Chancellors at UAA and UAF throw down green gauntlet in new challenge

The Governor's Cup won't be the only trophy that UAA and UAF will be battling to win this year. UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers and UAA Chancellor Fran Ulmer agreed to compete in the first UAA/UAF Sustainability Cup Challenge, an environmentally-friendly version of the annual intrastate hockey rivalry.

What spurred the green competition between the two universities were the latest Sustainability Report Card results, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Each year the Sustainable Endowments Institute assesses 300 public and private colleges and universities with the largest endowments and publishes the results on www.greenreportcard.org/. The 2010 grade for UAA was a B- and UAF received a grade of a C-.

While exact details are still being worked out, both schools will engage their art students in the creation of a trophy made from recycled materials. The school with the highest report card grade will house the trophy of the losing school during the 2010-11 academic year. The next set of scores will be released in October 2010.

The measures that each school will take to raise their Sustainability Report Card grade will be determined individually, and each university is currently plotting their secret green strategy for the year. What isn't secret are the terms for the losing team:

• The chancellor of the losing school will deliver the trophy (Sustainability Cup) to the chancellor of the winning school.
• The chancellor of the losing school will prepare a "sustainable" meal for the chancellor of the winning school using locally grown products.

This exciting new competition between UAA and UAF will not only get the campus communities pumped up for a showdown, but will help raise the awareness of sustainability on both campuses and reduce our environmental footprint in Alaska.

For additional information on the challenge, please call Scott McCrae at UAF (907) 474-7905, or Kristin DeSmith at UAA (907) 786-1263.