SGA Update: Sustainability Stuff, Cashback, Nutritionist, Gallows, Zipcars, Infrastructure Committee

Sustainability

After conversing with the Sustainability Taskforce representative, it was apparent that the Taskforce had done extensive research and outside consulting to basically quantify all the issues concerning the school infrastructure and superstructure. These are fully included in two documents: Mitigation Strategies by Priority and GES_Trinity_College_Sustainability_Report. Strictly speaking, these documents quantify many aspects of sustainability which have been mentioned before by students. Any feedback on these would be great, especially as to which ones we should focus on and perhaps pressure the administration to adopt. Also, these documents were presented to the President himself, who said he would choose some of these to start now and to accomplish in long term. However, given the current economic crisis, he might find it difficult to commit to some of these expensive short-term but important long-term plans. That is probably where the students will come in.

Cashback

An idea which we had wanted to pursue was cashback, wherein people could use their debit cars to purchase items and then get cash back as an option after swiping. In the words of Chartwells itself, there are two reasons why this is not feasible: 1.The blackboard cash register system we have on campus  which is owned by the college is not able to facilitate this function.  2.  The bank we use will not allow us to do this, It is agaisnt thier policy.  However, I do not fully understand these reasons, and I will do more research on understanding these reasons and potentially finding mitigators for these reasons.

Gallows

As far as Gallows was concerned, we had decided the best course of action would be to install locknetics, which would make it secure and accessible to all students. It turns out that it would cost $4000 to do this, though Sally Katz would have no issue doing this once the funds were provided. It seems both that Jonathan Miller ( who was asked about this by Fabio) and Dean Alford (who we talked to via email) were not averse to this idea, but the main concern is the funding which we have not been able to secure because we were not sure of initial support for this project. We are currently considering how to approach this project, and any feedback would also be welcome.

Nutritionist

As far as the nutritionist is concerned, the search for one has begun, as Mr. Chenette has contacted both St. Joseph’s College and other RD. We will most likely have a nutritionist here, on a 20-hr basis, starting in the Spring semester.

Zipcars

Zipcars is being successful and will continue to be fully utilized here at college. The only loss that Zipcars currently experience is during the summer and winter, but that is to be expected as much fewer people are here. I wonder is there might be some way to mitigate the cost to the school during those months?

Infrastructure

Lastly, is there any issue which the infrastructure committee can address in the future? Please let us know.