Engineering Senator Vinod Ravikumar noticed this excess use of energy on campus.

“My friends and I had noticed that many of these electronics are left on 24 hours, seven days a week, despite the fact that most of them are unused after classes and throughout the night,” Ravikumar said.

To rectify this oversight, Ravikumar proposed a resolution that encourages the use of sustainable technologies on campus.

Student Union Senate passed the resolution the week before spring break, vowing to encourage the reduction of unnecessary emissions.

One part of the resolution ensures that all desktop computers go into “sleep mode” when they are logged off or when they are unused for long periods of time.

It will reduce the power usage of computers by 1 to 2 percent. It also affects a large number of computers; in just nine of the buildings with computer labs on campus, Ravikumar counted more than 1,000 computers.

The resolution also promises support for the exploration of other ways to be sustainable, without detailing any other specific measures.

“As representatives of a caring, environmentally conscious student body, it is our responsibility to show that we support an initiative to make our campus more green,” Ravikumar said.

Because Ravikumar wanted it to pass through Senate as quickly as possible, he did not see a reason to spell out more specific measures in the resolution.

“We’re losing power every day and spending money on this every day,” Ravikumar said. “We’re saving those thousands of watts on a day-to-day basis by passing it now instead of later.”

Although SU has an executive adviser of sustainability, Will Fischer, Ravikumar recognized the need for a resolution to make administrative changes.

“This is a project that the administration needs to take up,” Ravikumar said. “It’s not something that Will Fischer can organize—he doesn’t have control over shutting down computers. It has to be approached by the administration. That’s why I approached STAC.”

Ravikumar has been working with the Student Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) to write to the IT heads of each school. These IT leaders are holding a meeting in early April when they will discuss the resolution and Ravikumar’s letters.

Focusing the administration on the issue of technological sustainability is one of the primary aims of the resolution. The resolution represents the 6,000-member student body, and Ravikumar hopes the resolution brings the impact of that magnitude with it. He also hopes it encourages the administration to think of simple solutions to saving energy.

“It will show administration that there are ways to save energy with these types of simple solutions, and urges them to look into other technologies to see if there are similar ways to cut costs and energy use,” Ravikumar said.

The senator also hopes that the resolution will encourage students to be more environmentally conscious.

“It sets a precedent for other students to follow and other administrators to follow,” Ravikumar said. “I hope that students will start to take a look around at other ways to save power and be sustainable.”

In February, Chancellor Mark Wrighton sent a campus-wide e-mail regarding financial cutbacks that would take place in the coming year. After University-wide cuts in spending, libraries on campus have experienced reductions in staff and a streamlining of services.

“The library reduced their budget by a targeted amount with a combination of compensation and other expense reductions,” said Barbara Feiner, the vice chancellor for finance. “Departments approached their budget challenges by targeting efficiencies that would have the least possible effect on service levels.”

Because of the hard financial times that have fallen across the nation, 25 part-time and full-time jobs across the University were cut. Among those were the jobs of librarians. According to the chancellor’s message, 25 unfilled positions were cut as well. Reductions in staffing combined with cuts in administrative spending are expected to trim annual spending by $10 million.

Six library staff positions were lost because of budget cuts; University officials would not discuss which specific library departments were affected. They did admit that reductions were made at Olin Library and departmental libraries. University departmental libraries serve academic interests, including art and architecture, business, chemistry, and earth and planetary sciences.

“Making decisions about staff reductions is always difficult,” said Shirley Baker, vice chancellor for scholarly resources and dean of University Libraries. “However, how libraries deliver service is always changing, based on scholarly interests, user needs and technological change. So, we have a lot of practice in examining every position and redeploying staff as needs change.”

According to Baker, in addition to the six eliminated positions, several library staff members have elected to work shorter weeks or years, and the workload has been distributed among remaining staff. At times, students and faculty may experience slower service.

“Universities and libraries across the country are experiencing the same economic pressures we are here at Wash. U. It is difficult for all of us,” Baker said. “The libraries took the same budget reductions as other units of the University.”

In addition to staff losses, University Libraries will also alter some services to lessen spending. For example, fewer bound print journals will be available as more are offered online. Technology services supported by the Danforth endowment have also been trimmed because of a reduction in those funds.

“Our purchasing power for scholarly materials is reduced, and we will be working with faculty across the University to make adjustments in what we acquire,” Baker said.

To assist library staff in navigating the budget cuts, Edward Macias, provost and the executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, appointed a faculty committee to work with Baker and her staff. The committee will begin work in early April.

(Matt Lanter | Student Life)

In an effort to improve safety off campus and alleviate students’ fears about walking home at night, Washington University instituted a one-way shuttle service for students and staff who want a safe ride home.

“Over the years we’ve had occasional requests from students for a late-night shuttle home, but we’ve never done it,” Associate Vice Chancellor for Operations Steve Hoffner said. “This year we decided it was time to reconsider the idea and look at all our off-campus services.”

The service, Campus2Home, made its first run on Monday. According to Chief of Police Don Strom, 30 students took advantage of the service on the first night. Huntleigh Shuttleport, which also runs the campus circulation, provides

Campus2Home. Several 10-passenger vans leave Mallinckrodt every 30 minutes from 7 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., seven nights a week. The buses also stop in front of Brookings steps and are available to students, faculty and staff.

People who use the vans give the driver the address to their home, where the driver drops them off and does not leave until the passenger is safely inside. There are no plans to institute a shuttle service from home to campus. If operated year-round, seven nights a week, the service would cost $230,000, but Hoffner does not anticipate that the program will run during the summer months.

“We are doing long-range planning for off-campus areas that we own, and now looked like a time when we should look at not only this but the quality of off-campus housing, and come up with a more comprehensive approach as to what we are doing,” Hoffner said.

Campus2Home is just one program that the University is providing for off-campus housing.

According to Hoffner, the off-campus safety forum on Jan. 27 led to some of the current ideas planned for the long-term development of the off-campus community. The University is already in the process making improvements to the Quadrangle apartments, which include fixing doors, increasing lighting, replacing windows and putting in a more-resilient window screen. Officials are also working on improving the street lighting in areas around the apartments and adding more blue light phones.

Campus2Home is currently an experiment, according to Hoffner, but it could develop if it proves to be successful.

“We will watch it carefully and see how many students use it,” Hoffner said. “We will listen to feedback from students who use the service, and we will re-evaluate if we want to continue it at the end of the semester.”

Strom said that while the University had been planning the implementation of these off-campus improvements before the December assault of a graduate student, the incident added motivation for the University to improve the safety of off-campus apartments and houses.

“Whenever you have an incident such as the one in December, there is a natural reflection process that you engage in and should engage in to review the processes and the programs that are in place and decide whether they continue to best serve the community,” Strom said. “We did some internal review and engaged in outreach meetings with students and staff so that there are ideas on the table for consideration.”

“After the internal reviews were completed, the University decided that this was the best time to implement [the shuttle service],” Strom said.

According to Strom, WUPD has been taking extra precautions to promote off-campus security. A brochure is available with information and advice about living off campus, and WUPD has posted a video to its Web site.

“We continue to try to educate students about campus crime in their neighborhoods and how they can protect themselves,” Strom said. “People need to follow guidelines for off-campus safety to happen.”

Strom believes that the program has potential to increase in ridership throughout the semester.

“The momentum has never been that strong for a shuttle service, but at this moment, the momentum is there for the service,” Strom said.

The completion of Eliot B, the parent building of the current Thomas Eliot House, will provide an opportunity for freshmen living in Eliot House to continue to live in modern housing in their residential college. Currently, freshmen in Eliot House are given preference in the traditional residence halls of the HIGE Residential College—Hitzeman, Hurd and Myers halls—and Shepley House, a modern dorm.

Rori Fiebert is a sophomore who lived in Eliot House last year and currently lives in Hurd Hall. She said that while she doesn’t dislike the traditional housing, she definitely would have preferred modern housing.

“I would definitely have considered Eliot B,” she said. “Personally, I would have wanted to live there, but our suite ended up having six people, so we ended up in Hurd.”

With the completion of Eliot B and the rest of the South 40 House, the new housing will add 146 and 94 beds, respectively, for a total of 240 beds. To compensate for this increase in beds, there are currently no plans to house students in Rutledge or Myers residence halls next year, which combine for a total of 180 beds, according Justin Carroll, assistant vice chancellor for students and dean of students. Should Myers and Rutledge halls be kept open next year, the University would be in violation of the cap on the number of beds allowed on the South 40. The cap was established by the city of Clayton.

Additionally, Clayton requires one parking space for every three beds on the South 40. With the addition of 60 beds, the South 40 will house a little fewer than 3,000 beds total. Currently, Lien Garage contains 326 parking spots, while Wohl Garage contains 429 parking spots for a total of 755 parking spots. In addition, the Alumni House parking lot and the church parking lot on Wydown bring the total number of parking spots to 925, so the University will surpass the minimum parking requirement set out by the city.

The biggest changes next year on the South 40 will be the completion of the new dining area and the opening of a gathering place that will be called College Hall.

“Students have been very patient this year with our temporary serving area, and I think they are really going to appreciate the completion of this important project,” Carroll said.

The completed dining area will feature expanded service, a new market and increased dining areas.

Fiebert is one of many who had complaints about the dining service this year.

“It was terrible,” Fiebert said. “We couldn’t get specifically what we wanted, and the lines were ridiculous.”

Fiebert said that she wasn’t planning on living on the South 40 next year, instead opting to go to the Village.

“I’m probably going to have to walk back to the South 40 to check [the new dining facilities] out,” Fiebert said.

As a part of a plan designed to reduce the Washington University maintenance and landscaping budget by at least 5 percent, the number of tulips on campus will be cut in half.

The new plan will also reduce the number of on-call maintenance employees around the Danforth Campus, thereby producing a delay in response time. In addition, the University will employ the minimal number of custodial employees needed to keep campus clean, and the cleaning of offices and cubicles will now occur bimonthly instead of weekly.

“The University requested administrative support departments to begin the planning for a series of budget reductions almost a year ago,” Bill Wiley, the director of maintenance operations, wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “Like a number of other administrative support departments, we are starting elements of the plan immediately to maximize the savings potential.”

All public spaces will continue to receive daily cleaning and trash removal.

“We have had numerous meetings to discuss this maintenance challenge among ourselves and hope that we can increase our productivity to avoid noticeable maintenance problems,” Wiley added in the e-mail. “We do not intend to tolerate lower campus cleanliness standards, but it will again be a challenge. For instance, we are discussing whether we should move a cleaning worker on a temporary basis from the Athletic Complex to Olin Library during the busy study period just before finals.”

Despite a 10 percent rise in the endowment since July 1, 2009, the University will lose $10 million in spending power from the endowment this year, according to a letter that Chancellor Mark Wrighton wrote to the University community on Monday. The restructuring of maintenance operations is just one of many departments that have had to make spending cuts.

Wiley emphasized that at this phase of the restructuring process, it is unclear how many employees will lose jobs, if any. Through retirement, redistribution of previously contracted work to maintenance staff and restricting overtime, the University hopes to keep as many current workers employed as possible.

All residential areas of campus will remain unaffected by these changes, but new maintenance staff will not be hired as more buildings open. Instead, the responsibility of current workers will be increased to these new areas.

“I can state for now however, the housekeeping for the residential side of campus will not be affected at all with these cutbacks as well as cleaning schedules will not be reduced,” Curt Harres, housekeeping manager for the Office of Residential Life, wrote in an e-mail.

In order for this program to become a permanent success, students and faculty will also need to contribute. By throwing away all trash left on tables and in common areas, keeping doors closed to maintain building temperature, not damaging walls with improperly posted signs, and possibly bringing full trash cans to central collection areas, the Wash. U. community can help ensure that current cleanliness standards are maintained.

Even with the full support of the University community, Wiley said that the plan will experience some setbacks.

“Our Facilities group has benchmarked well in recent years when measured against our counterparts at peer institutions, but we will be tested, miscalculate and make mistakes at times as we work through the future with reduced resources, but not significantly reduced goals,” Wiley wrote. “We need helpful feedback, understanding, cooperation and perhaps patience from our fellow members of the campus community.”

University City had requested proposals from the design community in the summer of 2009 for residential plans that would fill five lots within the neighborhood. The homes are also expected to gain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification.

Megan Nasrallah from St. Louis architectural firm Arcturis; Donald Koster, senior lecturer at the University’s Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design; and Richard Reilly, who served as chief operating officer of the former company Boa Construction, collaborated on and submitted the uHome project proposal. University City then awarded them the opportunity to continue their plans.

For Nasrallah, the proposal’s sustainability aspects, and the collaboration between “academia, profession, municipality (University City) and builder” were compliant with Arcturis’ goals.

“The community and social aspects of this project aligned with our values,” Nasrallah said. “The project seemed like a good fit and a unique opportunity to engage Wash. U. in an atypical project, in an atypical way.”

In addition, GreenSpace Construction now collaborates with the project after Boa Construction closed in November 2009.

The uHome project starts with Wash. U. students creating the designs with support from Arcturis professionals. Designs will have to meet guidelines, including improved indoor environmental quality, efficiency in water usage, and innovation in design to be LEED certified.

Students are inspired by the challenge and the chance to influence the Sutter Heights community.

“I think that the social aspect is really important,” graduate student Laura Mark said. “I realize that you can’t just change everything and make everything better for everybody. But if you can make one person’s life better, then your efforts were worthwhile.”

Architecture graduate student Mark Epstein expressed similar sentiments.

“One of my biggest interests in architecture is [to] have an impact on people’s lives, and I think that even though [this is] a small project—it’s not a 97-story skyscraper—it’s very directly impacting people’s lives,” Epstein said.

Epstein also explained that many of the students involved in the uHome project are excited by the potential future construction of the homes.

“The aspect that hopefully this project will actually get built is very attractive to a lot of the people in our group,” he said.

Nasrallah said Arcturis staff also benefit from having new energy in the office, in addition to students gaining a valuable work experience.

Both Mark and Epstein appreciate their collaboration with Arcturis with regard to LEED certification, home design and experience with an architectural firm.

Those interested in purchasing a uHome would first have to qualify for construction loans provided by a local lender. Homebuyers would then work with the design team to adjust the designs for their needs. Depending on features within the home, prices will range from $120,000 to $200,000.

“We will have at minimum five model homes designed to be marketed that will be able to achieve LEED Platinum and will be in the price range that has been set,” Koster said. “Ideally, and I’m fully optimistic that this will occur, we will fully market the project and have identified potential homebuyers prior to the end of this semester.”

Homes should be finalized by November 2010, according to current plans.

If Hilltop Bakery (right) closes in the fall, Subway (left) may move to the space in Mallinckrodt Center currently occupied by the eatery. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

If all goes as planned, $5 footlongs are set to hit Mallinckrodt Center next fall. Loren Grossman, owner of the Subway restaurant on campus, is currently in discussions with Washington University to take over the space that would be vacated by Hilltop Bakery.

“We haven’t decided [the move of Subway to Hilltop] yet,” Associate Vice Chancellor for Operations Steve Hoffner said. “We are in discussions with Subway to see about them possibly moving upstairs.”

Subway has occupied its current space in the Rathskellar (the Rat), in the basement of Umrath Hall, since 2003. Subway first opened in Mallinckrodt Center’s food court in 1995.

Grossman said the current space has proven to be too small for the volume of customers that Subway gets, leading him to desire a new location.

“We’ve outgrown this space, and the space is kind of inadequate to what we need and that space has become available,” Grossman said.

Hoffner echoed Grossman’s sentiments. Mallinckrodt Center would “[give] them more space and better space and a more prominent location,” he said.

Grossman highlighted long lines as an issue, for they turn prospective customers away.

“When the University made the possibility of that space [in Mallinckrodt] available to me, I was very happy because I never like to see a line…sometimes I’ll come here and I’ll see people looking down the stairway and walking away because they don’t want to stand in line,” Grossman said.

The new space would allow Subway to serve its customers with increased speed and efficiency. In addition, the quantity of seating would not decrease.

“I think it [the new location] would allow us to better serve our customers,” Grossman said. “We’re going to be able to put a double serving line in the new space. The seating probably will remain about the same. Of course, there’s a large terrace, which means that will be much additional seating outside.”

Hilltop Bakery, an eatery that is popular among the student body, offers custom-made wraps and salads. Grossman hopes to meet the needs of former Hilltop customers by promoting Subway’s salads and its wide variety of menu items.

According to Hoffner, Hilltop continues to be profitable and Dining Services will move as many Hilltop options as possible to the Danforth University Center (DUC). Additionally, student input will be sought out to determine what options to keep.

Even with the high cost of moving and expanding, Grossman expects prices to remain stable.

“We don’t expect prices to increase,” Grossman said. “We have always, [but] we’re not required to…follow the prices that Subway recommends for the region. It is my intention to keep it that way.”

As for the Rat, there are no plans for that space right now. But Hoffner said that it would not house an additional dining facility.

Grossman hopes that the contract will be finalized within the next month. The new space vacated by Hilltop Bakery would become available to Grossman after Commencement in May.

After the Bon Appétit Management Company signed an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in November, Students for Fair Trade had been pressuring Aramark—which operates the eateries at the Washington University School of Law and School of Medicine—to sign a similar agreement to ensure that all tomatoes on campus came from growers who offered workers living wages and safe working conditions.

“Getting tomatoes banned was not actually our original goal; we wanted Aramark as a corporation to sign an agreement with the CIW so that they wouldn’t have to ban tomatoes and could instead buy ethically produced ones,” Jessica Goldkind, the former president of Students for Fair Trade, wrote in an e-mail.

Goldkind led the tomato ban effort and helped produce a petition signed by more than 180 individuals calling for Aramark to discontinue tomato sales. Goldkind was assisted by Geeti Mahajan, a graduate student at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.

Dena McGeorge, regional manager for Aramark, received the petition and then met with Students for Fair Trade. McGeorge offered to discontinue tomato sales on campus until Aramark signed on with the CIW, and an offer was originally accepted.

“At first we thought that would be good, which is why word spread about that…but then we talked to the leaders of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, who explained that a local ban could be bad for their long-term strategy,” Goldkind added in the e-mail.

Aramark corporate headquarters claimed no involvement in the discussions with Students for Fair Trade and was unaware that any offer was made to discontinue tomatoes.

Though Aramark has not signed an agreement with the CIW, Aramark Communications Director Karen Cutler stressed that the company and its distribution partners attempt to contract with growers whose practices meet applicable workplace laws and regulations whenever possible.

The food service giant also has agreed to the “penny per pound” premium, in which 1 cent goes directly to the workers for every pound of tomatoes purchased. But Cutler acknowledged in writing that “it is widely known that the money accumulated over the past few years has largely been held in escrow and that the Farm Workers have not received these funds.”

Now that each campus eatery has established its policy on tomato sales, Students for Fair Trade is focusing on raising public awareness about the plight of tomato pickers.

“We’re just trying to work on raising awareness about different ways in which our consumer power as a university impacts the world, so now I think we’re going to focus more on the consciousness-raising aspect of it,” said senior Jessica Werley, the current president of Students for Fair Trade.

Students for Fair Trade hopes to host a roundtable discussion in February to continue the tomato dialogue on campus.

Among the key goals of the plan, which aims to create a more sustainable campus, are reductions in carbon emissions and the number of single-occupancy cars coming to campus. Administrators will hold a series of forums to gather feedback before finalizing the plan.

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Sustainability Matthew Malten and Executive Vice Chancellor for Administration Henry Webber contributed to the draft plan.

“Assuming that the final plan is similar to the draft plan, I think you would see a continual evolution toward a more sustainable campus,” Webber said. “This is an ambitious plan, and it’s a plan that recognizes that we’ve already made a good bit of progress. There are challenges and it will take a long-term commitment.”

Webber believes that the changes will happen over time. He brought up the University’s gradual implementation of recycling programs—going from no recycling to making changes toward the new single stream program—as a model for how the changes will be made.

“So far the comments on the draft plan have been very positive and very helpful,” Webber said. “The vast majority of people have responded positively to the thrust of the plan.”

According to Webber, one of the main challenges will be meeting goals that require action by outside entities.

“We control, as an institution, some of the key levers; some of them we don’t control,” Webber said. “We can have a large impact on our consumption of electricity, but we don’t produce electricity.”

Webber mentioned that power companies must soon begin producing 15 percent of their output from renewable sources. According to Webber, those companies will have to meet their own requirements to achieve the emissions goals.

Metro will also play an important role in transportation.

Malten said that many of the measures already have elements in various stages of implementation on campus.

“Students will start to notice more changes,” Malten said. “Some will be a little more subtle than others. One of the key components within the plan is we’re really trying to make our efforts and performance really transparent.”

The strategic plan has several areas that will directly impact students, such as several points aimed at food service on campus.

“This is going to be hard work and it’s going to require our focus and hard work for multiple years and it’s going to require that everybody within the campus community play a part,” Malten said.

Malten said that it is going to be a challenge to coordinate campus projects, as meeting the goals will require renovations of several older campus buildings.

Some parts of the plan do have set target dates for completion.  For example, the goal for 2012 is to have reduced the number of students arriving in sole-occupant cars by 10 percent. The plan also calls for reducing carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 without purchasing carbon offsets. Information provided with the plan said that the reasons for not purchasing offsets were that it is difficult to track their validity, the money may not be used appropriately and the money might go to projects that would be completed anyway.

Peter Murrey, president of Green Action, believes the University will be able to set more ambitious goals for itself in years to come and is excited to see how the current goals are implemented.

“That’s the timescale in which our University works,” Murrey said. “Would I like to see it implemented faster? Yes, but we have to work with the current structure, and that’s just a fact of how our University works. It’s slow.”

Murrey said that the choice about carbon offsets shows that the University has carefully considered how to make the plan effective.

“We’re seeking to make actual improvements here instead of outsourcing the emissions somewhere else,” Murrey said.

Webber noted that some of the goals are likely to face challenges because the University does not have control over all aspects.  For example, there is no facility in the area that can process organic waste.

“I think that’s kind of a cop-out,” Murrey said. “If there are no facilities, we are a leading institution. Why don’t we create one and become an innovator?”

Murrey said that his organization wants to become as involved as possible, and encouraged students to read and respond to the plan.

Murrey also noted that he would like to see the University become carbon neutral by 2050, if not before, as a long-term goal.

“Ultimately, our University needs to become carbon neutral,” Murrey said. “We still have not signed on to the Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which so many universities and all of our peer institutions have done.”

The plan will be reviewed regularly as well. It is to be reviewed and updated in 2012 and again in 2016.

“This is not something that we think we have all the answers to today, and it’s not something that we think the goals that are appropriate today will remain appropriate several years from now,” Malten said. “We know that technology is going to certainly change. We’re going to be able to continue to do more and more and improve our performance.”

Webber said that those who want to comment on the plan should attend one of the forums or e-mail comments to sustainability@wustl.edu.

Chancellor Mark Wrighton speaks at the State of the University in April. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Student Life conducted an interview with Chancellor Mark Wrighton after the most recent quarterly meeting of the board of directors on Friday. The discussion involved a review of major events that occurred during the semester. Wrighton commented on the growth of the endowment this quarter, upcoming budget cuts, the debate surrounding clean coal, recent ethical controversies, the University’s position on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the racial discrimination incident at Original Mothers bar in Chicago, and his favorite Michael Jackson song.

Mark Wrighton: Let me just quickly summarize the meeting, and then you can ask me some questions. I’ve made a big mistake in the meeting; I didn’t look at my Blackberry, like I often do in meetings, to find out that at half-time we were winning one to nothing, but on the way here, I just found out that we were tied five minutes ago. So, we’re hoping that we break that tie before the end of regulation play so that we are in the national championship. But I did note to the Board that we were playing at the time that I was giving my remarks, when we were just starting.

But I summarized a number of activities on campus, and initiatives and such, but the Board, at the December meeting, which is the second meeting of the academic year, elected a trustee that is Ethan A.H. Shepley Trustee, and that person is Andrea Grant, a double alumnae of the university from Arts and Sciences and from Law, and her Board service begins now. The first meeting would be in March—the first regular meeting.
And there are a number of things here, but that was one of the key action items. Another key action item related to candidates was appointment or promotion to tenured faculty positions. We had some candidates for those posts, and we also introduced a resolution on the setting of tuition, which is a process that concludes next month with meeting of the executive committee in terms of decision, and then a letter goes to the students and their families later in January.

The big agenda item for the Board in terms of substance for discussion really are plans to deal with the fiscal challenges for next year. At a committee meeting yesterday—the Board committee that is responsible for this—voted to reduce endowment spending by 4%, so university-wide, that is about $10 million reduced in revenue, and that is a complication that we knew about, even though the endowment has recovered quite significantly since July 1. We still feel it would be prudent to reduce spending by 4% next year; that is on top of 4% for the year we’re in. So we spent a fair amount of time—about a little over half an hour, I believe—talking with the Board about the financial planning next year.

Student Life: Since the endowment is down, is it still shrinking?

MW: Well, since July 1st through the end of November, we estimate that the endowment has increased by 13+ percent. We will spend, roughly speaking, 5%. So if we spent the 5% and ended up with the 13% gain, the endowment growth would be 8%. After the first quarter it was up 10%, so if you multiply that by four, we’d be up by 40% then—I’d be happy, but then it is a long year. And with all the certainty in the economy it would be premature to even count on a 13% total return on the investments. We obviously hope for that.

SL: Are there layoffs ahead?

MW: We’re going to be announcing, more broadly, the results of all our financial planning in the month of January, most likely. We have made all the firm decisions about where reductions will occur, but right now, we’re looking at, in just say the central administration, something like $7 million of reductions, and that’s a pretty significant number. But we’ve been working with people; we have some open positions that will not be filled. We’ll obviously try to minimize the consequences. We think that the administration does something, and if you cut, you’ll do less. And what we are trying to do is to, on the one hand, make the reductions we need to be fiscally responsible and also to prepare ourselves for years ahead that we think are not going to be robust in terms of large rates of growth of revenue. It is a different world. If it happens, as I said to the Board, we’ve got these great plans, and if new resources come along to support them, we’ll do new things, and we are doing new things as resources become available. Our scholarship initiative, for example, is an effort that can build resources.

SL: On another note, the University announced over the summer that it is closing the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human values at the end of the year. Meanwhile, University faculty members Jeff Smith and Timothy Kuklo drew national attention this semester for unethical actions; Smith for lying about his role in producing illegal campaign literature, Kuklo for falsifying data in a medical study. How do these events reflect on the state of ethics at Washington University?

MW: We have to reflect that we’re an institution populated by people, with all that that implies. All people exhibit shortfalls. It is regrettable people in positions of prominence and in positions of responsibility exhibit such short falls. You imply a relationship between the closing of the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values and fact that we had these shortfalls. I believe that it is the case that the transgressions of these individuals would not have been materially affected by whether or not we had a center in the first place, or whether we closed it, or added 20 million dollars to its budget. I think we have, in fact, a very strong community. We have a very strong culture of what I call—what we call—compliance, that is, an environment where people are informed about the policies of the university, and we have systems in place to review whether we are in compliance. I think, overall, we’re very strong in those regards.

Unfortunately, the constraints we face physically are going to affect all parts of the university. I said we’re reducing expenditure in the central administration, what we called the Central Fiscal Unit. The schools of the Danforth campus will also be experiencing, if not outright reductions, they will be slowing their development of new initiatives, slowing or lowering the number of faculty hired, so everybody will be operating with more financial constraints.

Unlike Student Life, my administration’s paper goes out of print after the December 10th issue. I’m told that will save 87 thousand dollars. I’m also told that there are individuals that are upset that they won’t have a printed Record, but we believe that it is the right decision in the long-term. The transition will be hard. I know people who don’t have computers—it might be hard for you to believe—but people who are fairly sophisticated, and when they do, they don’t read newspaper on them. We’re going to be doing a number of things that, you know, are not necessarily the most desirable things for us to be doing. But I don’t think the closing of the Center for Ethics and Human Values is the major contributor to a culture that I believe is quite robust with high integrity and a commitment to this community’s values and policies.

SL: What effect do these controversies around ethics have on students? On the University as a whole?

MW: I think the institution has broad shoulders—it’s a saying. Obviously, it’s not a positive on our reputation, but these are transgressions of individuals. I think for our part it’s disappointing, sad in a way—disappointing certainly, and for people who know the positive qualities of people who have made mistakes, it’s difficult. So nobody enjoys seeing a person who is found to have made these mistakes and I think for students, many of whom perhaps would have today aspirations not unlike Jeff Smith—people may have looked to him as a role model. We see oftentimes people who are our role models not quite living up to our expectations or the expectations that have somehow surrounded them and those shortcomings have unfortunately been, you know, have involved high profile individuals at the highest levels of the United States government, in the clergy, here in the academia, and certainly in the business world. So it’s something that I think we need to take seriously and we need to encourage a culture of integrity, and I think that we do. And a lot of our academic programs have these components as a part of the curriculum.

SL: One of the really significant events for students this semester was the incident of alleged racial discrimination at Original Mother’s Bar in Chicago. In response to this, you sent a letter to Chicago’s Mayor Daley, and you wrote that the experience of our students reveals “we have much work to do to achieve true racial equality in this country.” Have you heard back from Mayor Daley?

MW: No, I have not. I would have expected at least a courtesy response, something to the effect of: “I have received your letter; we will review what you have written”. You know, something that probably would have come pretty quickly and something in that vein, with no promises, but basically, an acknowledgement of the letter. I do have to say, I am extremely proud of our students, who conducted themselves in a way that makes me very proud to be a part of Washington University. And for the University, I think it frankly led to some very positive attention, and people have come to me about it. It’s been great to see our students conduct themselves so effectively at a time when it could have been emotional. I wasn’t there myself, but I know we had a large number of students there and I thought they responded extraordinarily well. And in the aftermath I think they conducted themselves well, and as I understand it, the outcome in connection with those responsible for that bar have made some commitments that I think will contribute to making their business better.

SL: And what is the University doing to achieve racial equality both here and more broadly in the community and the country?

MW: I think one of the most important things that an academic institution can do is to work hard to have a very inclusive environment as a community, which welcomes people and provides great opportunities. One of your headlines today is socioeconomic diversity. I haven’t read the article, but I saw it, as featured on my Blackberry. I think in an academic institution, and especially even though we are constrained, we should know that we are a wealthy institution. We have $5 billion in the bank, and that’s a lot of money. So we can afford to be proactive in recruiting people from all backgrounds. It’s not just counting noses. It’s really bringing to all members of the community the benefits of diversity. Washington University Students are destined to be leaders. That’s your potential. You’ll be leaders of organizations which are diverse, and it’s important to build a good understanding of all the people you’re going to be working with. I think here I’ve interacted with students who have told me, for example, a Midwestern young woman said to me ‘I came to Washington University and I’d never met anyone who’s Jewish.’ Well, they’d probably never been to New York, which has a very large Jewish population. But also the way we assign housing, you know people living together. We had a presentation at the Board meeting today on the McDonnell International Scholars academy. One of the committees, the committee on educational policy, and Professor Jim Werch, who is the director of the academy, he said ‘We’re building a network of people who get to know each other while they are here, and to understand the different cultures that they themselves represent.’ And you may know that there is tension at times between Japan and Korea. In the McDonnell academy we have partners in Japan, we have partners in Korea, and we have scholars from both countries, and we have a Japanese scholar who has a roommate from Korea. And I think that helps build better relationships and inasmuch as we say, and we hope, they emerge as global leaders, they can help over time address differences that have in the past, at least, created big conflict. And we know in America that racism exists, as evidenced by what went on in Chicago, and I think by having students here interacting with each other from many different backgrounds, that will be a positive in their education. So I think there are a lot of ways that we can help out. And I’ve pointed out to the Board that we’re not, for example, in this time of constraint diminishing our commitment, resolve, resources in our effort to strengthen diversity. That remains a very high priority.

SL:  Many students have criticized the administration’s position on clean coal, especially as relates to its appointment of two new Board members from prominent coal energy corporations and its hosting of an energy conference in support of clean coal. How do you respond to students critical of the University’s stance on clean coal?

MW: Well, first of all, the administration doesn’t appoint the Board of trustees. As was the case today, the Board elects its own members. So as Chancellor, I’m not a voting member of the Board. It is true that I can suggest people to be considered, and the process is one that involves a committee of the Board, the Nominating and Governance committee of the Board, receiving suggestions from people in the administration or other Board members, and there’s a fairly long list of people. The Board looks to recruit new members who will bring the three things we expect of Board group members: Work, wisdom, and wealth. At least two of the three. It’s kind of a funny saying, it’s from Vartan Gregorian, who was at the time he said it I think the president of Brown University. Board members of Washington University come from all parts of America. We look for people who are from major population centers. We look for Board members who are in positions of responsibility where they would have the experience that doesn’t guarantee wisdom, but experience that perhaps suggests that they would have that. Greg Boyce, who is the executive office of Peabody Energy, is by background an engineer and the chief executive officer of the world’s largest privately held coal company. Steve Leer—Greg Boyce is not an alumnus of the University—Steve Leer is a business alumnus of the university, and the CEO of another very large coal company, companies which happen to be headquartered in St. Louis, and companies that are going to be arguably extremely important to the future of the United States. They are major employers, they have major technical challenges, and therefore, they would appear to be in positions to give us guidance on how to address those technical challenges. They are, their companies, are our partners.

So let’s talk about the conference. I don’t rule on who’s a member of the Board. I can’t even overrule. They’re all my bosses. But it isn’t like a corporate board. A not-for-profit board has the interests of the institution. They are the owners of the institution while they’re board members, and they have the responsibility- they have two very important responsibilities. One is to oversee the assets of the university. We talked a little bit about the endowment. That’s a big responsibility of the Board. That’s their responsibility. I don’t tell them how to invest the endowment, the way it works is they say, as they did yesterday, ‘Here’s how much money we’re going to authorize to be given to the administration.’ And what I’m supposed to do is to use the money as wisely as possible. Oversight of the physical assets and the financial assets, that’s a Board responsibility.

The other responsibility is the review the performance of the Chancellor and to select the Chancellor if there’s a need to make a transition. So every year they review my performance, and could say, you know, ‘July 1, you’re done.’ I stand for election every year. And then, in large measure, they abdicate the administration to me, and I recommend to them University officers, and the deans. The University officers are the people who have the title Vice Chancellor, Treasurer, and Secretary to the Board. All of us, Chancellor and all those officers, stand for reelection every year.

But in terms of the actual operations of the University, for first order they say ‘OK, you’re the CEO, you’ve got your officers and your deans, you run the show and we’ll keep an eye on you.’ So some would imply, for example, that two Board members could say, ‘You know, you guys, you have to advocate for coal.’ Virtually never, I would say never, I’ve been here 15 years, no board member has ever said to me, ‘You know, you ought to have this policy.’ We propose policy to them, and they approve or not. And we have no policy on energy. I will state that categorically.

Let me say that again: we have no policy as an institution on whether coal is good or solar is good. The symposium that we convened stems from my involvement as vice-chairman of a national research council committee on America’s energy future. The committee, not Mark Wrighton but the committee, came up with a collection of findings, and if you haven’t read the report you can check this out, but at this meeting I gave a quick overview of the findings. And I emphasized two things, which, now this is Mark Wrighton’s opinion, not the University’s policy. The committee found that there’s a great opportunity in improving energy efficiency. We can reduce the consumption of energy, and especially electrical energy, by deploying known technology. You don’t have to do research, just implement this technology. And yet it costs money. But we say, and this is a University operational activity, wherever we can, we’re making capital investments to reduce the amount of energy we consume. If you’re familiar, we’ve renovated Busch hall here on the quadrangle. We redid the building so that, at least by our reckoning, we should get LEED certification at the silver level. And we deployed capital to reduce energy and we think it’s good because we’re going to save money. That is, our operating expenses on an ongoing basis will be lower. Let’s say for the sake of argument we spent a million dollars to improve the energy efficiency. We believe that in four years, we’ll be saving $250,000 a year in operations. Now that’s 10 average scholarship awards. And it isn’t over in 4 years, that’s going on into the future and we believe – no proof – energy prices will go up. I happen to believe that prices will go up over the long term. So that’s one thing I said.

The second thing I said at the symposium—I said a lot of things. But I emphasized the other big finding and again, my own opinion. The big finding is that coal is a very large resource the United States and many parts of the world. And our committee observed that carbon dioxide is a problem that we have to address. And if coal is to be a part of the future—today it’s 50% of US electricity, 85% of Missouri’s electricity—but if this is to continue to be a part of the future, and you’re worried about CO2, as many people are, than you have to be able to demonstrate at utility plant scale that there’s a technology that you can afford to capture and store carbon dioxide.

So I advocated for that demonstration project. I didn’t tell you I think coal is what we should be using. I believe in fact it was a mistake, if you listen to other things I say, it was a mistake for Missouri to not do something proactive that would have encouraged Ameren to build another nuclear power plant here. By basically making it difficult for Ameren to build the nuclear power plant, we have no option other than the combustion of coal, so we have to learn to work with it in a way that will not add to the detrimental consequences from CO2, and that’s to develop technology to deal with it. I’m a scientist. I’ve actually done a fair amount of work in energy conversion—fuel cells, solar energy conversion, catalysis—so I’m familiar with the language at least, I haven’t done anything important in at least 15 years in the actual science. But my own favorite, frankly, is solar and I said this at the meeting. There’s a huge super abundance of solar energy, we just have to capture it and that’s a fundamental research activity that I think we should be involved in. And we are. The largest grant ever to the Danforth campus came from the Dept. of Energy in April for work on photosynthesis. It’s a little more—they’ve decorated it more in their title, but it’s photosynthesis work that would give fundamental understanding that could help you use plants as models or actually use plants to generate fuel and that’s renewable. So I’m for it. But coal is with us today and our committee observes that renewables are likely in the next 10 years, which is a part of our charge, what’s going to happen in a decade, that renewables, much as we would like them perhaps to be a bigger part, they’re not going to be a big part of the energy picture for the United States in fractional terms. But wouldn’t you like to have the company that generates 1% of US electricity? You’d be affluent and influential. You could be a member of the board of trustees. But we know that it’s very hard to get to a new energy technology that delivers a significant fraction of US electricity. Moreover, we know as a matter of fact, it’s not what we wish or want necessarily but we know as a matter of fact that the developing world, especially China and India, are today deploying old technology, at best current technology, that uses much more coal tomorrow than they’re using today. And it’s almost literally tomorrow. Missouri has a population of roughly 5 million people. China has a population of over a billion. And there are many parts of China that don’t have access to the amount of energy that we do, and yet they’re growing rapidly. China became the largest producer of automobiles in the world last year, over a million automobiles per month. No exports. All domestic. So China, with 80% of their electrical energy from coal, with a prediction that it will still be 80% 10 years from now. Don’t we have a moral responsibility, not only to the United States but to the rest of the world, to work to develop technologies that will work to mitigate the consequences of the combustion from all that coal? That’s why we’re working on clean coal. I mean our, it isn’t something that I’m sitting in my office and I’m saying ‘Hm, we’ve got these big companies, let’s advocate for coal.’ We’re using coal. The rest of the world is going to use coal. There’s a lot of it and our faculty—not Mark Wrighton, I didn’t do coal research, I did solar energy—but our faculty said ‘We have some ideas that we’d like to pursue, do you think Arch Coal and Peabody Energy and Ameren would be willing to fund our research?’ Well those companies, obviously, they have a vested interest in clean coal and they’re investing. And the biggest investments are not in fact with us. Peabody Energy, for example, is investing in China more money than they’re investing with us…

We’re going to be announcing some ambitions in terms of the university operations that relate to the consumption of energy, but overall, we don’t have a position on what’s the best technology. And going back to our committee, I was the messenger at this meeting, not the policymaker, not speaking about whatever we’re going to do, but the committee—properly, in my view; since I’m vice chair I had my say in that—said ‘You know, we’re going to have a whole bunch of energy technologies, and all that are sensible will be used. Wind, geothermals, solar, photovoltaic, hot water from sunlight—everything is going to be used that makes sense.’ And it’s two words: makes sense. We might be able to take carbon dioxide from coal fired power plants and store it, but if it costs more than some number, it’s a losing proposition and it would make coal more expensive than, say, photovoltaics with storage, you know, with electrical storage, like batteries. You have to do what’s technologically feasible and economically viable.

And one other thing about the symposium, because I think you’d written that we didn’t have anything but coal on the agenda. We had a prominent presentation by—two presentations by outstanding women. Maxine Sabbots gave the keynote talk on energy efficiency, and we had Martha Schlicker of Monsanto, who is Vice President for Biofuels, a renewal energy, and we had an Ameren utility representative. Utilities are basically the people who convert one form of energy into electricity. They don’t have a dog in the hunt either, so to speak. They’d be happy for photovoltaics, and they’re under some mandate to do more in that arena. And we had a policy leader from the Brookings Institution. We had two people from coal, but two of the largest coal companies in the world are here, and we’re their partner.

SL: Students have decried a lack of student input in administrative decisions over the last year. In particular, students have criticized the university’s implementation of a smoking ban without student input and its investment of the endowment in a non-transparent manner. What is students’ role in administrative decision-making?

MW: Well, the board has the responsibility for the endowment. So it’s not a lack of transparency, I don’t actually know what the students would like to know more about. And yet, it’s a board responsibility. We have no secrets. We’re not secretly investing in Cuban companies that make cigars and sell them, while we’re introducing a smoking ban. There’s no—the board has formed an internal company called the Washington University Investment Management Company. The chairman of the board is the former chairman and chief executive officer of the country’s largest pension fund, TIAA-CREF, that’s John Biggs, and we hired to be the Chief Investment Officer a woman by the name of Kim Walker, and there’s a small board on this investment management company, and they oversee the investment of the endowment. They take their cues in part from what’s called the Asset Management Committee, which is another Board of Trustees committee, that sets the spending rule.

Do you have a savings account somewhere? If I said to you, ‘You can spend 10% per year,’ do you think you could keep your savings at that level by making wise investments? I bet you can’t. That’s what the experts say. I’m not an expert, but that’s what the experts say. You can’t spend 10% of your endowment and be safe, and have some high probability that you’ll still have your savings account. There are risky investments that promise you high returns. If you want high returns, you have high risk. And we try to—here’s our goal: Whatever spending from the endowment, we have the goal that the buying power grows a little bit with time. So that means whatever we take out every year, we’d like to be able to increase it at least by inflation plus a little bit. And that’s our goal. So what’s your guess about inflation? It’s maybe 3%. We’d also like to be spending about 5%. So that means 3% plus 5%, that’s 8% total return. And our historic return is 9%. But if you took out 10%, just to spend it, you’d soon run your endowment down or you’d be in such risky investments that in a time like we’ve experienced in the last 15 months, the endowment would be gone. So we have professionals who look at all that—there are no secrets. IN fact, it’s sort of like watching paint dry, you know, it’s not that interesting. We don’t actually—there’s no one—I have to be careful, because I’m not intimately involve din it, but I don’t think we have people who are getting the annual reports of publicly traded companies and saying, ‘I think we ought to invest in Monsanto,’ or Peabody energy, or any other company. The work is done with investment managers, and it’s key to listen to the strategy of these investment managers and then to hire them and then say, ‘We’ll give you $200 million dollars of our endowment, and we’re going to be watching you. How did you perform?’ And it’s financial. I don’t know how to be more transparent, but ask me any question.

What was the other thing—oh the smoking. Yeah. Completely an administration decision, and the right one. Completely black-and-white. Why should we form a committee when we know what the answer is? Washington University was a forefront institution in terms of relating smoking and lung cancer. That was years ago, and over time there’s been an extraordinarily compelling science case for eliminating the use of tobacco products, and I think it’s the right thing. Even secondhand smoke has been proven to be a challenge to public health. SO here we are, an institution at the forefront of medical science, and I think we shouldn’t permit smoking on our property. So I’ll take the spears on that one.

SL: Moving on, the University recently began a search for a new dean for the engineering school. First of all, when will we have a new dean?

MW: July 1st.

SL: And how will this dean be different from the last?

MW: Don’t know yet. We’ll see who it is. Ask me that question in the process. Provost Macias is responsible for conducting that process. It’s just been launched and we’re focusing our search on internal search, by that I mean a person from the academic community of Washington University. In a time like this, I think it would be a little harder to effect a transition from outside, and I think we really need a person that understands us.

SL: Are there specific qualities that you have in mind that would be different form what we had before?

MW: I think our expectation is what we look for for all our academic leaders, people who have themselves a demonstrated record of academic achievement. In this position, of course, we would want evidence of administrative experience and effectiveness overall, a person who can not be overly frustrated by a constrained economic environment, which we know we’re going to have. I’ve been, as I noted before, I’ve been here about 15 years, and we never had a year where we had no compensation increases materially, and where we had a downturn in the endowment. Al the years I’ve been here the endowment always went up until the year we’re in. And you know, that can be very, it is very disappointing, but you don’t want to let it cripple you. Our challenge continues to be the need to be the institution that seems to be and actually is on the move. And I think we can do that. I’m sure you noticed if you have friends at other institutions—they have big problems, bigger than ours.

SL: The student-led gay rights movement The Right Side of History has made LGBT civil rights a major political issue on campus this year. The leader of the movement, David Dresner, has asked University deans to send letters to students explaining why the University allows military recruiters on campus despite the military’s policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which conflicts with the University’s non-discrimination policy. This came one year after the university began an annual James Holobaugh LGBT awards ceremony, which honors the legacy of an ROTC military cadet who was discharged from the military after he came out as gay. What is the university’s position on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

MW: I’ve been involved in this issue since I was provost at MIT, which actually has ROTC programs with the Navy, the Air Force and, I think, the Army. I may be wrong on that, but I’ve had a fair amount of experience. My father was in the US navy, career navy man, so I know something about how the military works. There is no evidence that sexual orientation has anything to do with performance, meaning that gays or lesbians are going to perform just as any other person. And the military understands that. I think the military is prepared to change their policy. Unfortunately, I think political leaders are frankly not as understanding of the reality here. And I think I would strongly like to see the United States change its policy. And there are a couple of ways to do that. The president of the United States could order it, in principle. And I think President Clinton was trying to find a path that didn’t create so much political problems that he couldn’t move forward. The Congress could vote and change that policy for the Defense Department, and the courts could, in principle, do something, according to my understanding. So I’m hopeful that the policy will be changed. I believe it should be. And there is a conflict between Washington University’s view and policy and my view, and that of the U.S. government. It’s a problem that we’ve been working on for quite some time. I think there’s growing understanding, and you hear that from military leaders or former military leaders, people who are, I believe, in a very good position to know, and I believe that over time the government will change its policy.

SL: Can we ask you a fun one on the way out?

MW: A fun one?

SL: What is your favorite Michael Jackson song?

MW: Name a few to remind me of them.

SL: Thriller, Billie Jean, Beat It, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.

MW: I’d have to hear them. I didn’t listen that much to Michael Jackson. My wife accuses me of just having been in the laboratory too long.