Pitt Green Team on Patrol for Sustainability Education

Be on the lookout during Orientation Week for 105 green-clad members of Pitt’s new Green Team, a pilot project initiated by Pitt’s Office of Residence Life, Office of First Year Experience, and Department of Housing and Food Services.

The initiative aims to provide students with a greater understanding of the University’s emphasis on sustainability—and to provide first-year students with an immediate leadership opportunity on campus.

The Green Team members—all incoming freshmen—moved onto campus a day early to be trained by Residence Life staff on how to help their freshmen peers make the moving-in process “more green.”

Green Team members will be stationed at specific points on campus where students and their families can drop off their empty cardboard moving boxes to be recycled rather than thrown away: at the Quad, in the Towers lobby, on Lothrop Hall’s patio, on Sutherland Hall’s patio, and in the area behind Forbes Hall. Donated boxes earn fun giveaway prizes as well as coupons to various places on and around campus.

This is also an educational initiative: Green Team members will walk around campus and visit residence halls to talk with students—and distribute postcards with sustainability facts.

“We’re trying to show that being environmentally responsible is not just the latest trend, but something the University really values,” says Amy Reed, a resident director in the Office of Residence Life. “We’re hoping that by starting off freshman orientation and campus move-in days with this emphasis on going green, we’ll be able to set the tone of awareness for the rest of the year.”