Introduction

Wesleyan Committee
Recycling
Aramark
Education
Environmental Management

Middletown Committee
Education
Clean Air
Other Campaigns

National Issues
Forests
Global Warming

Miscellaneous
Secretaries
Website
New Subcommittees
Coordinator Meetings



Pohnpei- Sawartik waterfall

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E3's Summary for Fall 1999

Introduction

     This is the E3 Fall 1999 semester recap. Enclosed you will find reports of everything that E3 did this semester, and what our plans are for the spring and beyond. We accomplished an amazing amount of stuff this semester, but all of the committees could still use more help. We'll be starting out fresh next semester, so if you stopped coming to meetings but think the stuff below is worthwhile, please come out to the first spring semester meeting and get involved!

Wesleyan Committee

Recycling
Accomplishments:
1. Paperboard (ie. cereal boxes) can now be recycled outside WesShop and the Campus Center loading dock.
2. Coursebook recycling bins placed outside of campus center during finals
3. We passed out 200 blue bins and info. about recycling.
4. We ordered 600 bins from Middletown and 50 from Res. Life to put in Clark and the Foss dorms next semester. These will be added to the Res. Life list of permanent dorm room furniture.
5. Chatted with the firemarshall- Recycling bins in dorm halls will eventually become a reality!
6. Created a workstudy position for bettering recycling at Wes. All interested should apply to the Financial Aid Office!
7. Surveyed professors in PAC about whether they want recycling bins in their offices. We found that most already try to recycle, but they definitely need more information.
8. There is now Styrofoam recycling at the Science Tower loading dock

Next semester:
1. Get physical plant to buy nice, durable recycling bins for outdoors around campus.
2. Get recycling bins placed in every dorm room and educate students to USE them!

Aramark
Accomplishments:
Met regularly with Aramark representatives and worked on:
Vegan/veggie options
1. labeling of vegan and vegetarian foods improved
2. vegan margarine at WESHOP
3. Rice Dream at WESHOP
4. the gardenburgers at campus dining will now be vegan
5. vegan cheese at WESHOP
6. vegan pizzas now available at grille
7. we gave Aramark more vegan recipes, which hopefully they'll be using
Waste reduction
1. Tupperware plates now available at WESHOP - can be used at all campus dining locations
2. refuse a bags now available at WESHOP - the first 100 sold out in a couple days, but they're ordering more
3. better advertising of mugs and discounts and tupperware

Waste Nothing Day (Tuesday, Nov 16th)
- asked students to sign pledge to not waste anything for the day, got hundreds of pledges, piled up trash in front of campus center, Argus article, signs everywhere (on one-sided paper of course) tupperware plates and cloth bags sold out at WESHOP as a result

Next Semester:
1. waste nothing day again?
2. Tray Dorm Storm collection, amnesty, contest, etc. (Aramark trays keep getting stolen and as a result they have to order disposable ones - bring back your trays!!)
3. Get WARN and Recycled product labels up in/near WEShop
4. get higher content recycled products at WESHOP and for ARAMARK use
5. more education, increase student participation
6. Improve vegan/veggie labeling (esp. at Mocon)
7. Composting
-Starting to gather information, have great contact
-work with physical plant
*next semester increase number of houses that compost - a big project

Education
Accomplishments:
1. worked to help publicize E3 events, such as rainforest week and waste nothing day.
2. organized with the Richard M. Nixon Memorial Marching Band (Myth Arts Collective) to march
during halftime of the homecoming football game to educate people about recycling.
3. chalked a couple of times about campus recycling.
4. wrote a wespeak about waste nothing day.
5. scrawled various environmental facts on random chalkboards in classrooms during lunchtime.
6. supported the other committees by generally providing support and helping with publicity.

Next Semester:
1. be more pro-active about educating the campus about E3's campaigns and what's going on in the world. This means not only supporting the other committees, but also working on our own campaigns.
2. make sure to ALWAYS check the weather report before chalking.
3. come up with one or a few of our own running educational campaigns for the semester that can be approached in various ways (chalking, wespeak, media, flyers, street theater, marching band).
4. Learn to contact the media A LOT. This means the Argus and Hermes, Middletown Press, Hartford Advocate, Hartford Courant, and local TV stations. This is something that EVERYONE in E3 should be doing. The Argus and the Middletown Press will write articles about ALMOST ANYTHING, so there is no reason why we shouldn't do this. Also, we should consider the idea of having people assigned to be media liaisons, perhaps even within each committee rather than just in the education group.
5. organize ourselves (or all of E3) to have a sign-up sheet for writing Wespeaks on all sorts of issues. We could even get one in every issue for a whole semester, and everyone in E3 would only have to do it once! imagine how EDUCATED the campus would be!
6. come up with witty and fun street theater ideas, to get our message out to people in a more light-hearted and effective way.
7. using passive approaches such as stickers and signs in bathroom stalls as well as the more conventional flyers that always get torn down right away anyway.
8. possibly initiating a regular activity that happens once a week, possibly on Wednesdays during lunch. This would be a time when we could do a low-key activity such as gathering petitions or talking to people about trash. It would be nice to know that at least once a week we are doing something.

Environmental Management
Accomplishments:
1. We met with Bennet once and Bob Taylor (the Treasurer of the university) once. At our meeting with Bob Taylor (the director of physical plant and someone else were also there) this week we formulated the following plan:
     Wesleyan will create an environmental management committee next semester, comprised of individuals representing each of the environmental components
of the school. These individuals will be the currently employed staff members responsible for: Recycling, Aramark, Facilities Planning, Grounds Maintenance, Facilities Maintenance, Purchasing, Hazardous Waste, and Education (there's no person responsible for this yet, but we'll find someone).
     E3, the environmental management committee, and an independent environmental consultant (the university already has one that it uses occasionally) will formulate a plan and set of goals for each component of the committee, and the committee representatives will then be responsible for meeting those goals. The committee will meet regularly to discuss its progress.
2. Prior to all of that, we got the WSA to pass a resolution requesting that Wesleyan create an Environmental Management Office
3. Petitioned at the campus center and mocon. Collected 540 signatures in 5 hours. Talked to lots of people about the issue and raised awareness.

Next Semester:
This may change the structure of the Wesleyan Committee somewhat. We will likely form small groups that will work with each of the members of the environmental management committee. We will be responsible for designing the plans and goals for each issue, so that'll be a lot of work.

Middletown Committee

Environmental Education
Accomplishments:
We used the environmental education curriculum to develop activities to present at various area elementary schools. Unfortunately we ran into problems with superintendents at the Farm School.  We did go to the homeroom program and made recycled art one afternoon.

Clean Air
Issue:
We worked with the Toxics Action Center in Hartford and the Middlesex Clean Air Commission on the Filthy Five Campaign. The problem is that a legislative loophole exempts five major power plants in Connecticut from having to meet current emissions standards. One of these five plants is an oil-burning plant on River Road in Middletown.  The legislature will be addressing this issue in January, and we worked on grassroots organizing to get the community to pressure the legislature to close this loophole.
Actions:
-we collected petition signatures
-we went canvassing twice- once around Halloween wearing smokestack costumes
-Melanie Grubman and Josh bc attended the statewide planning committees dealing with this issue
-we attempted a phone in to Gov. Rowland using the phone in the campus center.   Unfortunately, his secretary checked on our voting status-we're not CT voters

Other campaigns:
We reinstated monthly trash treks-its difficult to find places to clean we held one on parents weekend-members from the North End Action Team (NEAT) were supposed to show up-but did not-Manhattan bagel donated LOTS (two whole
trashbags full) of bagels

We attended a composting workshop at Russell Library in September. We met with Kim O'Rourke, Recycling Coordinator for Middletown, and discussed possible projects.
She gave us free compost bins and now Intercultural House, Earth House, Well-Being House , and German House now have composting.  Louisa Hay joined the Middletown
Recycling Committee as a Wesleyan representative. She organized a recycling audit training for E3 members with Kim O'Rourke. Next semester we will help Kim collect recycling audits from Middletown businesses.

E3 members also attended the North End Action Team meetings regularly

National Committee

Forests
Accomplishments:
Rainforest Week '99 (November 1-5)
11/1 Mon: Film: Hemp Power
11/3 Wed: Rainforest Vigil with Environmental Literature readings in front of Olin
11/4 Thurs: Opening night of the Eco-Art exibit. Meeting room #1 Campus Center
11/5 Fri: Rainforest Benefit Concert @ 356 Washington St.
3 Wesleyan Bands: The Mobius Band, Since Then, and one more.  Also, there were bakesales throughout the week.
At these events we raised a total of $436 dollars for Adopt an Acre Rainforest program directed by Rainforest Action Network, from San Francisco, CA.

We finished up the year with a campaign to have 400 postcards signed that appeal to the National Forest service to save forested roadless areas from the Multinational logging companies, from multinational mining companies, from any sort of development. And in effect, to create a beautiful reserve of nature. We have currently sent in 283 of these postcards with E3 mailing funds. The others we have given to our friends and families and are being sent in by them.

Next semester:
I (Dave Westman) will be out in Utah, learning about conservation and public land issues while backpacking through the Colorado Plateau for two months.
This spring Josh Berkowitz. will be returning from his semester off (we all missed him), and will be working on other issues for forest committee. Josh has traditionally taken Forests in a different direction than I have, so issues dealt with might be a bit different. When I return next fall though, I will work with Josh, hopefully making Forest committee much more comprehensive.
Stay tuned for more info!

Global Warming
Accomplishments:
We kicked off the campaign in the second week with wearing questions on our backs (Is your glacier receding faster than your hairline?), and passing out fact/action cards to those who asked why we would be asking such questions.

At the end of the week we unveiled the Global Warming Marching Band, complete with whistles, horns, and other such noisemakers; banners, and a new rendition of "Jesus
Loves Me," modified for the warming generation. The band was small - but amused and delighted most who saw it- with the exception of a frowny family visiting Wesleyan for the afternoon.

We decided afterwards that sturdier banners, more audible singing, and postcards instead of action cards "urging" people to call their Senators would be better. We also threw around the idea of making the marching band our new medium for a fresh message. The idea resonated when we brought it back to the group, and we planned to march on Duke Day. Complete with choreography, chants, instruments, many people, and a human pyramid, we wowed and amazed all who witnessed the extravaganza. We passed out postcards
and factcards afterwards, and folks ate it up.

From this event we had established a repertoire of chants, dances, cheers, and the skills to do the human pyramid. We used our skills to dorm storm one evening during an E3 meeting. The attempt was met with angry and uptight hall residents who slammed their doors on us. We didn't like them anyway, so we went to the campus center. A better response, but some felt that their studying was disrupted. In any case, we got many postcards signed. We also managed to put up global warming and anti-car flyers around campus,
and we stormed parents weekend with many global warming flyers, which asked them if they liked to eat. Global warming doesn't care if you like to eat.

What worked particularly well:
The human pyramid wowed and impressed. The marching band in general has brought many smiles and new ideas to all of us. The lunch meetings were stellar for socializing and relaxing, and so were the sushi dinners.

What didn't work:
We tried to have organizing meetings to make banners and such. Very few people showed up. So then we tried to have as few meetings as possible, and to work as quickly as possible. This either left folks feeling rushed, or that nothing was getting done.

In general we felt like we didn't do enough direct public education--even too little tabling-and that consequently not enough of the student body was aware of what we were about when we did our public events. We also didn't have uniforms for the marching band. This impeded us from looking like a real troupe, even though we did wear burger-flipping hats. It was also difficult to contact everyone, since John Kamp never gave the contact list to everyone. John says, "This will never happen again."

Next Semester:
1. Before we take any steps, we are going to fill out a strategy chart, so we know exactly where we are going, and who we are targeting.
2. We are going to make the pyramid bigger, and we are going to look snappy, with uniforms, permanent, nice banners, and flags. If anyone has seen the flags on the Resist card for the WTO protest, our flags are going to look as
beautiful as these, if not better. This will involve a few more extra meetings to make things, but since the banners will be permanent, we won't have to keep redoing what we have already created. In any case, the organization meetings are going to have more things to keep us going and wanting to come back for more: tea, high-quality coffee, soy milk, food, musical selections, and better, non-fluorescent lighting in the office.
3. When we hit the streets we are going to do more tabling -not too much, but some. But often these tabling events are going to be accompanied by go-go dancers, and people in swimsuits serving sugarless hot chocolate on a cold winter's day. Martha Stewart actually may be the spokesperson for this event; recently she said that global warming was bad. This is true, and that's why we want Martha to show us how to decorate our tables right. And she may also help us with our psychic fair.
4. More discussion is going to happen, facilitated by e-mail.
5. The global warming subcommittee is going to lead E3 workshops (which will also be open to anyone who is interested) on such things as running a meeting, creating a campaign based on the Direct Action Organizing Chart, and working with the media.

Miscellaneous

Secretaries -
Rebecca Weisgrau and Lauren Abrahams took up the roles of E3 secretaries/Office managers (yes, there is an E3 office! it's in the basement of the WSA building and all are welcome to use it). They cleaned up the office, got a new rug, found another room for us to store bulky things in, ordered some new filing shelves that we'll make use of next semester, and did lots of other awesome stuff. For next semester, they'll hopefully be getting a computer, a couch, and some books for research and info. And we'll be making the office a resource for the whole group, so that people actually use it on a regular basis.

Website
Roger Smith kept up the E3 website (http://www.wesleyan.edu/e3/) throughout the semester and added a bunch of stuff to it. There's lots of links, info, and news of what E3 is and has been doing, so go check it out. Next semester Roger will be leaving for Japan, so there'll be a new website crew taking over.

New subcommittees for next semester
1. Earth Week:
There will be a small planning committee for E3's Earth Week festivities. If you'd like to help out, contact e3@wesleyan.edu This will probably won't prevent you from being involved with other committees

2. Another National subcommittee:
We'd like to have another national subcommittee, cause there's probably more than two issues of national significance that we should be working on. One idea has been nuclear issues, but if anyone has other issues that they'd like to work one then bring it up when we get back next semester or email E3.

E3 coordinator meetings/email
This semester, a bunch of the E3 coordinators starting meeting separately every couple weeks to discuss issues that we didn't have time to talk about in the Tuesday meetings. Next semester we'll be meeting every week, alternating between lunch and dinner meetings. All are welcome to attend the meetings, so if you want to get more involved or just have a random idea that you'd like to discuss, please stop by. We also set up a separate email list (e3@wesleyan.edu) to open up the lines of communication between different committees. So if you have any questions about upcoming meetings or any other E3 stuff, email e3.

to go back home:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/e3