The 2011 AASHE Conference Moves Toward One Bag with the Help of the Glad Products Company:

In October, the 2011 AASHE Conference wrapped a successful four days of sessions and meetings on how to achieve sustainability in higher education, while also achieving a sustainability success of its own. With the support of its official waste diversion sponsor The Glad Products Company, they met a 97.63% percent diversion rate, meaning less than 3% of the total conference’s accumulated waste was sent to the landfill!

The conference was one of the first events to participate in Glad’s new One Bag campaign. The effort encourages and facilitates events, venues and consumers to host One Bag events, where only one bag of waste is sent to landfill, with the remainder being diverted to compost and recycling.

So what did this take? Not only did it require recycling and composting waste diversion capabilities at the venue, but the AASHE and Glad teams worked with the event planners to ensure they were wasting less at every step along the way. This included removing “waste drivers” from the event’s menu (nixing wrapped candy and chips from lunch boxes), using compostable or reusable silverware, donating leftover boxed lunches to a local non-profit and displaying informational signage by waste receptacles.

The GLAD® “One Bag" grant program will award up to 10 - $3,500 grants to colleges that are active members of AASHE looking to further their waste reduction efforts. The Glad to Waste Less campaign and “One Bag” grant program is intended help move more football programs towards less waste, supporting AASHE's campus sustainability goals. For Official Rules and complete details, visit http://clorox.promo.eprize.com/gladonebagcollegegrant/public/fulfillment/rules.pdf.

To learn how you can host a One Bag event at www.GladtoWasteLess.com

December 5, 2011 – UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski joined President Barack Obama, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and a select group of higher education leaders at the White House today for a discussion on college affordability and productivity. And later this week, Dr. Hrabowski will be a featured panelist at Governor Martin O’Malley’s 2012 Symposium on Job Creation.

Both events demonstrate that the university’s innovative practices in teaching, research and entrepreneurship are widely respected models for promoting student success and creating a thriving economy.

President Obama has set a goal for the United States to have the highest proportion of college graduates of any country in the world by 2020. The engagement of college leaders in a frank policy discussion today takes that college-completion push to a new level. Dr. Hrabowski participated with a group of leaders that also included University System of Maryland Chancellor William “Brit” Kirwan, the heads of the New York and Texas university systems, and the presidents of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

UMBC’s graduates are less likely to leave college with debt than their counterparts nationwide, and they are more likely to pursue advanced degrees. More African-American bachelor’s degree recipients go on from UMBC to earn Ph.D.’s in the STEM fields than from any other predominantly white university in the country. And redesigned courses at the university, in chemistry and psychology for example, have increased pass rates, increased average grades and dramatically reduced the number of students needing to repeat courses.

On Friday, President Hrabowski will join the Governor, business leaders and policy makers to discuss higher education partnerships that support innovation, company start-ups and job creation.

To read more about innovation at UMBC, please visit www.umbc.edu/innovate.

Washington Internships for Students of Engineering (WISE)

Ranked as one of the best internships in the U.S. by the Princeton

Review, *WISE* (Washington Internships for Students of Engineering)

offers a unique opportunity to 3rd and 4th year engineering students to

spend the summer of 2012 in Washington, D.C., learning about the

interaction of technology and public policy. The dates of the 2012 WISE

program are June 4- August 3, 2012.

Selected from a nationwide competition, WISE Interns spend nine weeks

learning how government officials make decisions on complex

technological issues and how engineers can contribute to legislative and

regulatory public policy decisions. At the end of the nine weeks,

interns produce a public policy paper on a topic of interest, i.e.

alternate energy, and present their findings on Capitol Hill. In addition to 3rd and

4th year engineering students, recent graduates,

beginning study in an engineering policy-related Master’s program, will

also be considered. WISE interns are provided housing in a dormitory on

the campus of George Washington University in the heart of Washington,

D.C., and receive a stipend to assist with living and travel expenses.

ASME is now accepting applications for its 2012 WISE interns. The ASME application can be downloaded at http://www.wise-intern.org and this year’s application *deadline is December 31, 2011*. To see examples of previous year’s policy papers, please visit:

http://www.wise-intern.org/journal/2011/index.html

Summer 2012 research internships at the NASA
Langley Research Center located in Hampton, VA. Applications (on-line) can be made starting December 5, 2011. The deadline for applications is February 1, 2012.Information about NASA Langley's research internship opportunities and the on-line application can be found at <http://www.nianet.org/larss/>.

Please note that we encourage female students and under-represented minorities, first-generation college students, and students from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds to apply.

M I C K E Y L E L A N D

INTERN PROGRAM

ENERGY FELLOWSHIP

For more information please contact the MLEF Program Office:

Email: MLEF@hq.doe.gov

2012

PROGRAM                                                                                                               

The Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship (MLEF) is a 10-week

paid summer internship with opportunities in the US

Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, for women

and minority students who are currently enrolled in Science,

Technology (IT), Engineering, and Math majors at an

accredited college or university.

MLEF MISSION

Provide opportunities for educational advancement and

career development through an award winning internship

program for women and minority students in Science,

Technology (IT), Engineering and Math.

ELIGIBILITY

 Applicants must be a US citizen

 Undergraduate students completing their sophomore

    year in Spring 2012 through PhD candidates

 Cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above

APPLICATION

Application deadline is December 31, 2011. The start

date for the summer internship program is June 4, 2012.

For more information about DOE/FE and to complete the

MLEF application, please visit our webpage.

If you are a Republican voter today… you have a diverse buffet of candidates to choose from.

But what if, for example, you’re not a fan of Romney or Gingrich? (the only real viable candidates at this point).

Well… all the way from Salt Lake City we have a contender for you!!! Please welcome John Huntsman.

He’s got the hair, the brains, the charm and yet he has so much more! (except poll ratings)

While some have called him Romney’s twin, in fact, the Utahian (Utahinite?) Mormon actually has a stronger conservative record.

Erick Erickson over at Red State, posted back in November that Huntsman has the most free market tax plan of any in the field (including, don’t make us say it, Cain’s 9-9-9 plan).

Interestingly, with regards to Huntsman, Erickson has been more flip-floppy than Romney. Back in May he wrote a post entitled Why I will Not Support Huntsman. Ever.

He writes:

The reason I will never, ever support Jon Huntsman is simple: While serving as the United States Ambassador to China, our greatest strategic adversary, Jon Huntsman began plotting to run against the President of the United States. This calls into question his loyalty not just to the President of the United States, but also his loyalty to his country over his own naked ambition.

But in light of recent events Erickson and other conservatives are beginning to give Huntsman a second look. “I think I might have to eat my ‘never ever vote for Jon Huntsman’ post,” he told the Daily Beast.

The former governor surely made some enemies among the GOP electorate with his environmental views and ultimately his claim that his party is anti-science.

His stigma thus far is that he is a moderate. But with his free market economic plan and his whole hearted endorsement of the Ryan budget he is as fiscally conservative as anybody in the field.

He seems like a good alternative. What do you think of Huntsman, could/should he be the nominee?