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NEWS
Trashapalooza to coincide with Earth Day
By Kylie Gilliams
Staff Writer
Guilford will celebrate Earth
Day on Saturday, April 25, with
a festival by the lake featuring
live music, food—and lots
of trash. The event, dubbed
Trashapalooza, aims to get people
thinking about trash, recycling
and sustainability.
"The purpose is, of course.
that people have," said first-year
Courtney Mandeville. "You take
people's actions and make them
more conscious of what they're
doing."
The group found that 20
percent of what had been put into
the trash was recyclable materials
and 37.5 percent of what had been
put in the recycling was actually
trash.
"I wasn't surprised but (the
"Just because there are recycling cans around
does not mean we are good at recycling. It does
matter what you put in there."
Jim Dees, environmental sustainability coordinator
to raise awareness," said
Environmental Sustainability
Coordinator Jim Dees. "It's also
kind of a gut-check thing; we
think we're pretty green around
here but when we go around and
check up on ourselves, there's still
room for improvement."
The event was originally
scheduled for March 25 but
was cancelled due to rain. In
preparation for Trashapalooza,
in February a group of staff and
students gathered 486 pounds of
waste from trash and recycling
dumpsters on Guilford's campus
and amassed it on Founder's
Lawn to weigh and sort.
"Sorting through gives you
such a feel of the carelessness
results) are significant when you
consider how we think we are
doing as a campus," said Gabriela
Spang, a senior and sustainability
intern. "I wasn't surprised because
I'd been looking in the trash and
recycling dumpsters for the past
couple weeks and I saw that we
recycle a lot of things that aren't
recyclable and trash a lot of things
that could be recycled."
Dees agrees that the results
of the waste audit point to a
misperception about Guilford's
actual recycling habits
and highlight the need for
improvement.
"The basic message ... is that
we still have to pay attention to
all this," said Dees. "Just because
there are recycling cans around
does not mean we are good at
recycling. It does matter what you
put in there."
Trashapalooza is just one of
Guilford's recycling awareness
events. In January, Dees and
Spang began a ten-week project
to measure Guilford's trash
and recycling output as a part
of RecycleMania, a national
recycling competition.
They inventoried campus
dumpsters, accumulated the
data and submitted it to the
National Recycling Coalition,
which will rank Guilford based
on three categories: the percent
of waste recycled, the pounds of
recycling per person, and the total
waste per person. The results of
RecycleMania will be released on
April 17.
Dees is not optimistic about
Guilford's ranking.
"I don't think it will be very
favorable," he said. "We would
like to be a whole lot higher than
where we actually are with tliis."
The purpose of events such as
RecycleMania and Trashapalooza
is to not only to educate people
about recycling, but to empower
them. Dees believes this activism
is the first step towards reducing
and reversing environmental
damage.
"A healthy community equals
a healthy earth," said Dees. "If
you're vested in your community,
you're going to care what happens
in it, not turn a blind eye to the
problems. Things like global
warming become things you work
on rather than worry about."
Greei?^(ik
Guilford
Graphic courtesy of jim dees
Jamiwy
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19.0
MARKETING
Advancement Office seeks community input for marketing plan
Continued from page I
Another objective of the plan is to raise
the college's visibility in comparison to
competitors and aspirants.
However, Buckner emphasized that a
key goal is making sure that the image that
Guilford presents to the world is authentic.
"It has to ring true," said Gibbs.
"Some people come to Guilford and find
that the reality hadn't lined up to their
expectations."
Sophomore and Senate treasurer-elect
Jordan Auleb said that she thought Guilford
would be more academically rigorous and
considered transferring at one point.
"I decided to get involved and have
found strong allies in the faculty, the staff
and student leaders who cared about my
concern," said Auleb. "Guilford ignited in
me a passion for learning and community
learning. Instead of hating Guilford I learned
to link Sie two."
At a meeting concerning the positioning
process with Buckner, Dean for Campus
Life Aaron Fetrow and a number of student
senators. Inter-club Council chair sophomore
Alex Knox asked Fetrow about the marketing
plan's role in student retention.
Fetrow said that, historically, academic
dismissals have always been the leading
cause for students leaving Guilford.
"The two other leading causes are medical
issues and problems with fit," said Fetrow.
"Fit is a generic term that can mean 'my
girlfriend is at home but I had to tell mom
that I don't like Guilford,' or 'I decided that
questionnaire asks students to identify words
and phrases that "capture the essence of the
college."
"We need to survey effectively and in a
timely manner," said Buckner. "We need to
gather as many voices in the community as
possible."
The group created the survey with
specificity and clarity in mind. It lists
"Some people come to Guilford and find that the reality hadn't
lined up to their expectations."
Lynn Gibbs, vice president of the Design Group
I want an engineering degree and I need to
transfer.' We try to drill down so we can find
out if students leave because they thought
Guilford would be different. But we don't get
a lot of 'you lied to us'."
The Ad Hoc Marketing Group has
developed an online survey that students
can currently access on The Buzz. This
statements that students rank from 1-5
(strongly disagree- strongly agree), such
as: "Guilford is academically challenging,"
"Guilford supports each individual student,"
"Guilford creates leaders," and "Guilford
prepares students for social responsibilty."
Focus groups that include students have
already met and Buckner and Gibbs met
with Fetrow, as well as officers from the
current and upcoming Senate including
Auleb, Knox, and Pelcher, in order to discuss
the positioning process and to determine the
best way to phrase the survey questions and
what questions to highlight when they are
brought to students.
In order to determine the primary unique
qualities of Guilford that will be addressed
in the survey, philanthropic studies were
administered by Campbell and Company,
and online surveys were conducted.
According to an announcement on the
Beacon, "Analysisofsurveyresultshighlighted
Guilford's competitive advantages: Quaker
heritage, politically active campus, liberal
environment, academic excellence, social
responsibility, small classes, practical liberal
arts education, community and meaningful
faculty /student relationships."
"It's great that Advancement has started a
dialogue with students on how their school
is marketed to the world," ^aid Community
Senate community and student concerns
chair senior Chris Pugliese. "Asking students
about how to market the school opens up
a conversation on what Guilford means to
people individually and collectively."