Norwich campus receives special environmental recognition

By Kara Swarbrick
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

In a recent national survey conducted by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Norwich University was recognized as a leader among university campuses in land and grounds management programs.

According to the NWF web site (www.nwf.org) the survey was conducted Dec. 6, 2000 - April 19, 2001 by Princeton Survey Research Associates (PSRA) through its web-polling site (www.PSRAOnline.com).

Questionnaires were sent via email to presidents, provosts and chiefs of facilities at universities throughout the country, according to the NWF. The data collected by online questionnaires was supplemented with data on institutional characteristics, enrollment, staff and expenditures.

"Nobody did come to visit," according to Dave Magida, chief administrative officer at Norwich. "It was purely based on a statistical survey."

The survey was "fairly lengthy," according to Magida. In the chief of facilities section alone there were over thirty questions, some with multiple parts.

"They asked a lot of things about statistics about the university's operations," Magida said. "Things such as the number of acres we maintain, the way that we take care of the grounds, energy consumption and recycling rates."

Magida said he believed the reason that Norwich received recognition in such a survey is that it was sent nationwide and compared all campuses, rural and urban. Compared to a university in the middle of a city, Norwich's 1200 acres certainly had aspects that were "much better," according to Magida.

"We don't landfill any of our grounds waste; we compost all that," said Magida. "We have so much property that it is easy for us to do that in comparison to an urban institution. They cannot do that, so we must have shone brightly in the analysis of one institution versus another."

Magida is very proud of the "sound environmental practices" that Norwich has and attributes these to the fact that the school is located in a state that takes the environment very seriously.

"We minimize wherever possible the use of pesticides and herbicides; they are used only when absolutely required," Magida said. "If we have trees removed, they are chipped up and used for a variety of purposes."

Magida credits the "incredibly dedicated people" of the university facilities and grounds staff with earning the school its place as one of the country's leaders in land and grounds management.

"They're a hearty, tough, dedicated group," Magida said. "I was surprised and proud to have received it. We weren't striving for any kind of award. We were just operating the campus the way that we consider the right way to do it and the fact that that got recognized makes it that much more rewarding."

According to the NWF site, the university survey was conceived to "address an important gap in available information on higher education performance." NWF says it felt it was important to conduct a national survey on campus environmental performance and sustainability in order to begin to fill the gap and to create a baseline from which to measure change over time, identify opportunities, highlight outstanding precedent, and generate healthy debate.

The site says that there was information on other aspects of higher education available prior to the survey, but there was "no such source on environmental performance."

"This survey is part of the National Wildlife Federation's larger mission to educate, inspire, and assist individuals and organizations of diverse cultures to conserve wildlife and other natural resources," the site said. "And to protect the earth's environment in order to achieve a peaceful, equitable and sustainable future."

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