Fund could increase green programs at Poly

Cal Poly Associated Students Inc. is working on the infancy stage of a green fund that has the potential to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for future student-led campus sustainability projects.

The fund, called The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF), would pool a $5 per-quarter student fee into a monetary reserve to be used for senior projects, internships and energy efficiency projects through Cal Poly.

Hartrich said that the current plan is to draw the fee from the potential $100 to $300 increase in college based fees that is awaiting approval from the College Fee Advisory Committee this week.

“If the fees don’t go through, then obviously TGIF would fail,” Hartrich said, “but there are other avenues.”

One of those “avenues” would be to try to pass the proposed fund as a referendum, meaning students would vote to implement the program much in the same way the new recreation center was approved last spring.

ASI President Angela Kramer and Hartrich aren’t taking any chances. The duo has already begun drafting a proposal to be included in the upcoming March referendum as a precaution.

Kramer, who has built her student administration to focuse heavily on sustainability, said that she has seen interest at the university’s administrative level.

“President Baker is a huge supporter of sustainable projects especially when they’re student-led projects,” Kramer said. “He really sees this as great opportunity for students to have access to funds to actually put on events or build models or do research or anything that’s appropriate to their field and I would 100 percent agree.”

Hartrich estimated that TGIF could acquire close to $300,000 per year if it passes, and if it is put into play at Cal Poly, Kramer said that students could apply to use the money for senior projects that plan to use a sustainability framework.

“(It would be) for projects that students have dreamed of but have had to wait until after graduation to get their hands (on),” Kramer said.

UC Santa Barbara passed a similar referendum in the spring of 2006. A vote for TGIF at that school was approved by 74 percent of the undergraduate student vote and 82 percent of the graduate student vote.

UCSB utilizes a $2.60 per-quarter fee to generate money for its TGIF and a grant making committee evaluates proposals and then approves or rejects funding for particular projects. Since TGIF won over voters in 2006, UCSB has awarded almost $300,000 to 21 sustainability-based projects.

“It generates about $160,000 a year,” said Jill Richardson, UCSB’s TGIF grants manager and sustainability coordinator. “(Funding) can be (used) for any kind of projects that helps UCSB reduce its environmental impact.”

UCSB, which is entering its third funding cycle, saw a 60 percent increase in applications during the current cycle, according to Richardson. The applications were due last week.

“The total requests were just under a million dollars, so we’re going to have to whittle that down over the next few weeks,” she said.

Some of the projects UCSB’s TGIF has funded included installation of waterless urinals, mounting gas meters on buildings and classes that teach creating business plans geared toward sustainability.

Cal Poly’s conceptual design for its TGIF closely models that of UCSB’s.

Should TGIF be put into effect, Hartrich said a grant-writing committee, headed by a full-time grant writer, would be employed to pursue matching funds for green projects.

ASI is currently collecting student opinions about TGIF through online petitions at the temporary Web site www.tgifcalpoly.com.

“It’s more or less to see what students support,” Hartrich said.

Hartrich’s goal is to have 3,000 petitions for TGIF, but as of Tuesday, only 132 petitions had been filled out.

“We started the petition set in the fall but it was delayed for a while,” Hartrich said. “We just started it (again) last week so we still have a lot to do.”

Of the 132 petitions filled out, 103 people said that Cal Poly was not doing enough to promote sustainability on campus. In addition, 49 reported that they would be willing to pay quarterly fees in support of a sustainability program and 71 said yes, depending on the amount.

“So far we have some pretty good results and it’s a good depiction of what students want,” Hartrich said.