MtvU and GE have teamed up for a national search to find the college student or group who has the best idea for making their campus more environmentally friendly. The winner of the Ecomagination Challenge will receive $25,000 to implement their plan and an Earth Day music festival on their campus.
Stephen Friedman, general manager of mtvU, said, "Both mtvU and GE have a shared belief that the best solutions and the smartest, most innovative solutions are going to come out of colleges and college campuses. Students are really kind of the pioneers of figuring out (how we) rectify the situation that we are in environmentally. And, you know, who better than college students to help us figure out how we're going to address these issues?"
Chrissy Cooley, senior and president of OSU's Sierra Student Coalition, said the SSC plans to enter the contest with its energy awareness campaign. "We didn't know about this (challenge), but we were working on a plan to get the campus more sustainable for about a year."
SSC has been meeting with Ohio State staff and faculty about ways to make campus more sustainable. They created an energy awareness committee, which is now the Office of Energy Services and Sustainability. Cooley said it is a university office, but it is not off the ground or at its full power yet.
But she said the university is debating whether to fund the office.
"It's just a bad time politically and there is a lot of bureaucracy," Cooley said. "It's hard, in Ohio, to get any energy conservation measures taken because our energy is so cheap. It's 3 cents a kilowatt, whereas the rest of the nation is paying about 12 cents a kilowatt. So we really wouldn't save as much money as other universities would, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth it financially."
The Green Fair is the big kick-off event for the SSC campaign and it's taking place Oct. 6, from noon to 8 p.m. on the west lawn of the Oval, Cooley said. The event will have bands, free food, speakers and demonstrations from 65 exhibitors on how to live a "green" lifestyle.
She said SSC probably will not change the plan that has been implemented just to win a prize in the Ecoimagination Challenge.
"We are planning to enter with the same plan we have going already," Cooley said. "We've really planned it out with the staff and faculty to make sure that this would work well, so we probably wouldn't change it just to make it look sexier for MTV.
"The plan that we want the university to go along with is already what Energy Services and Sustainability is trying to do, so rather than reinvent the wheel, our club is really backing this new office."
Spokesmen from OSU's Students For Recycling and Ecological Engineering Society said the groups have not decided if they will participate in the challenge. TerrAqua and the Student Chapter of the Wildlife Society both have confirmed that the groups will not be entering.
Applications for the contest can be found at ecochallenge.com. The deadline to enter is Dec. 1, 2006, and the top ten finalists will be announced Jan. 15, 2007.
"After we pick the top 10 we are going to let the audience pick and figure out which idea is one that is unique, creative, has real results, and I think most importantly is an idea that can be exported to other college campuses around (the) country," Friedman said.
Once the winner is chosen, an Earth Day music festival will be held at the winner's school.
"One of our big artists is going to come and play at the school who has the best solution. And so we are talking to a number of artists right now that have strong environmental interests, and you'll see them on our channel talking about this issue in the next few months." Friedman said. "We are in talks with several of the artists who we play a lot, that are currently on mtvU and are favorites of our audience."
MtvU plans to spread the word about the contest through the cable network, online and possibly on radio.
One of the more creative publicity moves is a biodegradable postcard that will be given out on campuses all over the country, which has information about the contest, and can be planted for Marigold and Cosmo flowers. "I'm excited about these," Friedman said. "I've never seen anything like this. It's this very cool postcard that you get all the information on how to apply, and you actually can plant the postcard.
"The very cool thing about it, you know again is that it is not something where we are creating waste," Friedman said. You soak this hand-made seed paper, leave in a glass of water for a few hours, place the card in a pot of soil, cover it, keep out of direct sun light, water two times a day and in a week, you will have some sprouts. Then you move it outdoors when the weather gets better, Friedman said.
MtvU will start distributing the postcards sometime in the next few weeks.
For more information, visit ecocollegechallenge.com.
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