Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. Sherri “Sam” Mason, director of sustainability at Behrend, about the college’s new STARS rating for sustainability.
Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Dr. Sherri “Sam” Mason, director of sustainability at Behrend, about the college’s new STARS rating for sustainability.
Hi, I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend. And you're listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Dr. Sherry, Sam, we will call you, Sam. Sherri, Sam Mason, associate research professor and the director of sustainability here at Behrend. So welcome to the show. Sam. It's your second time here. So welcome back.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Thank you for having me.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, you're here to talk today about an interesting development among many other things. But this is something known as our STARS rating. And we're gonna talk a lot about that. But it is a comprehensive assessment of our sustainability efforts. And we've got some nice news to share there. So I said you were a guest back in 2020, as we were just talking about during the pandemic, when we were doing this via zoom. So a little bit different experience. But I'll run through your background again, you have a bachelor's in chemistry from the University of Texas in Austin. You got your Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Montana. And before joining Penn State Behrend back in 2019, you taught at SUNY Fredonia and the University of Montana. As we well know, you are a researcher who looks at microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes and other waterways, including Lake Erie. Some of this your work has led to federal legislation, I'm not going to get through this. So bear with me. With the Microbeads Free Waters Act of 2015, which ended the use of plastics, plastic, microbeads, and cosmetics and other products. And in 2016, you were named an EPA Environmental Champion. And you are the recipient of the Heinz Award in public policy, and the Great Lakes Leadership Award, which is presented by the Great Lakes Protection Fund. I remember that you're getting that award as well. So a lot there. I'm sure others again, welcome to the show.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Thank you for having me very much.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So as I said, we recently received news that we have a new STARS rating, we're Silver STARS. Tell our audience, what is the STARS rating? Why is this important? What is this new
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:As you indicated, it's an assessment of news? our sustainability as a campus. There are over 300 institutions across the world that participate in this program. It Well, so a lot of metrics. I think you're you're absolutely was established by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Dducation or ASHEE for short. And it's a way of campuses, evaluating how they're doing on sustainability across all the different kind of areas of a university. Right. So I think when most people think of higher education, they think of that academic side. But this assessment also includes things like our operations and our planning and how we invest our money. So it's much of our engagement as a campus, both in the campus and in the community. Right. So it's much broader than just our academics, and it looks across all of those different metrics. right. We run a small city, here are a lot of people who live here each and every day. So we look at everything from sustainable practices, what in food and residential, you know, Housing and Food residence halls as well, you measure all of those things. Yeah, our waste and recycling, for example, right? Have you know, it's really kind of exciting to look at the last five years. And we've had a decrease in our waste production by 40%, which is quite fantastic. I mean, a big part of that was COVID. But was what was exciting was like looking post COVID. Even as students came back, our waste production didn't go up. And then quite frankly, I think a big part of that is the fact that faculty got trained to move more electronic, and they didn't go back to kind of the hard copies that they had been handing out beforehand.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So how do you attribute so you say 40%? So that's clearly measurable. We've measured it. And what you're saying is a lot of it is just due to recycled papers, but it must be other things as well.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, I mean, we're looking here at waste. So it's more like what's in the trash. And so you know, we get those numbers from waste management, who comes and picks up all of our garbage. Our recycling rate, unfortunately, has stagnated at 10%. So that's kind of the next frontier. What we're going to be looking at is how can we increase our recycling rate as a campus and we have some definitely some areas of improvement to work on there.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, you made me think of something there. So we have areas to improve, but one is actually when I went to graduate school, I remember we had a famous faculty member who was a cardiologist who I swear to you, this is true, go back, go look it up. But in Arizona... Arizona, yeah, I was gonna say... In Arizona, all these core samples to really understand what's going on. It's actually fascinating because you learn a lot about humanity that way. So you made me think of that. I don't want to take us too far off track, but, you know, somebody's got to measure the waste and understand what's in there. What's in landfills.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:I remember hearing about that biologist. I could not tell you his name, but I do remember hearing about him when I was an undergrad.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So, well, so when you look at so we've talked about some of the aspects, but then how do we get graded? So how did they come up with this silver number? Before we were bronze, so it's really nice. We've gone up and now we're silver, how do they? How do they come up with that number?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:So there's 64 different metrics across these, like four main areas of academics, engagement, operations, and planning and assessment. There's also an innovation category where we can just get points added on for doing innovative things like restoring the wintergreen gorge, for example. So that earned us a just 1.0, just through those efforts. So 64 different metrics. And there you have anywere from, you know, kind of what classes are we teaching? And how many of those incorporate sustainability? To how many programs do students graduate and have some kind of component around sustainability in their degree? You know, to how we engage the campus, how we engage with the community, our water usage, our waste production, you know, how we invest our money. So there's 64 different metrics that we supply data on. And then based upon how we do in those metrics, we earn points. And based upon the percentage of points, we get a rating then. So as you indicated, the first time we did this, so I started in 2019, we submitted our first stars report in 2020, is one of the first things that I really wanted to work on. And we earned a Bronze rating then. And so you do this every three years. So we're in our third assessment, our second assessment Three years later, and we have progressed to the silver category. And honestly, we're inches away from being gold.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Inches from gold? Well, yeah, we've got three years to get there. So we have a sustainability minor here on campus. What's that about?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:We do we have a sustainability leadership minor. It's a really flexible minor. I love that. So it's really easy to add on regardless of what your major is. And I have to say that one of the things I'm most proud of is that we're the only institution in this region that offers a minor in sustainability. But this is like where companies are going right. This is the future mindset of any engineering, any business, any place that you're planning to do after college. That's what you need to have. And we're the the institution that offers it. So it's, I think, a real feather in the cap of Penn State Behrend.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, not only that, I think we're also unique with the STARS rating as well.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:That's true. Yeah, we are the only school in the region that has completed a STARS assessment. In fact, we're the only commonwealth campus in the Penn State system that has completed a STARS assessment. And we've done it twice. So I'm really proud of that as well. Not only the fact that we've completed it, but then we've progressed from a bronze into a silver rating, I think really says a lot about what we're doing on this campus around sustainability, both in the curricular sense, but in terms of our operations and everything that we are and we do.
Dr. Ralph Ford:A great accolade. Well, one thing I don't want to forget here as well is that there's another development on campus this year, which is we've added electric vehicle charging stations and I think just this summer.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, absolutely. As we're talking about, like demonstration, right as an institution of higher education, one of the things we should be doing is kind of leading the way. And we are the only institution in the region that has three electric vehicle charging stations on our campus. One of the things that I really love too, is the fact that we're so close to interstate 90 that you could have an electric vehicle looking to drive across the country hops off to do a charge, takes a walk and then wintergreen gorge realizes what a beautiful campus we are, starts bragging about it to their friends and family and maybe their potential college student. So, ya know, it's really great.
Dr. Ralph Ford:That's a very realisitc scenario because one of those Evie charging stations is down by the School of Science near the trailhead.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:We have two down there with four ports, so we can charge four electric vehicles down right close to the one of the entrances to the wintergreen gorge. And then we have two electric vehicle charging ports up near the School of Engineering and Black School of Business in the Burke parking lot.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So how are our students been involved in this process?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, actually. So we started a sustainability Ambassadors program last spring. And so students to become a sustainability ambassador, they have to take a class we really modeled this off of the EcoReps program that's at University Park. And so I used the students in my sustainability ambassadors class to help me get some of the data that we needed for the STARS assessment.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So a student in any major comes to Behrend they can become a sustainability ambassador?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Absolutely. Yeah. And that class counts is their leadership credit toward getting a sustainability minor as well. So I'm really trying to funnel more and more students from any major into that minor and into these types of programs. The big selling point of course, being that this is the future, employers now that's what they're looking for. You know, a lot of the employees they already have maybe don't have that sustainability mindset because it's still kind of a newish field. And we are training students to have that mindset. And so then they're a real asset to companies when they leave here.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Now, we've been talking about sustainability in terms of campus impact, obviously, environmental, energy, waste, all those things that go on. But there's also the aspect when you look at the UN 17 goals are very broad, they look at everything from diversity, equity inclusion, is that part of our stars assessment?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Absolutely. It was one of actually the things that we improved a lot on was the diversity, equity inclusion. And so I was really pleased with that. So yeah, I mean, if you look at sustainability, kind of what is sustainability? There's a social component or a people component, there's an economic component, and then there's the environmental piece, I think people tend to think about that environmental piece, but recognizing that, that poverty and hunger and you know, decent work, and economic growth, these are all pieces of having a sustainable society. And so there's so many kinds of areas to sustainability. And I think it's one of the things that's really attractive to students, it doesn't matter what you're majoring in, there's a place for you in sustainability. You can go into nursing and have a sustainability mindset, right? You can go into engineering and have a sustainability mindset, you can go into business. And so it's, it's really kind of how you can use your degree, how you can use your life, to help us as a society move into a more positive direction.
Dr. Ralph Ford:I think that's a really great point. Because in every field of study, right, it's unique, and it's different. And I'll just speak to my field right now, engineering. If you're trying to design a product, what has changed, I would say in the last 10,15, 20 years is the lifecycle analysis, how do we design a product so that you can recycle the parts so you can start to think about what's the carbon footprint and by the way, there's still a long ways to go, right? The tools are still developing. But it's, that's the super important stuff that actually makes a difference. Because you can do things that make you feel good. But then you can do things that you can measure, and you can really see if it has an impact.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, and designing things from the get go understanding that this object is going to have a life. Right. So what are we doing with it at the end of its life, and thinking about that at the very beginning. And I think that's a big shift and engineering and business that we've seen over the course of our lives, right? That wasn't necessarily the mindset when you know, my dad was starting off as an engineer, right? You were thinking about making a product that people could use and making it attractive, and you were thinking about the use of it, not the end of its life. And now we're designing things for the end of its life as well as how it's been used during its life.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So when you talk to our students, I mean, how important is this? I mean, is it? You know, 90% of the students are really thinking about this or hearing what's going on in climate change. What's, you know, I realized this is hard to answer that question, but, you know, how important is it we hear that it is to the younger generation? I hate to say it that way, but it's true, right?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, absolutely. And to be honest, you know, one of the things that we're working as a as a university, Penn State wide is to do a sustainability assessment of where our students are at. And and so that's something that's still kind of in progress. We're developing at university wide, not just on this campus. So we don't have great numbers on that. But what I can tell you is from national assessments, where they've looked at this, you've seen, especially with COVID, you saw a dramatic increase in the number of students that have this as a forefront of their mind. And so it's, it's definitely north of 90% of the young population, especially with climate change. And you're seeing the impacts of climate change happening in real time. This is on their mind, and they want to be part of that solution.
Dr. Ralph Ford:That's great. How about are, you know, you came in here, you started on this venture, you decided we would pursue this STARS rating, but you must have run into? It couldn't have all been super easy. So you had to get faculty, staff and students on board? I mean, what was the reception and how did you get people to start to buy into this?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, I mean, I have to say that one of the really pleasant things coming to Behrend was at from the get go of stepping foot onto this campus, people were willing to be on board. They were like, what can we do to help you? That was not my experience prior to coming to Behrend. So it was really pleasant surprise, I kept hitting walls before and then I came here and people were immediately kind of on board with it. Getting people to understand really what sustainability is and how broad it is. That it's not just about being environmentally sustainable. That's one aspect of it, but kind of understanding that there is a role for humanities and social sciences and engineering and business. It's not just the science side of campus. So that's kind of one hurdle that we've been kind of overcoming but I think for the most part, I mean, it's it's been really encouraging. And then the data some of the data is easier to get than others. This last STARS assessment I was worried came with somebody in purchasing, they're like, oh, we should start recording this data differently, we should put this into our system differently. So that every three years when you're coming and asking for this information, it's easier for us to extract, right. And so those are things that we then we learn about how we operate, and in order to extract that data in an easier way.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So in terms of faculty, are you seeing integration of sustainability? Is there a change in the courses is the curriculum changing? Because because of the focus on sustainability?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Absolutely. I mean, this is another place where we really did a huge improvement was in the number of classes that we have that have our sustainability focused or sustainability related. Sustainability related is a little bit lower of a threshold, you may have a component of it. Sustainability focus is really more the entire class is about sustainability. And we have more programs. And a big kudos to our Black School of Business, because as part of their accreditation, sustainability, ESG is now part of that accreditation process. And so it is now part of, you know, any student in the Black School of Business is now really kind of coming out with a degree that infuses sustainability across their education. And so that's, that's really great. That was a tremendous boost to us, helped us really kind of improve the number of students that we show graduating with some kind of sustainability mindset. You know, from down in, like the 30s, up to in the 70s.
Dr. Ralph Ford:BIt's a great story, any, any particular examples or anecdotes that stand out of faculty members adopting this and putting it in a course?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Well, we have two Black School of Business faculty that actually burn earned awards for their sustainability efforts. Carol Putman, and Scott Stroupe. So I had nominated them because of how engaged they are, and how much they're working to incorporate this in their classrooms and outside of their classrooms. Carol, for example, guided our first entrance into a school of business sustainability case competition, this last year. It was the first time Behrend was represented in this. And we ended up in third place, which I was pretty pleased for our first kind of entry into this field. To end up third place, I was really pleased. So huge, huge appreciation to all of the faculty that we have that are involved in these efforts, but especially those two.
Dr. Ralph Ford:We will recognize that a number are involved. And that brought me to my next point, which is in the spring, you hold this large forum on campus, you're gonna have to help me with the name of it.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:It's the Worldwide Climate Justice
Dr. Ralph Ford:And I should know that. I've been there both Teach-in. years that you've helped. But what really strikes me every time I've been there is how many people show up in the room. Like it's full of students, and it's full of faculty. Yeah, what is this? What is this about?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:since starting here, right, you want to have events that have sustainability is kind of a focal point in order to kind of really gain energy and traction with the entire campus community. So I've been kind of trying to figure out what that event would be. Or is today is so close to the end of our school year here, that it really made it hard to have that be our focal point. And then I learned about the worldwide teach-in, which is a an event that started at Bard College, and they've been spreading it out to over 1,000 different universities across the globe. And this occurs the last Wednesday in March. And I really liked not only the timing of when it occurs, but kind of the framework on how they establish it. And so it's set up as almost like a conference. And then we have different breakout rooms under different themes, but all touching on the idea of either climate change or environmental justice. And so we've had anywhere from things talking about plastics, to to trash to just what is climate change? What is environmental justice, to thinking about climate resiliency, you know, as we are seeing these changes happening in real time, what can we as a community, as a globe do to become more resilient to climate changes effects. So you have kind of a wide range of topics that we can cover. And this also then gives access points to different faculty members. So we try and design those those breakout rooms, we have a panel of four faculty, and we try and get one from each of the different schools to be on board. It also helps to build those bridges between the different schools and the different buildings you have on campus. Half the time is devoted to the faculty talking but then the other half of the time is a whole discussion that happens with the students and the faculty. And I think that engagement across you know, the audience in the speakers is one of the real selling points to why we get so many people participating.
Dr. Ralph Ford:But are they tried to solve any particular problems or think about the solutions in those in those breakouts?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Oh, absolutely. You know, it's it's
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yeah, I think you said something that's really one kind of raising awareness that these things are complicarted. But to thinking out there are solutions, some are easier than others. And there's different ways for people to be engaged, right? So there's things you can do in your everyday life. And then there's something like voting and becoming politically engaged, and advocating for things to happen with regard to kind of that level. So you can go anywhere from local to global in terms of your actions and trying to find those solutions all along that chain. key to me there, which is that is complicated. And that is not to, you know, sometimes you just you hear on the surface of a problem, but you have to understand, okay, these things have evolved over decades, these practices, there are six or 7 billion people on Earth, it's not so easy to change the ship. But you know, I also think that sometimes we overlook some of the change that is happening. You're right, right, like, we can see the daily climate change, and we see the CO2 in the atmosphere. But interestingly, if you look at the United States, right now, the carbon footprint per person is actually peaked in the 70s. And it's going back down. So we're moving in the right direction, in a lot of ways, yet the world is still producing more carbon in the environment, and are more people and people in the developing world, you know, so how are you you understand the complexity of that? It's just not so simple.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Right? Exactly. No, I mean, I think you really do, I think, especially for students in the 18 to 22 year old range, right? Generally, most of our students are in that range. And you're at that point where everything seems on the surface to be so simple, like, why don't we just put up solar panels? Like, why is that hard? And then I started talking to them about okay, well, not all of our roofs can support a solar panel. And we are the northernmost campus with the cheapest electricity. And so we're really not in terms of Penn State, the best campus for putting solar panels, right, that those solar panels could be better used, generate more electricity, if they're down and say the State College area. Yeah. So you have to kind of be thinking about the complexities of all these things. Well, why can't we just put them up in the parking lot? Well, that's easy if you build the parking lot to, to have solar panels. But otherwise, you have to deconstruct that entire parking lot in order to install them, right. And so you have to kind of start understanding some of those complexities. And that I think, is part of what our job is, as an institution of higher education, we should be leading by example. But we should also be educating on the complexities and thinking about these things as systems. And where can we integrate into those systems to create the changes that we really want to see?
Dr. Ralph Ford:And those things will happen more broadly? Because, you know, this look, this my area as well, you know, solar panels used to be they're notoriously inefficient, but we've made a lot of gains in efficiency and cost and everything else, which will make them so that you can put them in more and more places. Yeah, but it just takes time for the the economics to work. So you're exactly right. For the time being, you should really focus, we're gonna get the most bang for your buck.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah. Which for us is actually things like windows. Right? It's, it's the envelope. And this is true for a lot of homeowners too, that you want to be thinking about these kinds of sexy things. But oftentimes, it's the things that aren't as sexy that are more important, like insulating your walls and having better windows, as opposed to the more visible things like having a solar panel on your roof. Right. So you, you figure out kind of where where can I make changes? You know, where are the economic incentives in the right place, that it's economically viable for me, right, and thinking about all of those things?
Dr. Ralph Ford:Let's switch a little bit to things to campus again. Yeah. And one event that we have every year is Trash 2 Treasure. Why is that an important part of our sustainability?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Oh, my goodness, any, like go around any college campus at the end of a at the end of an academic year, and it can break your heart at the amount of, of perfectly usable items that get put into dumpsters. So I was really happy that y'all were doing that event when I showed up, because it's so incredibly important. So I just got to take the lead on on continuing that effort. But it's really about kind of focusing and getting students to think about well is this item that you're about to throw out usable? And if it is, then you know, donate it to somebody else, so that you know what you were going to just trash is actually somebody else's treasure. And we're working actually not sure if you're even know but we're working on creating a sustainability store where we would be taking in some of those items. So for example, I noticed every year that we have the risers that people put under their beds so that they can put shelving or something underneath it or you know, there's certain things that every year you see, and rather than like you know selling them are frequently a lot of those things get donated to Salvation Army and may If we can hold on to them, and we can have them available for students in August, then they're not making a run to the store to go buy something that, you know, three months ago somebody was going to put in a trash can, you know, so we're constantly trying to find ways of exemplifying what a circular economy looks like on this campus. And the new store that we're creating for the read Student Union as part of that.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Let's switch again to the wintergreen gorge, wintergreen gorge is a tremendous asset. And I will tell you, when I moved here from out west, myself, it was one of the selling points when I saw that gorge and said, well, I've got a great outdoors place here on campus. But, boy, there's been a real transformation in the last, you know, I'll say decade planning efforts from your predecessors to you, you know, we've made a lot of improvements. So tell everybody a what are the challenges we are facing challenges in the in the gorge with erosion? There's a lot of use, but what are what are the things that are going on that we're doing to improve it?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, so erosion is the big thing that we're kind of fighting against. And it's, you know, a lot of the, because it's a lot of user-created trails. And when people go walking in a forested area, it's usually a nice day, but you're gonna follow areas, which there's not plant life. And those are usually areas in which during a storm event, there's water flowing. And then as you're walking on those same areas, you compact the soil, and it just kind of becomes this positive feedback loop where you end up exacerbating the erosion that's taking place, killing off plants, you know, tree roots through compaction, and so it just becomes this really positive feedback loop that negatively affects the environment. So we're working to, to remedy that by creating a sustainable main trail with some offshoot loops, and then putting up signage. We built these wattle fence panels with volunteers actually from Erie Insurance. So a little kudos to them for coming and helping us we build these panels out of sticks that are being installed as we speak, to keep people off some of the trails that we want to restore and keep them on the main trail. We're also putting in some nice boardwalks over the watershed areas, sorry, wetland areas, to keep people from trotting within these very sacred, it's very special spaces, right, where you have certain plants and animals that can only exist within those wetland type environments. And when people are walking through them, it can be very disruptive to that natural ecosystem. So we're build a putting in boardwalks to keep people out of the wetlands, but allow them the ability to enjoy and appreciate the wetland area, we put in the parking lot. That was a huge thing as part of phase one to keep people I mean, talking about how sustainability is not only that environmental piece, but the social piece, you want people to be able to park there safely and get their kids out of their cards safely. Right i It was shocking to me that people used to just park on that curve up the hill
Dr. Ralph Ford:The steepest hill of you know, it's like 20% grade up there.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:At some point, people are driving and I'm just like your getting your little kids. I mean, as a parent, I just made my heart palpitate thinking of how many kids could have been injured in that process. And so now we have these safe parking lots where they can get in and out of their cars. And what's really great to thinking about that social aspect is that all of the trails, or as much of the trail as we can do will be ADA accessible. Right. So through phase three, we're currently in phase two. Phase three will be putting in a bridge across trout run. Once you get past trout run, it gets really steep and we're gonna have to put in stairs to get up to the science parking lot. But prior to that it's all ADA accessible. And there's just so few green spaces that our and so it makes it just it warms my heart that we are giving this to the community, right? Bring your kids bring your grandparents, you know come out to this space and enjoy it regardless of kind of your your physical ability. It's completely ADA accessible. And it's going to be several miles of trail that are completely ADA accessible.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And I will tell you it is changed as you said it's it's changed so much. As you know, I like this campus a lot. I would never go down there in the past. It wasn't the trailhead wasn't actually all that nice now it's very pleasant. But you see families and you see people of all ages and you see, you know, from their grandparents to young kids walking together, and it's made possible by all that work.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, absolutely. And what's kind of an added bonus to that we had our international Coastal Cleanup this past weekend. And I was telling the students that in the past, we would always go and clean the wintergreen gorge, that as we're doing these restoration efforts, we're finding that there's less trash, right because as people see people taking care of the space, they want to take care of the space. And so rather than cleaning up the gorge this year, we went and cleaned the Bayfront connector all the way from campus all the way down to the waterfront, like three and a half miles. We had students, you know, 50 students out, yeah, it was great. It was wonderful. So it's really nice to see that kind of added benefit that you're seeing less litter as a result of this restoration effort.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So your message to people though, is stay on the trail.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Stay on the trail, and pack it in, pack it out. You know, a lot of people did say y'all should put in garbage cans, but that requires maintenance to go out and empty those garbage cans. And, you know, that's just not something that we can feasibly do. We are we are not a parks department. We are not, you know, we have a beautiful campus. We have beautiful spaces, but it really becomes a community effort in order to take care of those. So pack it in, pack it out and stay on the trail.
Dr. Ralph Ford:All right. Well, you have your friends of wintergreen gorge Facebook page.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yes, we do. Yeah.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Interested, too. And you find latest information.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah, friends of the wintergreen gorge on Facebook. And we also take donations.
Dr. Ralph Ford:There's the plug, so go find it. If you haven't been to the gorge, you're missing something special in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Yeah. And you can find it on Google Maps now. So I think there was a period of time where you really couldn't. But now that we have that trailhead, you can actually find it.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Alright, we're coming to the lightning round where I asked questions, you know, few quick, so what's going to get us to gold STARS? Right? What's next?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Sustainability Faculty Fellows. So trying to continue to increase our sustainability across the curriculum. That's one. The sustainability store that we're working to develop and the read will be another kind of key piece to that. And then we're working to increase our recycling rate as a campus. Those are probably my three big plugs in the near future.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Okay, I want to focus on the last one, how do you get the recycling rate up on campus?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:We're really going to work on an education and outreach campaign, we're getting new signage for our bins on campus, and we're going to actually have consistent signage across the campus, we're going to specify exactly where all the trash and recycling bins should be. So that they're consistent everywhere, there's a recycling bin, there's going to be a trash can everywhere there's a trash can, there's going to be a recycling bin so that they're paired together. Because right now, it's pretty haphazard. And frequently, you find four different recycling bins together, but then that makes you think that you recycle different things in different compartments. I don't know. But there's no signage, so we're really trying to address those issues and see if that can help.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Okay, next question, then is there is a lot going on in this world right now we hear about what's going on in the environment, climate change, reaction people might have is, there's nothing I can do about this. But I don't think we want that to be the reaction. So what are the practical things that people can do to make a real difference?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Everything you do makes a difference. And everything you don't do makes a difference. So think about that. It's it's, you know, it's can be something from as simple as bringing your reusable bags to the grocery store, to, as I said, insulating the walls and changing to more energy efficient windows, you know, there's just so many things. So people should not at all feel that they are that they don't have power, they don't have control, or they don't have some kind of place in this. Everything you do you find something that you care about. And you focus in on that, you know, if it's taking care of people, if it's taking care of animals, do those things, if it's going for a walk in the woods do that. You know, there's just so many places that you can interject. So really hope hope people feel empowered to be part of those solutions, because they really, truly are.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, that is great advice. We're coming to the end of our time. So I'll give you the last word. Anything you'd like to add?
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Vote. That's one other solution. Yeah. My you know, I think the big thing is kind of the motto that I have, which is "Be the change you wish to see in the world". Wise words from Mahatma Gandhi, but really encourage people to think about that and be that change.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Right. Well, great advice.Thank you so much for being here. My guest today on Behrend Talks has been Dr. Sam Mason, Director of sustainability. Thanks for joining us and good luck and I'm sure we're gonna get to the gold level of STARS. But not only that, we're doing a lot of great things here on campus with sustainability. So anybody out there who is interested, they can reach out to you.
Dr. Sherri "Sam" Mason:Absolutely. All right. Thanks a lot.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Thank you.