Washington University, in conjunction with the Office of Sustainability, just released its sustainability plan, but the plan focuses solely on efficiency and economically expedient measures that will turn a profit for the University. It has no stipulations for student involvement, for sustainability education of the student body, or for educational and pilot projects that wouldn’t provide a quantifiable return on investment. The Student Sustainability Fund will fund projects by students for students—projects that will benefit the student body as a whole through educational initiatives or services that increase sustainability. Examples of such projects include implementation of a rain-barrel irrigation system, a green-roof pilot project, permanent signage to remind students to turn off lights, and speakers who address sustainability.

Green Action and other student groups manifest their commitment to sustainability differently than in projects funded by the Student Sustainability Fund. This is primarily because of the Student Sustainability Fund’s specific focus on directly benefiting the student body.

Additionally, there are inherent differences in the infrastructure, resources and timescale for project implementation between student groups like Green Action or Verde and the Student Sustainability Fund. These differences would result in the Student Sustainability Fund’s support of initiatives very different than those of existing student groups. The Student Sustainability Fund would be unique from most groups in its access to consistently available funds, ability to sustain multiple and diverse projects, wide cross-school membership and focus on campus improvement. The Student Sustainability Fund will provide students with the resources—notably the finances and relevant on- and off-campus connections—necessary to implement their projects successfully. Finally, the Student Sustainability Fund will serve as a hub for all undergraduate students, academic departments and administrative departments to collaborate on sustainability projects. This will enhance the quality and effectiveness of initiatives and will also reduce redundancy of projects across groups.

I would like to step briefly through the function of existing environmental groups to further clarify the differences between their purpose and that of the Student Sustainability Fund. The Green Events Commission is a Student Union organization with a specific focus on providing free consulting services to student groups who want to “green” their events by increasing recycling, using reusable materials, etc. The Student Sustainability Fund is unique in that it is available to individuals and to groups of students. In addition, its agenda is flexible and can support a greater diversity of sustainability projects and events. Though this doesn’t preclude funding for “greener” events, the Student Sustainability Fund is not limited to this function. In addition, the membership of the Student Sustainability Fund includes student representatives from SU, CS40 and the student body as well as faculty, an administrator and facilities personnel all with different skill sets and connections in all areas of the University.

The Student Sustainability Fund also meets a need unaddressed by funding from academic departments. The departments, which provide funding for student research with faculty members, support projects with a specific departmental focus and require semester-long or yearlong commitments for research and implementation. The Student Sustainability Fund would grant access to more varied projects and initiatives of any duration. The Student Sustainability Fund is different in that it would work with students and faculty across disciplines and across schools. This would enhance the innovation and effectiveness of projects.

The Student Sustainability Fund combines the strengths of these various other sustainability initiatives on campus. It adds the benefit of coordination of people from all over campus in the pursuit of two goals: improving campus sustainability and increasing student awareness by providing students with the financial and organizational tools to implement their project ideas. Students have the motivation and the ideas; all they need is the Student Sustainability Fund to provide the capital, the partners and the guidance to implement their sustainability projects or put on their sustainability events!

Ellie is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at ercooper@wustl.edu.

“I came down here and I have not been flying myself because the airport is hard to get out to and I’ve had classes,” Berk said. “I realized I was missing a true love of mine, and I wanted to be able to rediscover my love for aviation and hopefully share it with others.”

During the meeting, Berk taught the basics of flight, including Zulu time, the phonetic alphabet and cockpit instrumentation.

“In order to prepare for this, I really wanted to get a good range of topics to talk about [for the meeting],” Berk said. “I wanted to think about stuff that people would enjoy and take an interest in.”

People definitely took interest in Berk’s lesson.

“It was much more in depth than I thought it was going to be,” freshman Brian Fink said. “I thought it was going to be pretty basic, but it sounds like you could basically fly a plane. I saw [the event] on Facebook and thought it looked cool.”

Freshman Anna Roudebush had a similar reaction.

“I came into [the meeting] really intimidated,” Roudebush said. “After this, I think I’m going to be a lot more comfortable. [Flying would] be a really interesting and helpful skill to have. You want to tell people, ‘I fly planes.’”

Berk said he planned for the meeting to introduce just enough of the basics to get people excited for more.

“We focused more on covering a broad range of topics rather than getting super in depth in any one topic, and I think that was really exciting to people because they got to see a lot of what goes on in the aviation world,” Berk said. “Next week they’re going to get to see a little more, and in the coming weeks will get to see very specifically how these things work.”

These lessons require preplanning on Berk’s part, so that participants are able to learn in a logical order and to take full advantage of the sessions.

“I founded and planned this group myself without the help of others, which I take a lot of pride in,” Berk said. “I’ve been wanting to get involved in something aviation-related for a long time through a school, and there was not something that existed on the Wash. U. campus like an aviation group; so I took it in my hands, and I feel very accomplished that I was able to succeed.”

In the future Berk hopes to get the flight simulator up and running to allow people to participate in actually learning to fly.

“The Wash. U. Learn to Fly club is a club that is open to all students of all interest and skill levels,” Berk said. “[It’s meant for] kids who want to come to a new club, kids who want to come to a unique club and have a very relaxed, enjoyable experience. You can meet new people and learn a new hobby.”

The club currently meets at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays. More information is available on Facebook.

Here at Washington University, there are a few students who may fly 100 miles to grab lunch or take a walk around a new city for the afternoon—they are pilots.

As a child, freshman Joey Berk’s favorite part of family vacation was flying to the destination. In fact, he even became upset if his family drove instead.

“My parents noticed how interested I was in flying, so for Hanukkah one year, they bought me Microsoft Flight Simulator,” Berk said. “I set it up complete with a pretty cool joystick, pretty advanced control and throttle system and I began teaching myself to fly.”

Freshman Prateek Kumar took a more casual approach to learning how to fly.

“I like doing thrill-type activities,” Kumar said. “I’m not that serious. I just recreationally fly because I love the experience.”

Berk began his flying experience in April 2007, taking lessons at Palwaukee Airport, the third busiest airport in Illinois.

According to both Berk and Kumar, a typical lesson occurs over a three-hour period, but the actual flying occupies only 90 minutes of that time. The rest of the time is devoted to planning the route, making calculations and doing an in-depth check of the plane and all of its systems.

“I went up in the air my first lesson,” Berk said. “The way a plane works is unlike a car. There are controls on both the left and right sides, so my instructor and I were able to fly the plane together.”

Both train in Cessna 172s, which are single-engine piston aircrafts. Berk is in possession of a private pilot license, while Kumar has taken only the written portion of his license test and must still complete the flying portion.

“With a private pilot’s license, you can fly by yourself in the day or night with as many passengers as fill up the aircraft,” Berk said. “There are, though, a wide range of disability restrictions I have to adhere to. I cannot fly within one mile of the clouds in either direction, and I cannot fly if visibility is below a certain amount, which does put somewhat of a damper on when I can go flying.”

Even with the restrictions in place, dangerous incidents still happen.

“The first time I went to a big airport, my instructor let me do everything even though I really didn’t know how,” Kumar said. “You’re supposed to wait a bit after a big plane takes off because of the wake turbulence it creates, but I didn’t know that. I took off straight after, and just went straight up into the air then back down due to the lack of lift. The instructors let me make mistakes then take over and fix them.”

One of Berk’s scares came when one of the plane’s engines failed.

“I’m getting ready to land when suddenly the engine starts sputtering, and I don’t know why,” Berk said. “All of a sudden I look over and I see the oil pressure drop to zero and the RPMs go down. This had me extremely nervous, so doing what we’re trained to do, I go through the steps on why the engine could have failed. I immediately looked down and switched fuel tanks, and the engine started up again.”

Flying may be thrilling, but it requires a lot of effort to reap the benefits.

“Flying a plane isn’t like riding a bicycle where you remember it forever,” Kumar said. “With flying, you remember most of it, but there are all these random rules and theory, so if you choose to begin flying, stick with it until you’re done training.”

Berk agrees that although flying is a thrilling activity, it takes patience.

“It takes a lot of time to develop the skills necessary to be successful,” Berk said. “But once you master those skills it’s one of the best, most rewarding activities I could have ever imagined doing. And hey, you get places faster.”

Senior Snow Powers applied to the University through the art school but picked up marketing from the business school in the spring of her freshman year.
“[Wash. U.] was my first choice because of its flexibility,” Powers said. “I wanted to take other classes beyond the art school and have that well-rounded education.”

Junior Chris Tang Foon’s primary major was finance until he decided to take a computer science class from the School of Engineering.

“I took computer science in high school, and I really enjoyed it,” Tang Foon said. “Sophomore year I took computer science again and still liked it, so I decided I was interested in a second major.”

He said that the current status of the economy was also a factor in deciding to double major in the business and engineering schools. “[Double majoring] gives you a broader range of skills, and if you are interested in both areas, you shouldn’t have a problem one way or another in your career,” Tang Foon said.

While double majoring across two schools does broaden interests over various mediums, it also requires a lot of work and planning.

“I had to schedule and figure out all the classes I would have to take, and [classes] change,” Powers said, “I had to find out during which semester certain classes were offered. My schedule is really tight, and I don’t really have time to take any extra classes.” In fact, Powers averages 18 to 20 credit hours per semester.

Tang Foon’s schedule is similarly packed.“Freshman year I took a few classes that didn’t do much for me,” Tang Foon said. “I took bio and chem because I still wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do. [My schedule] is a bit tight right now.”

Although their schedules are extremely rigid, both Tang Foon and Powers think that double majoring will pay off in the long run.

“Going into the art school, you are a little scared that you’re not going to get the job that’s quite as prestigious as the people who are pre-med or in the business school,” Powers said. “If I go into an artistic field and feel that it’s not working for me, or I’m not getting the kind of work that I’m looking for, I do have that second major in marketing to back off of.”

In regards to advice for students thinking about pursuing a double major across schools, Tang Foon and Powers both stressed the importance of planning ahead.

Tang Foon commented that the University does not make students jump through hoops once they decide they would like to double major, but scheduling does become much easier when students declare their majors early.

“Plan ahead. It really helps if you have an internship over the summer that you get credits from because there isn’t a lot of overlap between schools,” Powers said. “Get credits wherever you can find them and take classes pass/fail. It’s easy to feel really overwhelmed with your credits, and it just becomes crazy.”

I really meant to do something with my summer. Working merely five hours a day as a day camp counselor leaves free time. With all this time, I meant to accomplish a whole “list of things to do” before college started. About two weeks after high school graduation, my friend who doesn’t normally watch TV and I were sitting in my basement when she insisted that I start watching “Lost.” She was six episodes in, and thoroughly addicted. I grudgingly began to watch (every season of “Lost” is available on http://beta.abc.go.com/), and as much as I didn’t want it to happen, I immediately became hooked on a show about people whose plane crashes on an untraceable, tropical island inhabited by smoke monsters, polar bears, magical healing powers, a button that keeps the world from ending and “The Others,” who may or may not intend to kill the survivors.

This intense addiction caused my eyes to burn from prolonged screen exposure and filled my brain with the intricate storylines, cliffhangers and most recently, time travel. It’s embarrassing to admit this, but it only took me a month and a half to complete all five seasons (roughly 4,430 minutes, or 74 hours, of TV).

As I continued to go about my life, I saw people who resembled the show’s characters everywhere, and both mine and my friend’s text inboxes were constantly full (of course we would never say any of this out loud). “OMG, there’s a guy who looks exactly like John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) in the car next to me,” “I think Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) is painting my house!” and “Ahhh, Kate (Evangeline Lilly) works at Starbucks!”

And this wasn’t just during the day. I was suddenly a wild sleeper, waking up with no blankets or sheets on my bed and with my pillow shoved up against the wall. What was I dreaming of, you ask? In my slumber, I was desperately attempting an island escape, alongside the characters who seemed to appear everywhere.

All of our friends thought we were insane, but addicted is addicted (in my defense, I did warn her this would most likely happen if I began to watch the show).

On my recent trip to school, I made my way through the airport thinking, “I wonder if my plane will land in St. Louis or crash on a mysterious island in the middle of nowhere?” As I thought this, my phone vibrated, alerting me I had a new text. Flipping open the phone, I read, “I hope you have a pleasant, very un-Lostish plane ride and land safely in your destination.”

Now what? I’m here (the plane ride was extremely ordinary), but am I ready for college? Remember that long “list of things to do” from June? It only has about two things crossed off of it.