March 22, 2021Arbor Day Foundation Honors Ramapo College of New Jersey with 2020 Tree Campus Higher Education® Recognition
Lincoln, Neb. (March 22, 2021) – Ramapo College of New Jersey was honored with 2020 Tree Campus Higher Education® recognition by the Arbor Day Foundation for its commitment to effective urban forest management.
“Tree Campuses and their students set examples for not only their student bodies but the surrounding communities showcasing how trees create a healthier environment,” said Dan Lambe, president of the Arbor Day Foundation. “Because of Ramapo College’s participation, air will be purer, water cleaner and students and faculty will be surrounded by the shade and beauty trees provide.”
The Tree Campus Higher Education program honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals. Ramapo College achieved the title by meeting Tree Campus Higher Education’s five standards, which include maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning project. Currently there are 403 campuses across the United States with this recognition.
The Arbor Day Foundation has helped campuses throughout the country plant thousands of trees, and Tree Campus Higher Education colleges and universities invested more than $51 million in campus forest management last year. This work directly supports the Arbor Day Foundation’s Time for Trees initiative — an unprecedented effort to plant 100 million trees in forests and communities and inspire 5 million tree planters by 2022. Last year, Tree Campus Higher Education schools have collectively planted 39,178 trees and engaged 81,535 tree planters — helping us work toward these critical goals.
More information about the program is available at treecampushighered.org.
About the Arbor Day Foundation: The Arbor Day Foundation is a million-member nonprofit conservation and education organization with the mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees. More information is available at arborday.org.
Categories: campus sustainability, Sustainability
March 20, 2021SGA Senate Unanimously Passes Divestment Task Force Bill
By Ben Hopper
A new bill to create a divestment task force was passed by the Ramapo Student Government Association (SGA) on Monday, March 15. This bill, proposed by Secretary of Sustainability Zoë Tucker-Borrut and introduced by Senate Vice President Nicholas Bykov, passed unanimously with a vote of 17-0-0 in favor of it.
Divestment is the act of shifting investments from going towards fossil fuels to being put towards more environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives instead. Divestment brings a number of benefits with it including working to combat climate change through eliminating the use of fossil fuels. Along with its environmentally conscious benefits divestment has been shown to not bring any negative financial side effects with it.
In Tucker-Borrut’s presentation for divestment she used a quote from environmentalist Bill McKibben to illustrate the importance of college’s getting involved with divestment, “If their college’s endowment is invested in fossil-fuel stock, then their educations are being subsidized by investments that guarantee that they won’t have much of a planet on which to make use of their degree.”
As well Bykov has made clear the importance of divestment for colleges and Ramapo specifically saying, “As the Climate Crisis continues to worsen, it is becoming more and more important that Colleges and Universities divest their fundings out of companies with ties to fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will only become more risky investments as time passes, while the world looks to green energy and sustainable initiatives as the future. Divestment is especially important for Ramapo College, as it would illustrate the College’s commitment to sustainability as is expressed in our mission statement”
The divestment task force will be united by a singular goal that being to divest the fund of the Ramapo College Foundation shifting these investments away from fossil fuels. As well the divestment task force will work to create an investment strategy in one year in order to present it to the Board of Governors. The bill suggests that this investment strategy will work to be more financially beneficial than the investment strategy currently being considered by the board of directors.
The divestment task force will be formed after Summer and will hold meetings during both the Fall and Spring semesters.
Categories: Sustainability
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