I had the honor to serve as a judge once again in this year’s Best Practice Awards for the 2010 California Higher Education Sustainability Conference organized by the sustainability office in the University of California's Office of the President. With deadlines approaching for AASHE’s own awards program I neglected to help publicize the California winners, who are all deserving of recognition.

These best practices awards are intended to highlight the achievements that the California State University, University of California, and California Community College campuses have made through innovative and effective energy efficiency projects and sustainable operations. It is the goal that these projects will serve as showcases to other campuses and will assist campus staff with resources and ideas that they may be able transfer to their own campus.

The 2010 Best Practice Award Winners included many different categories. I have include the winners along with links to brief descriptions of their projects. More information is available on the Best Practice Awards website.

Overall Sustainable Design

• DeAnza College; Mediated Learning Center
• CSU Sacramento; American River Courtyard
• UC Irvine; Medical Education Building

HVAC Design/Retrofit

• Los Angeles Pierce College; Near Net-Zero Maintenance and Operations Complex
• Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; Student Recreation Expansion and Remodel
• UC Irvine; Exhaust Stack Discharge Velocity Reduction

 Lighting Design/Retrofit

• Copper Mountain College; Energy Savings Project
• San Jose State University; King Library Lighting Retrofit
• UC San Diego; Sustainability Resource Center

Monitoring-Based Commissioning

• UC Berkeley; Le Conte Hall
  Additional award winner to be determined

Student Energy Efficiency

• West LA Community College; Green Campus Program
• Cal Poly Pomona; Green Campus Program
• UC Santa Cruz; Green Campus Program

Student Sustainability Program

• Santa Rosa Junior College; Students for Sustainable Communities
• Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; Green Campus Program
• UC Santa Barbara; (PACES)

Water Efficiency & Site Water Quality

• San Diego Community College District; Standardization of Calsense Irrigation Control System
• CSU Northridge; Weather Based Irrigation Control System & Waterless Urinal Replacement
• UC San Diego; Clean Water Utility Initiative
• UC Santa Barbara; San Clemente Ecological Restoration & Storm water Management Project

Innovative Waste Reduction

• UC San Diego; Toby's Spot Re-Use Program

Sustainable Foods Service

• Humboldt State University; Dining Services
• UC Santa Barbara; Residential Dining Sustainability Plan

2010 Honorable Mentions:
Overall Sustainable Design

• West LA Community College; Athletics & Allied Health Complex
• CSU San Bernardino; College of Education
• UC San Diego; Health Sciences Biomedical Research Facility 2

Lighting Design/Retrofit

• Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; Student Recreation Expansion and Remodel

The iTunes Connect Mobile (iTC Mobile) app for iPhone allows you to review your sales and related trends, and make informed business decisions while you're on the go. You can also view your aggregated unit sales information by product line (e.g., paid apps, free apps, In-App purchases), market (e.g., U.S., France) and individual product. Your information is displayed graphically and can be customized to view select periods of time.

The iTC Mobile app for iPhone is available as a free download from the App Store. For detailed instructions on how to take advantage of all the features of iTC Mobile, download the iTC Mobile User Guide from the homepage of iTunes Connect.

The iTunes Connect Mobile (iTC Mobile) app for iPhone allows you to review your sales and related trends, and make informed business decisions while you're on the go. You can also view your aggregated unit sales information by product line (e.g., paid apps, free apps, In-App purchases), market (e.g., U.S., France) and individual product. Your information is displayed graphically and can be customized to view select periods of time.

The iTC Mobile app for iPhone is available as a free download from the App Store. For detailed instructions on how to take advantage of all the features of iTC Mobile, download the iTC Mobile User Guide from the homepage of iTunes Connect.

Take full advantage of the Retina display on iPhone 4 by uploading a hi-res small app icon and hi-res screenshots for your apps in iTunes Connect. Read the Technical Q&A: App Icons on iPad and iPhone and review the Upload section of the iTunes Connect Developer Guide for more details.

Take full advantage of the Retina display on iPhone 4 by uploading a hi-res small app icon and hi-res screenshots for your apps in iTunes Connect. Read the Technical Q&A: App Icons on iPad and iPhone and review the Upload section of the iTunes Connect Developer Guide for more details.

Dawn Biehler, assistant professor of geography and environmental systems, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend for the summer of 2010. As a beneficiary of the award, Biehler received $6,000 to finance two months of full-time research and writing. The goal of the program is to “support individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both.”

This summer, Biehler will continue research on her upcoming book, "Pests and the People: An Environmental History of Animals, Chemicals, and Health in the Home," which she expects will be published in early 2013. This project focuses on “the history of domestic pest control in US cities as a public health issue,” said Biehler.

“I hope this research can provide momentum for advocates trying to reduce pesticide use and empower low-income people to demand and achieve healthy living environments,” Biehler said. She hopes to promote the idea of the home as an ecosystem in which human bodies are deeply embedded.

Biehler’s historical investigations have inspired two other projects focusing on the present day, one studying diseases carried by mosquitoes, and the other addressing the healthy housing movement. In all her projects, Biehler maintains an interest in the roles of “race, class, gender, and urban space” in regards to nature in homes and cities.

Three UMBC professors have been chosen as summer faculty fellows by the Dresher Center for the Humanities. The fellowships support professors who are in the early stages of research.

“We’re trying to give them the chance to do some preliminary research so that they can work on their grant proposal in order to get funding,” said Rebecca Boehling, director of the Dresher Center.

The three professors chosen for this year’s awards are Gloria Chuku, associate professor of Africana studies; Nicole King, associate professor of American studies; and Piotr Gwiazda, associate professor of English.

The fellowship supports research projects that have the potential to be funded by outside organizations. The awardees will use their fellowships to complete the preliminary research needed for grant proposals.

“In some ways, the thing that people need most is time,” said Boehling, noting that the fellowship provides this time by easing the financial strain that would otherwise force faculty to teach summer classes.

Chuku will use the fellowship to work on her project, "Confronting the Silences: Gender, Ethnicity and the Biafra-Nigeria War.”

“None of the existing literature and studies has employed the dynamics of the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the narrative of the Biafra-Nigeria War,” she said. She will be applying for research fellowships and grants to continue her research, which she hopes to eventually publish as a book.

King's fellowship will go towards writing proposals to support the endeavors of the American studies department's Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture (CSPCC). The department is known for studying communities and working with community organizations. She is preparing a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Interpreting America’s Historic Places Planning Grant for the Mapping Baybrook Project, which interprets the historic arc of American industrialization in the Brooklyn and Curtis Bay neighborhoods of Baltimore.

Gwiazda is embarking on a translation of “Kopenhaga,” the “little masterpiece” of Polish poet Grzegorz Wróblewski. By translating this work and placing it with an American publisher, Gwiazda hopes to make the work of one of the major contemporary Polish poets available to a wider audience.

“The fact that the depiction of migrant sensibility in ‘Kopenhaga’ parallels, to some extent, my own experiences as an immigrant in the United States, makes me, I believe, an ideal person to convey the volume’s intellectual and emotional content,” he said. He has already received a PEN American Center Translation Fund grant to begin work on the project, and plans to apply for more grants as he continues work on the project.