Going Green on College Campuses

April 21, 2006 — -- Students at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., have spent the month of April "doing it in the dark."

Studying, that is, or hanging out with friends or anything else they do in their dormitories -- just with most of the lights dimmed and with electronics turned off and things like phone chargers unplugged, all in an effort to save energy.

It's part of an Earth Day competition to see which dorm can conserve the most. According to Stephanie Boyd, director of operations at Williams and head of its Climate Action Committee, in the previous competition last fall one building's consumption dropped 44 percent, and so far this year a few dorms have had weeks in which consumption fell 30 percent. Overall, dormitories have dropped 6 percent in energy consumption this month.

Keith McWhorter, a senior who is coordinating the competition, said the campus is concentrating on changing the little things. "In college we leave our computers on. We leave lights on in common areas," he said. "So I think a lot of it is turning off lights and computers, something we can do regularly."

The Williams College effort is part of a growing trend among colleges and universities to create green campuses. At least 110 colleges have either built or are building environmentally friendly and energy-efficient buildings, according to the United States Green Building Council.

Boyd said the contest is a great way to raise environmental awareness among students. "While it's always been part of the mission of the facilities group," she said, "on a broader campus perspective, we are much more enthused and active in this area."

Students at Williams had previously taken the initiative to become greener. They gathered more than 1,000 signatures last year from the 2,000-student campus to urge the administration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. The result is the Climate Action Committee that Boyd chairs, which inventories emissions and sets efficiency goals for the campus to meet.