Last Wednesday, April 27th, as part of our Earth Week campus events and activities, the Sustainability Studies Program at Roosevelt University hosted its biannual afternoon Symposium of student projects and research from 2:30-5:30pm in RU’s LEED Gold-certified Wabash Building at 425 S. Wabash Ave. in downtown Chicago (room 1214). Students in Roosevelt’s SUST program gave presentations about their recent campus sustainability projects, internships, and research experiences in a forum open to all RU students, faculty, and staff as well as the general public. SUST Symposium 3.1 was successfully videoconferenced and recorded via Zoom, so now you may watch the proceedings from the comfort of your favorite chair wherever you are in the world.
Featured Team Presentations: Campus Sustainability Projects
Members of SUST 390 Sustainable Campus (honors) — From Plan to Action: Moving Sustainability Forward at RU
Students in the Spring 2016 honors seminar “Sustainable Campus” began our Symposium with a series of group presentations on their campus sustainability projects undertaken this spring to help advance RU’s Strategic Sustainability Plan across several fronts. Teams discussed their pathbreaking initiatives in four key areas: general education curriculum (Nicole Kasper & Kurt Witteman), food waste reduction (Michael Gobbel & Tom Smith), student orientation (Jessica Heinz, Claudia Remy, & Moses Viveros), and bottled water policy (Ashley Nesseler, Lacy Reyna, & Brandon Rohlwing).
pdf of slide presentation
pdf of slide presentation
pdf of slide presentation
pdf of slide presentation
Featured Individual Presentations: Research & Internships
Lindsey Sharp — A Key to Unlocking Species Diversity at Lolldaiga Ranch
Lindsey is a senior SUST major and returning adult student who was awarded the prestigious Travis Foundation Scholarship this fall at RU, a competitive award given to 16 students each year. The scholarship enabled her to continue her studies as well as pursue a Spring 2016 internship at the Field Museum of Natural History, which she reported on recently here. Her project focused on the preparation and identification process of specimens collected during field research in the Eastern Province of Kenya. The results of the identification process were also analyzed in order to determine the area’s population of rodent species, which can be compared to earlier samples gathered from the area in order to determine changes in biodiversity over time. Her talk featured her everyday work at the lab in the larger context of mammal ecology, biodiversity conservation, and the value of museum collections research. (pdf of slides)
Cassidy Avent — Summer at SCARCE: An Environmental Education Internship Experience
Throughout the summer of 2015, SUST senior Cassidy Avent had the opportunity to work as an intern for an environmental NGO known as School and Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education (SCARCE). Her summer included working at the SCARCE office in Glen Ellyn IL, giving environmental education presentations at schools and community events, participating in teacher workshops, and many other fulfilling activities. Within this presentation she discussed her experience at SCARCE along with all of the valuable information and insights she gathered while interning at such a fascinating place. (pdf of slides)
Tiffany Mucci — Midewin: One Land’s Story of Recovery and Renewal
SUST senior and returning adult student Tiffany Mucci, who has served as the Assistant Editor of the SUST at RU Blog this academic year, explored Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie as a living example of both the challenges we face in restoring and managing our native landscapes, and the resiliency of nature. Her presentation highlighted this site’s history as one of our nation’s most productive ordnance complexes to ever exist, and revealed its present-day designation as a protected tallgrass prairie ecosystem under the U.S. Forest Service. From seeding, to frogging, to corralling the newly-adopted buffalo of Midewin, she eloquently related what goes into the “(re)making of a prairie” in the 21st century. (pdf of slides)
Lacy Reyna — Temporal Distribution of Bryophytes in Cook County, IL
Senior science major and honors student Lacy Reyna, a double major in biology and psychology and RU’s 2015 Lincoln Laureate, worked in the botany division of the Field Museum while enrolled in the museum-based SUST 330 Biodiversity course this past fall with Lindsey. Using collections data from various institutions including the Field Museum, her research done in collaboration with FMNH scientists documents the shift in bryophyte species in Cook County across time. Her talk provided potential explanations for the shifts in species populations as well as discussed the importance of museum collections for biodiversity conservation. (pdf of slides)
Links to Past Symposia
- Symposium 1.1 (Fall 2013): Alison Breeding, Kyle Huff, Ron Taylor
- Symposium 1.2 (Spring 2014): Colleen Dennis, Jordan Ewbank, Mary Beth Radeck
- Symposium 2.1 (Spring 2015): Melanie Blume, Rebecca Quesnell, Mary Rasic, Emily Rhea
- Symposium 2.2 (Fall 2015): Shannon Conway, Laura Miller Hill, Karen Craig
Sustainability Studies @ Roosevelt University 