Ready, set, go green!

Green is a very popular color these days, and USM has been taking action to make its green imprint on the world.

The most recent sign of going green is the new residence hall Century Park – the first of what the university hopes to become many LEED certified buildings.

LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is an internationally recognized certification system, verifying that a building aims to improve energy savings, water efficiency and other environmental issues. To be LEED certified means that the building has earned a certain number of points based on its energy-saving strategies.

Century Park has gotten a silver LEED certification and according to Chris Crenshaw, director of Residence Life, "Any project the University does from here on out will have to shoot for silver LEED certification."

Now that the university's standards have risen so high, it has a pledge to keep in order to do its part in saving the environment.

When asked why the university made the decision to construct buildings such as Century Park that will aid in the cause to go green Crenshaw responded, "It's the right thing to do as an educational institution, to be a proponent for bettering the world you live in. It's a great way to kick off a new century – just do it right."

In the spring of 2008 President Martha Saunders officially launched Southern Miss "Go Green" initiative.

Since then, EcoEagle has started to raise awareness among college students: 4,500 7-gallon cans have been placed across campus, and Southern Miss has been making an effort to educate college students on the importance of keeping the environment clean.

Not only is USM taking strides to turn the world into a greener place, but students are playing their part as well. EcoEagle is a student organization that has done projects in the past such as the EcoEagle bike share, Lug-a-Mug, campus cleanups, kayak river cleanups and more.

Junior Matthew Planchard, an EcoEagle representative, said the group has an EcoEagle garden in the works for this year.

"We are trying to set up a community garden so people can come out and get some lettuce and get some tomatoes and just grow them over the course of the semester," he said.

EcoEagle also has a recycling program that Planchard said is probably the easiest recycling program in the United States.

"We are the only university that has a complete recycling program – you can put anything in there that's recyclable."

Although Century Park has attempted to go green, residents have had a hard time seeing this. Bike rack covers have been installed to encourage riding bikes instead of driving, but while the covers are there, the racks are not. Automatic lights in the lobbies keep people from extinguishing the lights when they want to watch a movie or leave the room and end up staying on all night long.

Although every resident was provided with a recycling bin, several students said many do not recycle. If they do recycle, they do not know what to put in the bins or where to empty it.

"For as easy as Century Park makes it to recycle, it's astounding to see how many students are not taking advantage of this opportunity to go green," said Century Park resident Ann Marie Chilcutt.

Planchard has simple advice for the non-green student. "Just think," he said. "Think and research. Read. Have concern for the world that you live in. Realize that you can't just take and take and take and take, because if you do that eventually there will be nothing left. So you have to learn to take with restraint and to give back when you can."