A4|October 11, 2018
News Advance-Titan
LYDIA SANCHEZ/ADVANCE-TITAN
LEFT: Sage Hall hosted visitors for a national solar tour, run by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association. RIGHT: Sage hall displays solar lights.
Solar tour displays UWO’s commitment to sustainability by Joseph Schulz schulj78@uwosh.edu UW Oshkosh invited visitors to tour Sage Hall on Saturday when visitors could tour the solar panels and talk to professors about renewable energy technologies. The event ran from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.; tours were conducted by UWO’s sustainability director Brian Kermath and Sustainability Institute for Regional Transformations Director Kevin Crawford. The solar tour was a national event, and the Wisconsin arm was run by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association, featuring 150,000 participants and 5,000 solar energy sites statewide. Kermath said the purpose of the tour was to generate interest
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in solar energy. “Obviously if you’re interested in a solar tour, you might be interested in solar energy; maybe you want to put solar panels on your house or something like that,” Kermath said. “It’s also to make people that aren’t thinking about it to maybe start thinking about it.” Crawford said sustainability is important because it forces us to look at how we are using resources. “The main idea behind sustainability is thinking about how we use resources and using them in ways that allow us to be successful but also allow future generations to be successful,” Crawford said. Kermath said the current sustainability movement has deep roots in the environmental movement of the 1960s and
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to court to stop the release of those records, but on Sept. 22, 2017, a Winnebago County judge ordered the re-
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dacted records be released to Nemec. Hagen then appealed the decision, and on June 21, 2018, the Court of Appeals upheld the Winnebago County Circuit Court decision. On Aug. 15, 2018, Nemec received the records from a UWO record custodian who mistakenly provided the
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students. In 2013, Gov. Scott Walker enacted a tuition freeze that prevents state colleges from raising the price of their tuition. If re-elected in November, Walker has already said he would extend the tuition freeze at University of Wisconsin campuses for four more years. That would mean the state universities would be facing 10 years of tuition freezes. This, as well as close to $500 million in cuts to the UW System budget, has crippled UW Oshkosh and other UW schools financially in recent years. McDermott said the college has worked to do the best it could to cut the budget without harming students’ experiences at UWO. “We’ve tried to be as lean and as efficient as possible while still getting students through the curriculum and allowing them to have a successful academic career.” History department chair and Interim Director of Student Research and Creative Activity Stephen Kercher said the added workload for professors in COLS will hurt the students more than the teachers.
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most of the plumbing fixtures so all the toilets on campus use less water than they used to. Those are things that aren’t readily visible like the solar panels are.” Crawford said UWO does more than utilize renewable energy and sustainable technologies. “We’ve also been consistently reporting data to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability, which is a national ranking system that allows us to see what we’re doing, and it allows other people to see what we’re doing,” Crawford said. “We have also added sustainability into our curriculum.” Environmental studies Program Director Jim Feldman said he hopes that more businesses will begin switching to renewable energies, but his more pessimistic side believes that they
documents without redactions. After learning of her error, the record custodian instructed Nemec to destroy any and all copies of the unredacted records that were sent to him. But Nemec refused to destroy the documents and has continued to push for the right to publish the contents of
“Faculty are going to have even less time than they normally have to work with students on research,” Kercher said. “The only way that student research succeeds at a University like ours is if faculty are able to have the time they need to do research on their own and with students.” Kercher said the change in policy could also be very harmful to the research that is done within COLS. While professors might be frustrated by the policy, students are ultimately the ones that are damaged by it, he said. “We’ll have to teach more,” Kercher said. “We’ll survive. We’ll research less. Students are the ones who are going to be hurt.” Kercher said he believes a change in the policy that determines the teaching load at UW Oshkosh is tricky and potentially harmful. “It’s like messing with the college DNA,” Kercher said. “Research is very much a part of what professors at the college do. We have a very strong program of student research and we’ve been making gains. We’ve been improving and catching up to some degree [with] some of our sister institutions in the UW system that I’m afraid that changing the teaching load of faculty in our college will deal a very big blow.” Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor
as a positive thing,” Potts said. “Really, the intent at the truest form is to help students with scholarship dollars in the future. asked for; it was a gift on behalf We on the University side feel of him and his love of the insti- thankful that this is a partnership that is going tution and to help our his want Really, the intent at the students in to further truest form is to help the future.” this initiaRepresentive,” Kle- students with scholarship tatives from man said. dollars in the future. the UWO “This was — Mandy Potts Foundation completely Director of Communications did not realumni drivspond to an en.” attempt for UWO Director of Communications Mandy Potts said she is a comment. Students can apply for scholexcited about the new foundaarships through the TAF on the tion. “We want this to be viewed Academic Works website.
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’70s. “We see things like global climate change and biodiversity loss around the world as being problems that the solutions in the ’70s aren’t addressing; the sustainability movement grew up to address those big global issues as well as local issues,” Kermath said. “Unfortunately, we seem to be peeling back regulations that are necessary to clean up some of the issues of the past.” Kermath said UWO’s commitment to sustainability goes beyond the solar panels outside and on top of Sage Hall. “We’ve retrofitted a lot of the older buildings with more efficient air handlers and heating and cooling systems and lighting,” Kermath said. “We’ve replaced inefficient energy technologies; we’ve changed out
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won’t until forced. “When solar and other kinds of renewables are less available, people will continue using carbon,” Feldman said. “Our economy is really set up for carbon energy.” Feldman said he believes one of the reasons more people haven’t switched is a perception of sacrifice associated with switching to renewable energy. “There’s economic opportunity in retrofitting buildings for solar and investing in other forms of renewable energy,” Feldman said. “If people looked at renewables as an opportunity rather than a sacrifice, more people would switch.” Crawford said students can help make society more sustainable by changing their consumer habits. “When a company releases
the documents. Hagen has continued to fight Nemec over the release and publication of documents for one year and seven months. Nemec has been advised by his lawyer not to make any comment regarding the case. However, in the court documents, his attorney, Christa West-
a new cell phone and everyone is running out to buy it even though their existing cell phone is just fine, things like that, do you really need to replace that thing now?” Crawford said. “I would like to see more repairable things and more options for repairing things.” Kermath said students can help society become more sustainable through collective action. “Vote for people that will make public policy that will make a difference,” Kermath said. “We need more public transportation, and we aren’t going to get that by being an individual; we have to do that collectively. We have to agree to do big things collectively. I think that’s the biggest thing we can do.”
erberg of Pines Bach LLP, wrote, “We believe reopening the case is premature, and the Court’s involvement will ultimately be unnecessary.” Hagen did not respond to several attempts for a comment from the Advance-Titan.
John Koker said this is just the COLS way of doing its part to help the college regulate its budget. “Decreases in enrollment and cuts in state subsidies over the last five years have lowered our revenue,” Koker said. “We need to bring spending in line with revenue. The College of Letters and Science is working to meet their reduction with as little impact on students and course offerings as possible.” In a statement released to COLS faculty and instructional staff, McDermott said this should be a temporary change and after the budget has been regulated, the staff could go back to having lighter teaching loads. “I fully understand the hardship that this change may present to faculty and instructional academic staff,” McDermott said. “We have exhausted every other route of cost cutting for the college short of laying off faculty or closing programs. Please remember that this is a temporary adjustment to teaching loads and the COLS dean’s office is committed to a return to the original spirit of the curriculum modification policy once University ‘right sizing’ has been accomplished.” UWO Chancellor Andrew Leavitt will be holding budget open forums next week.
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the female student to go unconscious. Initially, the three men approached the male student and asked for his Snapchat, so the student handed one of the men his phone. As the student put the phone back into his pocket, one of the perpetrators struck him in the face, and the other two started assaulting him, hitting him in the head. The female student was taken to the hospital shortly after and was diagnosed with a concussion and a brain bleed. The student was released from care
at Aurora Bay Care on Sept. 9. According to Wisconsin Circuit Court records, Domonick D. Strope, 20, has been charged with three counts of substantial battery, 20 counts of bail jumping as a repeater and theft off a person. As a condition, he must adhere to absolute sobriety and cannot leave the State of Wisconsin. Strope has nine additional open cases against him, including four felonies, according to online court filings. The court records also show Nasir J. Jackson, 18, has been charged with three counts of substantial battery, theft from a person and party to a crime.
by Nikki Brahm