Two PAID Fall Semester Internships at the UNC Sustainability Office

The Sustainability Office at UNC Chapel Hill works with students, staff, faculty, administrators, and community members to catalyze the development and implementation of sustainable policies, practices, and curricula.  Interns will become familiar with the many sustainability practices, policies, and curricula at UNC, while receiving hands-on experience developing communication tools, supporting Sustainability Office initiatives, and assessing sustainable practices at UNC Chapel Hill.  All internships are competitive and require an in-person interview.

Internship #1: Education Internship
Wage: $10/hr
Hours: 10 hours/week
Responsibilities and projects will include:

• Research and write case studies of select campus sustainability-related programs and practices.
• Assist to develop and facilitate educational materials and events for faculty and staff
• Staff promotional tables at special events, such as the UNC Science Expo (Sept. 25) and Campus Sustainability Day (mid-October)
• Develop, publish, and maintain online Green Guides to promote sustainable choices
• Assist in the development and promotion of an online pledge tool

Internship #2: Communications Internship
Wage: $10/hr

Hours: 10 hours/week
Responsibilities and projects will include:

• Track, compile, and post summaries of media coverage of UNC sustainability programs
• Compile and edit weekly email newsletters for Sustainability listserv
• Manage online events calendar, Google Maps, and Facebook profile
• Assist in maintaining, updating, and improving Sustainability Office and Carolina Green websites
• Update and maintain Sustainability Office exhibit case
• Staff promotional tables at special events, as needed, such as Campus Sustainability Day

Interviews will start next week, so apply ASAP! Click here to learn more and apply for these internships!

Carolina in the News

Check out the recent media mentions of sustainability-related programs, practices, people at UNC:

Trail to connect UNC, C-North
The Chapel Hill News
Town and UNC officials want to know what you think about plans for a greenway connecting the main campus and Carolina North. The final draft will be presented to the Chapel Hill Town Council in September, along with UNC's first progress report on the future satellite campus. The plan calls for UNC and Chapel Hill to create an alternative bike and pedestrian route between the campuses that does use Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and avoids steep grades.
Click here to read more.

UNC Adds New Residential Theme This Year
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
UNC has been known for offering students unique opportunities when it comes to residential life. Over the years, students have had the option to participate in themed housing. Sustainability, languages and service and leadership are just some of the themes as a part of Carolina’s Living-Learning Communities. This year the university has added a new experience: Sophomore Year Navigating Carolina, or SYNC.
Click here to read more.

Promoting Green Initiatives at UNC
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
UNC’s Sustainability Office will be hosting the Carolina Green Student Social during the Week of Welcome. The Sustainability Office’s Research and Outreach Manager Brian Cain says the social will introduce students to groups and organizations that promote the cause of sustainability. The Student Social isn’t the only event planned by the Sustainability Office for this school year. UNC will also feature residential green games.
Click here to read more.

Cool Schools: Top 100 Schools
Sierra Magazine
Intercollegiate rivalry is a long and hallowed tradition. That was the operating premise, anyway, behind our fourth annual Coolest Schools survey. We sent out 11-page questionnaires to 900 colleges and universities across the United States, asking them to detail their sustainability efforts. ... Although energy supply carried the most significance, nine other categories were considered in measuring a school's commitment to sustainability: efficiency, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management, administration, financial investments, and a catchall section titled "other initiatives." (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was ranked 40th.)
Click here to read more.

UNC, Duke, Elon among Sierra Club’s Cool Schools (Blog)
The Star News (Wilmington)
The Sierra Club has recognized 100 universities as among the United States’ most eco-enlightened in the September/October 2010 issue of its magazine. Making it into the top half of that “Cool Schools” list is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ...No school scored a perfect 100. UNC-Chapel Hill came out with a score of 73.3, including a perfect 10 in the catchall “other initiatives” category, putting it in 40th place.
Click here to read more.

Going green to make green at UNC System schools
News 14 Carolina
As students return to classes this fall, school leaders in the UNC System are doing more than ever to make sure the campuses are as green as possible. ...That's exactly what the school spends in utilities expenses for an entire year. It is a similar story at UNC Chapel Hill. “We want to get back to our emission level, our carbon emissions level, of 2,000 by 2020,” said Brian Cain, with the UNC Sustainability Council.
Click here to read more.

Just-In-Time Innovation (Commentary)
Forbes Magazine
Oil-filled oceans, broken financial systems, inequality, lack of clean water and uncured diseases. The world's biggest problems are calling--and calling now. The good news is that college students are arriving on campus just in time to play important roles in attacking those problems. College students have a high-impact, problem-oriented focus. And their energy, idealism, connectedness and unique point of view are crucial to success in solving the world's greatest problems. (Holden Thorp is the chancellor of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Buck Goldstein is the university entrepreneur in residence and professor of the practice in the department of economics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
Click here to read more.

Graduating Low-Income Students (Blog)
The Chronicle of Higher Education
President Obama’s recent speech at the University of Texas at Austin stressed the need to boost college graduate rates. One aspect of the challenge is making sure that low-income students feel comfortable and are successful on campuses that are often dominated by students from wealthy backgrounds. ...At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, meanwhile, an extensive support program was put in place in 2004 as part of the Carolina Covenant program. As outlined in a recent Century Foundation report written by former New York Times education editor Edward B. Fiske, the Carolina Covenant provides low-income student not only generous grant funding to enable students to graduate debt-free but also significant academic support.
Click here to read more.

UNC garden sows a little good will
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Until a new community garden sprouted on the outskirts of UNC-Chapel Hill this year, housekeeper Barry Womble rarely bought zucchini or squash. Now, he snags some for free each week. "It's so expensive," said Womble, one of 421 full-time housekeepers who, collectively, represent the lowest-paid work force on campus. "We have so much processed food now, to have natural food is real nice."
Click here to read more.

-Thanks to UNC News Services for finding these great stories AND compiling the summaries! You can find more UNC media coverage and stories online at http://uncnews.unc.edu

UNC scientist receives NSF grant for ocean acidification project

Justin Ries, marine geologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has received a $655,689 National Science Foundation grant to study the impact of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide on marine organisms’ ability to build their shells and skeletons.

Ries, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the marine sciences department in the College of Arts and Sciences. He investigates how clams, oysters, urchins, lobsters, corals and other shelled marine creatures respond to changes in ocean chemistry, both in the future and the geologic past.

His new project on the biological effects of ocean acidification – the term for falling pH levels in the Earth’s oceans as they absorb increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – may have important implications for marine ecosystems, food webs and the multi-billion dollar global market for shellfish and crustaceans.

The project follows up on a study published in the December 2009 issue of the journal Geology, in which Ries and colleagues found that some sediment-dwelling marine organisms produced shells more rapidly under high carbon dioxide conditions, while others produced shells more slowly. Some of the creatures whose shells grew more quickly prey on those whose shells weakened, so such changes could have serious ramifications for predator-prey relationships, Ries said.

The results were recently highlighted in a U.S. Senate hearing on the economic and ecological impacts of ocean acidification (http://bit.ly/di44GE).

Website: http://www.unc.edu/~jries/

December 2009 study news release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3141/107/

College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Spurr