ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES COMMITTEE
January 13, 1999
Maple Room

Attendees: JR Gaddis, Teresa Sabol Spezio, Kay Coots, Cyndi Jones, Chris Ramey, John Bittner, Tom Hicks, Janet Rose, Robyn Hathcock, Bev Murrow, Patty Krier, Melissa Unger, Martha Ravits, John Baldwin, Karyn Kaplan

Environmental Audit Class

Karen introduced Teresa Sabol Spezio, a graduate student in the Environmental Studies Department who also works part-time with an environmental consulting firm. Teresa met with Dan Williams and offered to teach an environmental audit class summer term. She has been reviewing the initial assessment that was done by the Community Planning Workshop and meeting with people and departments which may be impacted by the auditing process. Dan feels that if the summer course is successful Teresa can teach one again in the fall and subsequent terms or at least once a year. Teresa reports that he has agreed to provide the funding.

Teresa was invited back to future meetings and will be added to the EIC mailing list. Linda will forward her E-mail address to Connie. Teresa will also e-mail

George Hecht. Karen will also contact George since Facilities Services is looking into resource conservation issues and the class can provide assistance in this area. Teresa asked for ongoing input on other areas where audits are most needed. Cyndi suggested that she contact the OUS risk manager regarding wording of final audit reports.

Committee Charge

Kay and Karyn have reviewed the charge and Kay passed out a draft of proposed changes -- words or phrases in parenthesis need to be deleted and replaced with those underlined. The committee reviewed and discussed it. Karyn pointed out that the director of Purchasing and Support Services has been added. Harriet was not able to join EIC last year so JR suggested that Harriet appoint Terrie Penfold. Karyn will contact Harriet about the appointment. Another addition is the Director of Printing Services. Karyn would like to add the ASUO Environmental Coordinator which would also help to get students more involved.

There are some people who have been on the committee for years who are not ex-officios and have been very valuable such as Bev and Connie. Anyone who wants to attend meetings are welcome to participate in a nonvoting capacity and can lobby to join EIC.

Karyn asked if recommendations can be made to OPEU which appoints at the end of November. Kay suggested that Linda King could be helpful and Karyn agreed to contact her.

John asked for clarification on whether he had been appointed and if his term was for one or two years. The OPEU and classified staff appointees are Bev and Connie. John’s served his one year term last year and will plan to attend meetings in an unofficial capacity until spring in order to work with the transportation subcommittee.

Cyndi is the Environmental Specialist and is not officially appointed but has come to meetings for the past three years. The Environmental Specialist for OEHS has historically attended meetings. The committee discussed adding the position. It can be put in with OEHS to be written up as we did for Facilities Services saying ‘and or the Environmental Specialist’. The Housing Recycling Coordinator was designated and has been officially appointed every year as ex officio. That was approved several years ago but is not in the charge and needs to be added. Karyn moved that these two be added to the charge. All voted in favor. Kay will make these changes and present the revised charge at the next meeting for final review. Karyn will run this decision by Dan Williams for final approval.

Emerald Advertisements

Karyn sent everyone an e-mail with the schedule for ads which will run in the Emerald from January through May 18. These ads are funded through Dan Williams office and were designed in Professor Ryan’s class.

Cyndi suggested that the EIC view the ads prior to publication. If possible copies of the ads will be available at the February meeting.

Environmental Symposium

Karyn passed out a schedule from a past symposium. She suggested having a symposium on Earth Day for all department environmental coordinators, recycling coordinators, EIC members, etc. This can be used as a training session. Question: Should this be worked on in conjunction with policy implementation or would that be a separate subcommittee? Suggestion: Invite those who need to develop policy implementation to a one hour session as part of that day. Kay felt that since Earth Day is in April it may need two separate subcommittees. Let them determine whether the draft document is ready to go and decide whether to wait until April or do we want to introduce it now and offer a session in. Since the symposium is such a huge task, it may be best to have a separate subcommittee. Karen agreed that a separate meeting to explain the document would be best.

The meeting adjourned at noon.

The next Environmental Issues Committee meeting will be held Wednesday, February 17 at 11:00am in the EMU Maple Room

Minutes submitted by Linda Johnson