University of Southern Maine

Profile

The University of Southern Maine , founded in 1878, is the largest of the seven branches of the University of Maine system, with campuses in Portland, Gorham, and Lewiston. It is a major educational force in the overall growth and improvement of the economic, civic, social and cultural fabric of southern Maine. USM offers baccalaureate, Master's, and Ph.D. degree programs to its 11,382 students.

These degree offerings include programs in Environmental Science, Environmental Safety and Health, and Environmental Policy/Planning. The Office of Economic and Environmental Sustainability at USM was created in the fall of 2002, and in July 2005, USM became an official CA-CP campus partner.

Past Initiatives

USM recently completed construction of two new university LEED buildings, including the Joel and Linda Abramson Community Education Center, featuring a 7.8KW rooftop PV project.

The university has instituted many energy efficiency and conservation practices; for example, replacing thousands of incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents in the CleanLights program, switching to LED exit signs, and turning off the lights in 75 vending machines across campus. These efficiency upgrades have saved the university over $10,000 in energy costs. In its continuing pursuit of efficiency, USM recently finished sub-metering all their buildings, to better monitor their energy use across campus.

The university has also purchased 1.5 million kWh of green electricity.

The use of three new hybrid Honda Civics has reduced global warming pollution from the University's 56 motor-pool vehicles by more than 8%, and USM has implemented a reduced-idling policy for campus police vehicles as well.

Current Initiatives

The USM campus reduced its energy use by 3%, and the Sustainability Office has a lot on its plate for this year as well. It plans to complete its GHG emissions inventory; work with Facilities to install occupancy sensors and to eventually replace all lights with efficient fluorescents; run a few campus buildings on biodiesel; amd endure a creative new plan will allow the Library and Alumni House to make money off their energy savings for the next three years. With FY2003 as a base, the buildings will receive a check for 1/3 of any energy savings they generate.

The Office of Sustainability is reaching out to the USM community and beyond to educate about sustainability. This fall, they are organizing a two-day training for 15 professors, in disciplines from criminology to occupational therapy, to challenge each to integrate issues of sustainability into their syllabi. The training itself will feature local organic produce, produce zero waste, and be, through offsets, carbon-neutral. The USM Business School plans to offer its first “Green Marketing” class this spring, where students will receive funds to market and publicize a sustainability project. With the “Portland Solar Schools Initiative,” USM is also helping local public schools to install PV units and to link them to curricula about sustainability and global warming.

Future Initiatives

Construction of two additional new LEED buildings are planned for USM, one of which (a new library) will be constructed on a renovated brownfield.

The Sustainability Office is investigating a plan to individually meter dormitory suites in their new 250-person residence hall on the Gorham campus. Occupants will be able to see how much energy they are using compared to their neighbors.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology Program has approached USM students about taking their weekly sustainability newspaper column, Footprint, national. The young journalists would attend student environmental conferences to encourage more others to start columns at their universities, and will attempt to publish the best columns on U-Wire.

Contact

Dudley Greeley, Director, USM Sustainability Office,dgreeley@usm.maine.edu, 207-780-4384