Sustainability on Campus Takes on a New Focus
The Sustainability Action Planning Committee and Students Encouraging Environmental Dedication are pushing Marist College to become more sustainable.
Marist's environmental club, SEED, partnered with other environmentally conscious clubs for the Sustainability Fair, where students could learn more about sustainability and its impact on the environment. Photo by Elizabeth Baumgardner '25
Marist College students and faculty are leading the effort to prioritize sustainability through events that engage the student body.
On Oct. 25, the Sustainability Action Planning Committee hosted “Green Games” in the Dyson Center atrium from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Lined up by the entrance, faculty members offered apple cider donuts and coffee to students who filled out a survey. The survey, which will remain open until Nov. 27, aims to identify environmental issues that matter to the Marist community. The event also helped to increase the visibility of the SAPC, a coalition of students, staff and faculty that was officially formed this semester to create a sustainability action plan as part of the Marist 100 strategic plan.
The Sustainability Action Planning Committee held its own event in the Dyson Center to help raise student awareness and involvement in sustainability. Photo by Elizabeth Baumgardner '25
“We wanted to build awareness around the activities of the Sustainability Action Planning Committee and also get feedback from the community about what's important to them in terms of sustainability at Marist and building a more sustainable campus,” said Beth Veasey, Marist’s Chief Financial Officer and SAPC member.
Along with the survey, students added to a sustainability word collage and played a Kahoot game about sustainability. All the games helped fuel conversations about current programs at Marist.
“Some of our questions in the game talked about how much food waste we compost or what kind of e-waste recycling efforts we have. And there were definitely some individuals who didn't know that those things were going on,” said Veasey. “So, it helped to build awareness of what we already do. And we're really interested in how we advance these efforts further and be even more impactful.”
The SAPC aims to create a draft of the plan by the end of next spring. The information from the survey will be foundational to the SAPC in this process.
“[The survey] will help us to tell the story of what people think is important, so that's going to serve a little bit as our compass of what things are important,” said Marist Chief Information Officer and SAPC co-chair Mike Caputo. “We're still collecting input from our community, but our goal is to come up with a plan that looks at things and starts to say that we want to improve sustainability in this area.”
The QR code for the SAPC survey. Graphic courtesy Mike Caputo
On Oct. 30, the Students Encouraging Environmental Dedication club hosted a Sustainability Fair in the dining tent behind the student center. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., SEED and various other clubs ran tables to support the common goal of sustainability.
“We're all clubs that may have all different activities that we do that are pretty separate from each other, but we all kind of have the same goal in mind,” said SEED president Megan Connor ‘26. “Marist Votes wants people to vote for change in different ways. The Outing Club wants people to be sustainable on the trails. EFI [Ethical Fashion Initiative] wants people to be sustainable with fashion.”
Other tables included groups like Campus Closet, Habitat for Humanity, the Marist Community Garden, the Student Government Association Sustainability Committee’s clothing swap and the SEED-run repair cafe.
The repair cafe was created by SEED Vice President Carter McDavitt ‘26, who was inspired by the trend and decided to replicate it for clothing repair. The idea of a repair cafe is to promote sustainability by demonstrating how items can be fixed.
“We've got a couple of great designers together, and we're just sewing little repairs. We've had bags come in, we've had jackets and pants. It's mostly patchwork or embroidery,” said McDavitt. “People will come in and get their things repaired, but you're also teaching them how to do it, so they can do these repairs on their own. We're handing out sewing kits. We're giving people iron-on patches.”
McDavitt hopes SEED will create more repair cafes on campus, with a few changes, to make them more successful.
“I think going forward, we might try and do it in more visible locations, like the gardens at Steel Plant or in front of the student center,” said McDavitt. “What's tough with something like this is you can't just drop in — you have to have an item. All this comes down to proper marketing and letting people know beforehand.”
Both SEED and the SAPC are committed to furthering sustainability goals. The groups are excited about the future possibilities with increased student engagement.
“I think that this, and the SEED activities that will be going on, speaks to a sort of pent-up demand for more of this type of engagement from our community. We're thrilled on the committee to be a key player in that,” said Veasey.