Centralight

Connections In your own backyard Small efforts make an environmental impact By Marcie Lehr Otteman, '87 Executive director of alumni relations When it rains, I take a cup with me when I do my morning workout. In the parking lot, I spend five minutes picking up the worms that come out after the thunderstorm. It may sound strange, but I've done this often enough that even my workout buddies help me – although they do offer some good-natured teasing about picking up worms. You see, the worms are for my 9-year-old daughter Kaitlin's "worm farm," which is what she affectionately calls our compost bin. We started composting several years ago to make dirt for our vegetable and flower gardens. Kaitlin loves to see how the food scraps we put in turn to dirt with a little effort and some worms. We also recycle weekly our paper, cardboard, glass and plastic. I'm trying to show her some things that we can do to help reduce our impact on the planet. CMU is leading the charge in this area, as well. Not only do we – as alumni, students, faculty and staff – all do our part on campus to recycle, reduce our energy usage and keep waste to a minimum, we also build green buildings and support sustainable initiatives. In this Centralight issue, you will read about CMU being the grand winner for the 2011 Green Cleaning Award for Schools and Universities and our energy savings on campus. You'll learn about the CMU Botanical Garden and our research on the Great Lakes. As a university, we find it part of our fabric to impact the world in positive ways. We recently welcomed a new class of alumni to our family. They will travel near and far and make broad impacts on their communities and the world at large. Much of what they do in their new lives as college graduates comes from the lessons learned and actions seen during their time as CMU students. I don't remember ever recycling as a college student in the late 1980s, but I see the blue recycling bins by the rental houses on Main Street now. I see the containers and bins in buildings all across campus. I think how important it is that we, as an institution, are constantly looking for ways to reduce our waste and care for our campus environments. Calendar June 20 through 22 Grandparents U, Mount Pleasant campus 25 Great Lakes Bay Region Golf Outing and Dinner, Apple Mountain Golf Club, Freeland 30 Tampa Bay Rays vs. Detroit Tigers, Tampa, Fla. July 13 23 CMU Chicago and Goose Island Alumni Outing, Goose Island and Wrigley Field, Chicago The CMU Thomas "Bud" Moore Scholarship Open, Traverse City Golf & Country Club, Traverse City August 30 CMU Football home opener, Mount Pleasant campus September 8 CMU Football vs. Michigan State, Mount Pleasant campus October 20 Homecoming vs. Ball State, Mount Pleasant campus It is great to see so many students and young people involved with sustainable and earth-friendly practices. If my daughter had her way, our vegetable garden would be bigger. Instead of just growing peas, carrots, tomatoes and lettuce, we would also grow squash, pumpkins and corn. I also think she'd like it if there were a few chickens and goats thrown in for good measure. But I'm ok with our modest-sized garden. I enjoy shopping locally at the farmer's market. And Kaitlin likes watching her "farm" to make sure the worms are happily fed. And that's good for us – because it is the small things that add up to make a big difference. I'd love to hear how you are working to be more earth-friendly. Tell us how you make being maroon and gold a green effort at alumni@cmich.edu. Marcie (Lehr) Otteman centralight summer '12 35 35

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