Volunteers in Sustainability

Volunteers in Sustainability is a group of students committed to making IU Bloomington a sustainable campus.  Formed in the spring semester of 2008, ViS has been at the heart of the campus sustainability movement. 

ViS members come together from a variety of disciplines in all of IU’s schools to reduce IU’s negative effects on the natural environment, promote social and economic justice, and engage the IU and Bloomington communities in these issues.  The group organizes hands-on volunteer activities, carries out small-scale research projects, holds educational/awareness campaigns, and sponsors lectures, panels, and group discussions.  (See below for some of our favorite projects.)

To organize these efforts effectively, members participate in four working groups:  Reduce/Reuse/Recycle (3R), Environmental Quality (EQ), Food & Dining (F&D), and Transportation (TRANS).  Each working group is headed by an elected Chairperson, and the ViS Coordinator is responsible for facilitating projects and making sure each working group is progressing toward its goals.

As part of IU’s new Student Sustainability Council (SSC), ViS members also take on important roles in collaboratively organizing campus-wide events and advising the IU Office of Sustainability.  The SSC, currently with 14 student groups and governmental organizations participating, will be a significant force for change on the IUB campus. 

We are always happy to welcome new members to our ranks!  Students are encouraged to participate for as much or as little time as they like.  Help out every week on one of our research projects, or stop by the greenhouse once in a while to plant native species—it’s up to you and your schedule how and when to participate.  But with your help, we’ll be that.

Highlighted Projects

For an idea of what we do, here are a few of our favorite projects.

• With the help of the IU Biology Department, we’ve planted a variety of native species around Jordan Hall for the “Prairie in the Planters” project, reducing the need for irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers, and restoring the natural habitat that best supports our Indiana wildlife.  (Compare the insect populations of these planters to others on campus:  We wager there’ll be more buzz by our Black-eyed Susans.)
• We’ve also been working with the Biology Department to save Dunn Woods from an invasive vine (Euonymus fortunei) that’s outcompeting native understory species.  If you’re not sure what we’re talking about, go to the Woods and look down.  Pulling this off (by pulling the vine out) is going to be a long, hard-fought battle, but we find it a great way to relieve some of that pre-exam stress or put off that paper just a little bit longer.  In the areas we clear, we reintroduce the natives we’ve readied in the greenhouse. 
• IUB still without permanent outdoor recycling bins (unlike our Indianapolis counterpart), ViS sponsors a now-annual “More Art, Less Trash” contest that invites students to submit designs for temporary bins.  The top ten designs, as ranked by a panel of distinguished IU judges, are painted on the bins by the artists, and the bins are placed around campus to collect glass, plastic, and metal. 

• Each fall as students flock to campus, cardboard boxes are a common sight.  And while we encourage saving them for reuse (just cut the tape, flatten, and slide behind your dresser or in the back of a closet), we’d much rather they get recycled than sent to the Terre Haute landfill with the rest of Bloomington’s garbage.  So we’ve been helping RPS recycle cardboard during move-in, to the tune of 14 tons last fall.
• Given the tremendous, negative environmental, social, and economic effects of drinking from disposable bottles, we’re waging an all-out anti-bottled water campaign.  We’re designing and posting original posters, screening films, hosting speakers and panels, selling reusable steel bottles, and supporting our amazing members in their own creative projects.

 

Contact Us

We’re always looking for new ways to help move IU forward, so come lend a hand and share your ideas!  Email us at vsustain@indiana.edu to find out more and be added to our listserv.