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Students now have the choice to curb the cost of a tuition fee by taking part in a month-long competition between residence halls to conserve energy.
“Hopefully, by giving students some control over the electricity they use, they will conserve and prevent future energy fees, saving them and the University of Maine money,” said Scott Wilkerson, a UMaine sustainability officer.
Common Cents, the name of the Sustainability Office’s energy related education and outreach activities, is an attempt to educate students about energy conservation by giving them the power to lower energy costs and earn money for their hall governing board.
The project is a partnership with the administration’s Energy Conservation Committee. The idea behind it is to help UMaine reduce its consumption of electricity and save the university money while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“I see residents leaving lights and televisions on all the time when they are not there,” Hancock resident Jeff Bowen said. “If people actually knew the more they waste money the more we have to pay, then maybe they wouldn’t do it.”
The Sustainability Office wanted to start the project with students in residence halls, as opposed to employees, because students have to shoulder the cost of energy. For the past two years students have been assessed an energy fee of $2 per credit hour due to the increasing cost of maintaining electricity on campus. According to UMaine’s Web site, the university’s consumption of energy rose from 30.2 million kilowatt hours in 1998 to 35.2 million kilowatt hours in 2001. This resulted in a cost of $3.9 million in energy consumption for the 2001 fiscal year.
“We want to raise consciousness about electricity conservation and the real impact of not conserving electricity,” Wilkerson said. “By doing this, it will hopefully instill some good habits for the students in the future.”
Residents On Campus has supported the project. The dorm that saves the most energy from March 24 until April 20, as compared with the billing cycle from the same time span in 2002, will receive 50 percent of the value of the electricity saved paid to the hall governing board, a commemorative shirt for each occupant and drawings for the occupants of the winning dorm for prizes donated from local businesses, such as the Bear Brew Pub, Margarita’s and Old Town Canoe.
“Hopefully the incentive will help students take conserving energy more seriously,” said Elizabeth Hansen, a Stodder Hall resident.
If the project succeeds, Wilkerson said he hopes to expand the program next year by having Common Cents run for the entire semester as opposed to a month. He wants to increase the rewards to the winning dorm with 100 percent of the electricity value saved, 75 percent to second place, and 50 percent to the third place and include more individual prizes for all on-campus residents.
“Students always complain about the many fees they have to pay,” said Rebecca Martin, a-second year environmental science major. “But what better way to make them shut up than by giving them the power to change things?”
