John Rasmussen – News

�ֲ��ý strikes Gold with new sustainability rating

Emily McConville — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 14:01:36 +0000

For decades, �ֲ��ý has worked towards a host of sustainability goals including, as part of its 2010 Climate Action Plan, carbon neutrality.

But how far has the college come?

In the past year, the �ֲ��ý College EcoReps, students who promote environmental responsibility on campus, created a graph that illuminates one aspect of �ֲ��ý’ sustainability work: Net total carbon emissions on campus have dropped from 11,651 metric tons in 2001 to 3,645 in 2016 — about a 70 percent reduction.

“Having the data in front of you to show how we’ve been progressing is really powerful,” said Sustainability Manager Tom Twist.

For �ֲ��ý, the rating shows how students, faculty, and staff — with strong support from college leadership — collaborate to incorporate sustainability into the fabric of college life.

Reducing its carbon footprint is one of many efforts, big and small, that �ֲ��ý is making to become more sustainable.

More validation of the college’s progress came over the summer when from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Through AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) — a widely recognized framework for publicly assessing sustainability — schools earn points by fulfilling criteria that range from the environmental friendliness of operations and facilities to the incorporation of sustainability into academics and student life.

Among NESCAC colleges that participate in the STARS program, only �ֲ��ý, Colby, and Middlebury have earned Gold ratings. Bowdoin, Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams have Silver. (Only two institutions, Colorado College and Stanford, have earned the highest rating, Platinum.)

For �ֲ��ý, the STARS rating shows how students, faculty, and staff — with strong support from college leadership — collaborate to incorporate sustainability into the fabric of college life.

“Sustainability is a natural priority of our campus culture and plays an important role here at �ֲ��ý,” President Clayton Spencer wrote in a letter to AASHE. “We see civic engagement and environmental stewardship as integral and intertwined components for creating and sustaining a just world.”

This graph, using information gathered and organized by student EcoReps, shows �ֲ��ý’ net total carbon emissions since 2001 — figures that represent on-campus emissions such as those created by electricity, heating, and campus vehicles.

Emissions reduction is a point of strength on �ֲ��ý’ scorecard. The purchase of renewable energy certificates in 2005 contributed to a drop in campus emissions— but emissions were slashed further this year under Energy Manager John Rasmussen, when �ֲ��ý switched its primary heating fuel from natural gas to Renewable Fuel Oil, a wood-based fuel that does not release fossil carbon into the atmosphere.

Efficiency has also improved. All new buildings and renovations are constructed to LEED Silver standards and building insulation has been improved.

Campus heating is now mostly centralized under a system that provides better data on energy usage and allows staff to remotely control the heat (and therefore emissions). And in Commons, optical and temperature sensors control 11 of the kitchen’s 14 exhaust hoods.

The tank that holds Renewable Fuel Oil, a sustainable fuel which curtailed much of the �ֲ��ý’ fossil fuel use, is installed in January. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ��ý College)

Dining Services has, along with Facility Services, been a driver and partner in �ֲ��ý’ sustainability efforts — it composts or recycles 80 percent of its waste, or, through initiatives such as eliminating disposable cups in Commons, avoids creating waste altogether.

The EcoReps, about 25 students who work under Twist, represent yet another strength in the college’s AASHE assessment: community engagement. According to the AASHE assessment, 90 percent of �ֲ��ý students have been affected by the EcoReps’ programs. ��

Working in small groups, they’re responsible for everything from EcoService Day, to the Trashion Show, to communicating to the wider campus community the work that dining and custodial services have done, to collecting data from myriad sources for the graph representing �ֲ��ý’ emissions over time.

“They’re doing not just college-level work, but professional work,” Twist said.

In another project to help engage the community, they created a “,” noting measures the college has taken to increase efficiency in campus buildings.

“You can click through, building by building, what updates have been made,” said Hannah Slattery ’18 of Gilford, N.H., who worked on the project. Big or small, the changes are “important to bringing down the overall carbon footprint of those individual buildings.”

Some of those students serve on the Committee on Environmental Responsibility (CER), a group of faculty, staff, and students who work to raise awareness; research, assess, and report on environmental practices; and recommend policies.

Sustainability manager Tom Twist and EcoReps Isa Moise ’19, Beanie O’Shea ’18, Hannah Slattery ’18, and George Fiske ’19 show off the college’s color-coded waste receptacles in March, part of a project to encourage recycling on campus. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ��ý College)

The CER’s work over the past decade primed �ֲ��ý for all the emissions-reducing, solar-installing, EcoRepping strides it’s made in the past few years, said CER chair and Professor of Geology Beverly Johnson.

“We’re successors of a long line of people who have been pushing for better sustainability practices on campus,” Johnson said, noting early work by former �ֲ��ý environmental coordinator Julie Rosenbach and by John Smedley, a professor of physics who led an initial environmental task force.

Part of CER’s work involves assessing how sustainability is incorporated into academics. In 2015–16, 35 courses in departments such as environmental science, physics, and politics were sustainability-focused, according to the college’s AASHE submission. Another 33 were related to sustainability.

“I was surprised by the number of courses from many departments that we could include as sustainability-focused or -related,” said Camille Parrish, a lecturer and learning associate in environmental studies who assessed �ֲ��ý’ course offerings. “Part of that is because we at �ֲ��ý and in the Environmental Studies Program are very interdisciplinary.”

Johnson said CER is looking into developing a sustainability-related General Education Concentration, a cluster of courses that help students develop expertise outside their major.

“The big thing I’m going to be working on with my subcommittee is bringing sustainability into the curriculum more intentionally,” she said.

Twist said he hopes to build on the strides recognized by AASHE by doing more with solar energy in the coming years, as well as engaging more students who are not specifically interested in environmental efforts.

In October 2016, George Fiske ’19, Brent Feldman ’17, and Katharine Gaillard ’19 install solar panels on the roof of the �ֲ��ý Coastal Center, also known as Shortridge, in Phippsburg. (Tom Twist/�ֲ��ý College)

Doing so, like every other sustainability effort, takes collaboration from a myriad of groups on campus.

“We’re just running with it,” Twist said. “I feel like a window has opened, and it allows us to do a lot of great sustainability work in a really short amount of time.”

From high-tech to old school, �ֲ��ý’ energy projects offer quick paybacks

Jay Burns — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:14:53 +0000

In a �ֲ��ý mechanical room, a worker installs a modular and removable insulating product called Cut’nWrap on a hot-pipe component, one of a series of strategic energy-saving projects over the last three years. (Photo courtesy of Auburn Manufacturing Co.)

As they turn on ovens and exhaust hoods in Commons at 4 o’clock each morning, the college’s bakers and chefs are among the first people to throw switches each day at �ֲ��ý.

Within a few hours, Dining Services is humming with upwards of 14 different exhaust hoods removing heat, smoke, and fumes (ooh, bacon!).

All those fans cost money to run; money’s also spent to pull millions of cubic feet of “makeup air” back into the building to complete the ventilation cycle.

The �ֲ��ý hoods used to run all day long and well into the night — but no more. New optical and temperature sensors on 11 of the 14 exhaust hoods know to turn the hoods on when things are cooking and off when the stations are idle.

The Intelli-Hood sensors are part of an opportunistic and strategic $1.5 million investment in energy-efficiency projects over the last three years. Coupled with comprehensive and careful management of the college’s energy-use systems over the last several years, �ֲ��ý has lowered its utility costs from a high of $4.5 million in fiscal 2009 to a projected $3.5 million in fiscal 2017, an impressive 22 percent decrease.

When a campus comprises 170 or so buildings stretched across some 130 acres, the work to keep down energy costs and reduce emissions is constant. But there are spikes in the year-to-year activity.

The current round of projects moved to the front burner in 2014 after �ֲ��ý energy manager John Rasmussen presented a five-year plan of various cost-saving projects to the Board of Trustees. The report showed that “some of the individual measures had two- or three-year payback periods,” Rasmussen says.

Energy manager John Rasmussen is overseeing a strategic investment of $1.5 million in energy-saving projects. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

The board was more than intrigued, recalls Geoff Swift, who arrived in 2014 as the college’s vice president for finance and administration and treasurer. “It was clear that they had a strong appetite” for going after the quick-turnaround projects.

“They didn’t want to pass on the low-hanging fruit,” Swift says.

Soon, it was go time for Rasmussen, who says the college’s leadership “deserves a lot of credit” for green-lighting the quick-return investments. “There’s a great attitude about what can be done and what is possible.”

Geoffrey Swift, �ֲ��ý vice president for finance and administration and treasurer. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ��ý College)

Besides cost savings, the cherry-picked projects have reduced the college’s carbon emissions by 12 percent, to 12,061 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2015.

While Rasmussen deals with the same challenges as his predecessors — “we have a very old campus that we overheat, over ventilate, over cool, and over light” — he has state-of-the-art tools that help bring that low-hanging fruit even closer to the ground.

The exhaust sensors in Commons certainly fall into that category. According to various case studies, the Intelli-Hood units cut the cost of running exhaust fans by up to 75 percent and reduce the need for makeup air by up to 40 percent. At �ֲ��ý, this single improvement is expected to save $60,000 annually.

“You need fresh air, but only the amount you need.”

Homeowners know about heating and cooling, but less about ventilation. For a college, efficiently ventilating large buildings is a big and expensive part of the three-pronged HVAC equation of heat, ventilation, and air-conditioning.

“Our buildings used to be ventilated whenever they were scheduld to be open, and if that meant from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., so be it,” Rasmussen says. “The goal now is to only ventilate spaces as much as we need to. You need fresh air, but only the amount you need.”

New technology makes possible what is called “demand-controlled ventilation,” or DCV, which brings outside air into a building only needed, exemplified by the exhaust hoods in Commons.

Executive chef Owen Keene grills chicken under an Intelli-Hood in the kitchen at Commons. One sensor is attached to the hood and looks like a pencil sharpener. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Another way that DCV works is through CO2 sensors that estimate how many people are in a building. More people means more CO2 being produced, which means more ventilation is needed. CO2-based sensors are buildings like Merrill, Carnegie, Ladd, Underhill, Dana, Gray Athletic, and Olin.

Those buildings also have start-stop controls that deliver both “accuracy and intelligence,” Rasmussen says, because they know when to kick on the heat in order to get the building comfortable in time for the first 8 o’clock class, for example.

Not all the recent projects are high-tech. �ֲ��ý has replaced several hundred windows in dozens of buildings across the campus. While the financial payback period for new windows is relatively long, up to eight years, the goodwill payback is quick. “They make the occupants happier.” (True that: we’ve gotten new windows in our �ֲ��ý Communications offices on Nichols Street; no more drafts and rattles on windy winter days).

Another recent project tackled the challenge of hard-to-insulate heating components, like valves, fittings, and flanges, in various mechanical rooms on campus.

For this project, Rasmussen called on a local company, Auburn Manufacturing, to install its modular and removable insulating product, Ever Green Cut’nWrap, on 500 hot-pipe components in 18 mechanical rooms on campus.

The project will reduce the college’s emissions by 202 MTCE and save $34,589 annually. “I call that a win-win situation,” Rasmussen says. Including materials and labor, the project will break even in just 15.2 months.

Some �ֲ��ý buildings still await the Rasmussen treatment. In those cases, he uses the old-school methods. “I’ll look for open windows when I walk around campus,” and occasionally stop in when he sees one.

“I’ll say that I know the room can get very warm, but please, for gosh sakes, remember to shut the windows when you leave.”

Additional reporting by Stevie Jones / Gemini Connections.

Campus Construction Update, Aug. 20, 2010: 10 Frye St.

Doug Hubley — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:48:37 +0000

This fall, 23 �ֲ��ý students will find themselves studying, socializing and sleeping inside a lesson in local architectural history.

Acquired by �ֲ��ý in summer 2009, the large brick house at 10 Frye St. is the latest addition to the college’s stock of student residences. But it’s one of the older buildings in the fleet, dating to 1873.

If you’re trudging up Oak Street toward Frye, No. 10 is the house that you see. Brick with yellow trim, it occupies a lot alongside a carriage house, complete with cupola, that contains one of the residence’s seven apartments. The establishment once belonged to one Albert B. Nealey, a civic leader and prominent grocer with a store on Main Street.

The Nealey home is “one of Lewiston’s most delightful examples of eclectic Victorian architecture,” according to an on the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce website. It’s a sampler of popular 19th-century styles: the peaked gables and pointy windows of Gothic Revival, the mansard roof and wrought-iron roof cresting of the Second Empire school, and busy wooden brackets of the Italianate style. The later addition of a front porch even threw a touch of Queen Anne into the mix.

Happily, a renovation this summer left intact — or restored — many of the charming details that originally graced the house.

John Rasmussen, a project manager for Facility Services, led tours of the residence in August that gave members of the college community (including Campus Construction Update) a chance to ogle those details.

About a dozen people gathered for the Aug. 13 tour, held on a sunny morning as deliverymen lugged new refrigerators and microwaves into the house. (Each suite has a kitchenette.)

Rasmussen started the tour with a bit of history and an overview of the renovation: in addition to the creation of the seven suites, the work included complete replacement of the roofing, windows, electrical system and plumbing; the installation of telecom lines and a fire alarm system; new siding on the carriage house; and all new paint.

Not to mention the restoration of roofing features such as new crown molding, iron crests and, soon, a tin eagle weathervane that is still in the shop.

The interior of the house, too, boasts a few of those loving details that, we all lament, nobody puts into new houses anymore. The entryway has a striking floor tile pattern and door glass that’s etched in graceful floral designs. Each of the two first-floor living rooms has a (no longer functional) fireplace, and they are beauts — one is carved white marble, while the brick of the other is topped with a mirror whose carved, inlaid wooden frame reaches nearly to the ceiling. And it’s a high ceiling.

Citing research done by Professor Emeritus of Political Science Doug Hodgkin, Rasmussen noted that this former one-family house was first divided into flats during the 1960s. Living space totals about 6,800 square feet, making for generously proportioned living quarters for the new occupants. The �ֲ��ý suites each accommodate three or four in various combinations of one-, two- and three-person bedrooms.

The renovation once again demonstrates the college’s commitment to green building practices and energy conservation. The hot water and heating system uses what’s called a condensing boiler, which extracts more heat from fuel combustion than a conventional boiler.

The new windows, all 68 of them, are high-efficiency thermal units, even the pointy Gothic Revival ones. Local brick was used for brick repairs, Rasmussen said, and general contractor Pizzagalli Construction Co. of Portland recycled the construction debris.

And speaking of green, 10 Frye is associated with another sustainability initiative. Students won’t be the only occupants of the carriage house, Rasmussen noted. While four will live in a brand-new suite upstairs, the ground floor will house the college’s bike-sharing program, including a workshop for maintaining and repairing the program’s 21 green-and-yellow bicycles.

Read the latest news in the renovations of and .

John Rasmussen – News

�ֲ���ý strikes Gold with new sustainability rating

From high-tech to old school, �ֲ���ý’ energy projects offer quick paybacks

Campus Construction Update, Aug. 20, 2010: 10 Frye St.

�ֲ��ý strikes Gold with new sustainability rating

From high-tech to old school, �ֲ��ý’ energy projects offer quick paybacks