By KAYLEE HARRIS
Student Reporter
Northwestern’s C.O.R.E is asking the Ranger community to help implement a recycling program on the Alva campus.
Conserving our Ranger Environment, or C.O.R.E, is a student-led group on the Enid and Alva campuses that promotes environmental awareness and sustainability. They have already done things to help our campus become “green,” such as placing recycling bins around campus and holding book drives to donate used books to impoverished areas..
C.O.R.E now wants to help Northwestern lessen its effect on the environment by setting up a recycling center for waste items that the campus produces.
“One of the major waste items is paper,” President Jeff Martin said, “When I go home, I will take shoe boxes of paper to recycle, because there isn’t anywhere to do that here.”
Martin, who was raised in Canada, says he finds it strange that there is nowhere to recycle something as important as paper here.
Steven Mackie, associate professor of education and C.O.R.E. advisor on the Enid campus, said that Enid’s campus is much farther ahead in recycling than the Alva campus.
In Enid, there are three stations with bins for plastic, aluminum, and paper. The Enid chapter paired up with Keeping Enid Green to help recycle the items collected in these bins, said Mackie.
C.O.R.E now hopes to implement a program similar to this on the Alva Campus. Recycling isn’t a new thing, said Aaron Place, associate professor of biology and C.O.R.E. advisor on the Alva campus. The Alva campus has had recycling programs before, but they failed because of a lack of resources and manpower, said Place and Mackie.
Not having more recycling opportunities places our campus 20 to 30 years behind other universities, said Place, Mackie and Martin.
Northwestern’s Strategic Plan for 2011 to 2015 states in Strategic Direction 3 that Northwestern will “expand current procedures and initiate new efforts to develop an eco-friendly institution” and will “explore methods of recycling at all campus sites, examine the implementation of energy-saving procedures, and research the implementation of green energy resources.”
Without support from students, faculty and administration, however, this program cannot be realized. Place said that the students pay attention to the faculty of Northwestern and should be led by example.
“It’s the right thing to do,” said Mackie.
C.O.R.E. asks that students help make their vision a reality by attending C.O.R.E meetings and expressing an interest in a new recycling program. Students can also help by emailing the Dean of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, Calleb Mosburg at cnmosburg@nwosu.edu and start the conversation about more recycling opportunities on campus.
For questions or concerns about C.O.R.E, contact Place at ajplace@nwosu.edu or Mackie at swmackie@nwosu.edu.