Our Voice

Since the Green Fee was mentioned last semester, GCSU students and faculty as well as those of us at The Colonnade were hopeful for an increasingly eco-friendly campus. The money, which would come from an extra five dollars added to the current student fees would benefit the campus’s efforts towards on-campus recycling and the use of alternative energy among other things.

Students have shown a clear desire for ways that they can help the earth while being on campus. Residence hall residents have begun their own recycling program and many students have taken notice of the energy use. Many professors have ceased printing their syllabi in leu of paper-free online alternatives. It is apparent that this is an issue that weighs on the minds of the GCSU campus community.

Unfortunately, though, not everyone has proven to be as passionate about creating a greener campus. On Tuesday, the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents rejected the proposed Green Fee. This means that we will go an additional school year without any effort backed by the University budget to create a more earth-friendly way of life here at GCSU. The refusal of the five-dollar fee wasn’t the only result of the board meeting, though. Their decisions include raising both the student activity and the health fees by seven dollars, the technology fee by three dollars, the parking and transportation fee 14 dollars and the athletic fee 12 dollars.

While an additional fee of five dollars would be an added burden to student’s wallets, we at The Colonnade believe it would be a necessary responsibility of the students. As the representative of GCSU that quite possibly uses the most paper, we are very conscious of our recycling habits. Because we understand the importance of being aware of our waste, we recycle all of our extra newspapers at the end of each week. We are also mindful of our energy use when we are not in the office.

While students, professors and RSO’s can monitor their own successes in being more “green,” any financial help (an expected $60,000) from the university budget would undoubtedly benefit the students, the campus and the world around us.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 17 2009. Filed under Our Voice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry