Sinclair360

For Sinclair Community College President Dr. Steven Johnson, repeatedly getting trapped in elevators in India because of power outages was a quick lesson in what happens when energy demand outstrips supply.

“It was just common for the electricity to go out in the hotel and to be stuck in an elevator for 20 minutes,” he said.

While his somewhat nerve-wracking experiences happened thousands of miles away, Johnson knows that the United States isn’t immune to such energy challenges. If experts are correct, the coming decades will bring higher energy prices and reduced availability, posing a challenge to our energy-hungry lifestyles. “The next 30 years aren’t going to be like the last,” Johnson said.

That’s why the Sinclair president and other college leaders are focused on strengthening Sinclair’s environmental stewardship – from reducing energy consumption to educating students to work in emerging green industries. Sinclair is in part answering a call from the State of Ohio, which has charged that all public colleges reduce their energy consumption by 20 percent by 2015. But the college is going beyond that mandate, Johnson said, taking a hard look at the environmental friendliness of all of its operations, as well as how it is preparing students for a changed world.

You’ll see glimpses of a greener campus already. The college recently stopped printing paper schedules. Professors have converted two campus lawn mowers to use biodiesel fuel that they’ve made from recycled grease donated by the cafeteria. The buildings are kept a little cooler; personal fans and heaters are out. And students are studying alternative energy in the Sinclair Energy Education Center laboratory, which houses a wind turbine, a fuel-cell generator and generators to produce both biodiesel and ethanol fuels.

“We are, in fact, at the beginning of a very serious transformation,” Johnson said. The journey to a greener campus will likely take 10 to 15 years. It will require buy-in from administrators, staff, faculty and students, Johnson said. “The energy needed to run our society in the future is going to be one of the most important issues as we go forward,” he said. “So Sinclair is working to transform itself to be a better educator of citizens on energy issues, as well as itself being a more responsible and efficient consumer of energy.” This greening of higher education is playing out across the country. According to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), more and more colleges are making commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and are passing energy-conservation plans. Sinclair passed its own strategic energy plan in November 2008. The plan lays out several ways – both large and small – in which the college can reduce its energy consumption and raise its environmental consciousness, such as exploring alternative-energy sources like wind and geothermal.

Operations

Operating a college the size of Sinclair is not unlike powering a small town. The downtown Dayton campus alone has 20 buildings to heat and cool, acres of grass to maintain, 4,500 personal computers to power and a multitude of outdoor campus pathways to illuminate.

Sinclair pays $4 million a year in utility costs, including $2 million for electricity alone. If prices rise, so do the college’s expenses. “What if someday in our lifetime it costs five to 10 times what it does now?” Johnson said. “In order to get enough energy to run this college, we might have to reduce our consumption; otherwise, we may not be able to afford to get enough energy to run this college.”

Over recent years computer monitors and light bulbs have been replaced with more energy-efficient models. In capital building projects, materials such as carpet that in the past would have been lost to a landfill are now being recycled. The strategic energy plan calls for new buildings to comply with green-building standards. And in 2008, the college received two grants – one for $26,000 and another for $14,000 – to improve its recycling and waste-reduction efforts.

So far the college hasn’t put a price tag on how much it has saved through its various environmental initiatives. But the energy plan is a good road map and measuring stick for the progress, said Jeff Boudouris, vice president and chief financial officer of Sinclair. Both he and Johnson call the state’s 20 percent goal an ambitious one that alone will help reduce Sinclair’s energy costs a great deal. Johnson said that he expects the government to become even more involved in how its agencies and colleges operate environmentally. “Cost is a very powerful motivator,” Johnson said.

Better workers, better citizens

For a college, environmentalism isn’t limited to replacing light bulbs and reducing waste. It must take root in the curriculum. Sinclair has a moral obligation to help its students learn to be better citizens – to make informed decisions as consumers, as voters and as businesspeople, Johnson said. If the projections about energy availability and price are true, then the next generation of students will be facing a much different world than their parents. “In the next 10 years, 125,000 unique individuals will come to Sinclair,” he said. “We have an opportunity to make a positive impact.”

For students in science, technology and engineering, emerging green industries – such as fuel-cell technologies – are ripe for jobs. Imagine, Johnson said, the possible jobs coming down the pike: workers trained to do energy audits, scientists to further alternative-energy sources and technicians to install charging stations for electric cars.

Students in the Energy Education Center laboratory are working with wind turbines, fuel-cell generators and the generators producing the biodiesel that’s fueling those converted campus lawn mowers and tractors.

“There will be jobs in our communities that will be related to energy conservation,” Johnson said. And according to those who study green industries, those jobs are likely to require more than a high school diploma, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree, making community colleges a strong training ground.

Sustaining change

When he was in high school in the 1970s, Johnson recalls the lines of cars jamming gas stations for coveted gasoline. The Carter administration passed new environmental initiatives; experts warned that if the country didn’t get a handle on its dependence on foreign oil, there would be even worse issues to face in the future.

“People have had an opportunity, on an intelligent and rational basis, to know that we should do something different; but most of our society has just pushed full steam ahead, into even deeper dependence,” Johnson said.

But what influences change? It’s when the problem – like rising gas prices or being stuck in an elevator because of an energy-supply problem – hits home. “We are fast on our feet when it becomes painful,” he said. “When gas is $4 a gallon, people really start to pay attention.”

By Tracy Staley

Tracy Staley is a Dayton-based writer whose work has appeared in the Dayton Business Journal, the Nashville Business Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader, among others.