Since Spring 2006, a group of about 15 undergraduate and graduate students have been trying to bring environmental sustainability to Duke's campus.
Students for Sustainable Living, a group dedicated to grassroots environmental change, has been working behind the scenes to encourage environmentally friendly behavior at the University. But unlike most student groups-many of which receive funding from the Student Organization Finance Committee-SSL is financed by the Office of the Executive Vice President and its members are compensated for their work.
"SSL is set up almost like mini student internships," Tavey McDaniel, program coordinator for the Office of the Executive Vice President and adviser for SSL, wrote in an e-mail.
The students are assigned to various departments at Duke, including the Office of Information Technology, Duke Dining Services and the Office of Parking and Transportation, and are charged with instituting environmentally friendly change within the department, McDaniel said.
Projects have focused on reducing paper use on campus, making the campus more bike-friendly and reducing water use in dormitories.
Instead of trying to just raise awareness and spread information, SSL uses a social science research method called community-based social marketing to identify barriers to sustainability and implement practical, tangible changes, said SSL member Bradford Harris, a senior.
"I think a lot of the initiatives that students have undertaken have been designed to raise people's awareness, but SSL is incorporating CBSM to change people's habits," Harris said.
For instance, SSL has discovered that student opposition to the use of low-flow showerheads in dorms is due in part to an inaccurate perception that low-flow showerheads are less comfortable, Harris added.
"People have a very bad impression of low-flow, but actually that is a fallacy," he said. "We've found that the people who have never experienced a low-flow showerhead have a worse impression than those who have experienced [it]."
Junior Vanessa Barnett-Loro, a member of SSL and president of Environmental Alliance, said SSL is distinct from EA. Aside from the fact that students in SSL are paid, the work of SSL is more structured than that of EA.
"The fact that SSLers are working for Duke is both legitimizing and limiting," Barnett-Loro wrote in an e-mail. "In some cases it facilitates collaboration with admins, but at the same time, the fact that Duke is signing your paycheck means you have less freedom to be confrontational and adamant about the issues."
Although SSL and EA both try to encourage environmentally friendly behavior on campus, the methods to do so are different, Barnett-Loro added.
The structural differences of the two allow SSL and EA to promote sustainability from several directions.
"I think we have the opportunity to have [a] huge impact on the campus culture and really make sustainability an integral part of the Duke experience," McDaniel said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.