go program or the Mug Project.
https://volink.utk.edu/organization/plasticfreeut

The VOLunteer Supported Agriculture (VSA) program is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and experiential Organic Farm Internship program for UTK undergraduate students. The VSA works to connect community members with their farmers and inspire the next generation of agricultural ambassadors by offering shares of each harvest for purchase. Interested parties can become members by paying an upfront fee that will help buy seeds and supplies, and provide stipends for our student interns who are participating in the unique, experiential, organic production internship component of the program. In return, members receive a weekly 1/2 bushel box of fresh, locally grown, organic produce for 20 weeks! Box contents will vary from week to week and feature a variety of seasonal produce.
https://vsa.tennessee.edu/

The UTK Grow Lab promotes experiential and service learning, demonstrates ecological food production methods, and encourages community.The UTK Grow Lab will demonstrate ecological food production methods, address local food insecurity, contribute to a sense of place, and encourage interdisciplinary partnerships.

At the Grow Lab, half of the plots are designated for specific academic courses, research, and university groups. The remaining plots are maintained by staff and volunteers with produce being donated to groups targeting food-insecurity.

https://sustainability.utk.edu/projects/the-grow-lab/
http://growlab.utk.edu/

UT Outdoor Pursuits houses the Bike Shop, an on-campus workshop where students, faculty and staff can fix their bikes. Students willing to work on their own bikes can do so for free using the tools at the shop. The Bike Shop also hosts workshops where students can learn how to fix and maintain their bikes. Students may also drop off their bikes to be fixed by student mechanics for a fee of $10/hour, plus the cost of parts. The shop also sells individual parts.

The Green Fee is a student facilities fee that aims to raise funding for student-led, sustainability-focused initiatives and research. The Green Fee was started in 2005 by student vote during SGA elections and consists of a $10 fee per semester for in-state/out-of-state students. The Green Revolving Fund within the Green Fee provides monetary investments for sustainability initiatives on campus that have a short return on investment. These funds are administered by the Student Environmental Initiatives Committee (SEIC). Student, faculty, and staff members meet monthly to deliberate over each proposal submitted. Proposals that are approved by both the SEIC and the Facilities Services Oversight Committee are funded immediately after approval.

Previous projects funded by the Green Revolving Fund have included green power purchases, lighting system upgrades, research on passive solar heating, fees for AmeriCorps member contracts, and a membership to AASHE. The Green Fee has most recently been used to fund outreach programs for sustainability-focused student organizations.

https://sustainability.utk.edu/2021/11/16/green-fee-2/

In 2022 the Office of Sustainability offered a panel of speakers who work in the field of sustainability to undeclared undergraduate majors.

"Unsustainable: a planet in crisis" is an art exhibit hosted by the Ewing Gallery in the School of Art in January and February 2020. It was a group exhibition featuring artwork ranging in material, discipline, and execution that addresses themes of planetary crisis—climate change, the rise of new diseases, world conflict and national instability, plastics in the ocean, gun violence, pollution of the waterways, air pollution from use of fossil fuels, the opioid crisis, and species extinction.

https://sustainability.utk.edu/2020/01/24/unsustainable-a-planet-in-crisis/

The University of Tennessee Outdoor Pursuits (UTOP) seeks to provide the campus community with outdoor recreation opportunities. UTOP programs emphasize environmental stewardship, including Leave No Trace principles. While UTOP is not student governed, students are given the opportunity to lead some programs and trips.

https://recsports.utk.edu/utop/overview/

The 2020 spring semester was a theme semester in the College of Arts and Sciences named "Apocalypse 2020". One of the central themes of the semester was climate change.

Some of the events and lectures hosted in conjunction with this themed semester are as follows:
Unsustainable – A Planet in Crisis
Ewing Gallery

Urban Narrative and Climate Change
Ursula Heise, Co-founder of the Lab for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS) at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Everyday Apocalypse: The Poetry of Climate Change in the Late Middle Ages
Shannon Gayk, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Medieval Studies Institute at Indiana University Bloomington

Climate Change: The Inside Scoop
LaToya Myles and John Kochendorfer, atmospheric scientists with NOAA

https://artsci.utk.edu/events-3/

Some of the courses offered in conjunction with this themed semester are as follows:
GEOL 490 (Section 3): Apocalypse & Mass Extinctions: Past, Present & Future
GEOL 456: Global Climate Change
GEOG 204: Understanding Climate Change
GEOG/GEOL 206S: Sustainability: Reducing our impact on planet Earth

https://artsci.utk.edu/courses-offered/

The Office of Sustainability has opportunities for both standard and Federal Work Study student positions as well as unpaid internships for experience or class credit. Student workers assist in outreach and education, program maintenance and development, recycling and compost operations, and data collection and analysis. All of these positions contribute to and are necessary for contributions to campus sustainability goals. Unpaid interns are generally involved in creating new initiatives to target specific environmental issues or sustainability-focused research.

http://organics.tennessee.edu/
https://sustainability.utk.edu/funding-opportunities/
https://recsports.utk.edu/utop/overview/
https://career.utk.edu/students/get-tailored-career-guidance/career-information-by-college/