\u201cThe college is a special place,\u201d Romano says. \u201cThere are a lot of talented and ambitious folks, and they\u2019re very eager to rise to the challenge of climate change and resiliency.\u201d<\/p>\n
The solar system<\/strong><\/p>\n In the spring semester, TCNJ installed five solar arrays, a collection of solar panels designed to generate electricity. The panels exist on canopies over two parking lots, with more planned for the roofs of four buildings, including Brower Student Center. Below the parking lot canopies, TCNJ will install chargers for electric cars, a nod to the forward-looking nature of the college\u2019s sustainability efforts. Referring to the college\u2019s goal to decarbonize by 2040, Romano says TCNJ\u2019s sustainability efforts could serve as a model for other institutions \u201cby demonstrating practical solutions here on campus that may be employed elsewhere, what we refer to as \u2018campus-as-lab.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Romano says the solar array system is expected to produce three megawatts of electricity \u2014 roughly half the peak electric demand campuswide \u2014 while reducing TCNJ\u2019s annual energy costs by nearly $300,000. The college has entered into a 15-year agreement with a private solar energy developer to build and operate the solar arrays, which are expected to reduce annual carbon emissions by nearly two million tons. Because developers of solar energy projects benefit from federal tax credits and state regulatory incentives, Romano says, all the power produced by the solar arrays will be free to the college for the duration of the agreement.<\/p>\n Taking a look at landscaping<\/strong><\/p>\n A new landscaping policy is designed to introduce more native plant species across the campus while reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers. The policy came about through an alliance of TCNJ professors, students, alumni, and staff and with guidance from the Environmental Sustainability Council. Miriam Shakow, a professor of anthropology, says the policy will increase the biodiversity of pollinators on campus.<\/p>\n \u201cSomewhere around 30% of food requires pollination,\u201d Shakow says. \u201cTo support pollinators, you need native plants.\u201d<\/p>\n Hannah Beckett \u201923, a self-designed major in environmental sustainability, helped to draft the new landscaping plan. She says the policy sets forth a series of \u201clarger goals and ideas.\u201d Among the policy\u2019s objectives: reducing carbon emissions by vehicles used for landscape maintenance; lowering the cost of maintenance in part by reducing the use of chemicals and labor; and using native plants in 90% of the new plantings on campus by 2024.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a student group, People4Plants, organized a day of planting in April by Green Hall. The group\u2019s president, Angela Mo \u201923, a biology major, says People4Plants is focused on creating spaces that will become ecologically active. \u201cThe plants we put in our gardens will hopefully provide habitats for beneficial insects and increase biodiversity on campus, even on a small scale,\u201d Mo says. \u201cWe are also looking to plant rain gardens, which are a type of garden that is specifically designed to absorb water. We are hoping that by planting rain gardens across campus, it will limit the amount of mulch that sometimes muddies the paths on rainy days.\u201d<\/p>\n An energy exam<\/strong><\/p>\n What do you get when you cross a class of accounting students with a class of computer science students? In the case of Bih-Horng Chiang\u2019s and John DeGood\u2019s classes, you get a National Science Foundation-funded examination of the energy supply and demand on the TCNJ campus, including the college\u2019s vehicle fleet.<\/p>\n This spring, Chiang\u2019s and DeGood\u2019s students \u2014 nearly 100 in all \u2014 with additional direction from Romano, met regularly to determine the most financially and environmentally efficient ways to manage TCNJ\u2019s current and future energy use. Chiang says her accounting students benefited by stepping out of their comfort zone to work side by side with DeGood\u2019s computer science students. \u201cThe process of completing this cross discipline collaboration project allowed students to apply accounting principles in a practical way and exercise their critical thinking and communication skills,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Working with Romano, Chiang says, her students \u201cdeveloped a deeper sense of campus sustainability and a more tangible idea of the efficiency of campus energy and vehicle utilization.\u201d<\/p>\n The students built databases that included 1,400 data points taken from electric meter readings across campus and historical temperature information provided by the National Weather Service. \u201cWe really challenged the students,\u201d DeGood says. \u201cWe gave them this problem in a very open-ended fashion, and we asked them to pose the right questions.\u201d<\/p>\n For Romano, the students\u2019 work \u2014 cost accounting, database development \u2014 has been central to informing TCNJ\u2019s energy strategy. \u201cThey\u2019re helping the college assess our environmental and financial impact,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Pictures: Peter Murphy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The college welcomes its first sustainability czar, and he hits the campus running. Paul Romano describes the evolution of his career in three chapters: his start as a conventional architect, his research conducted at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and his efforts to reduce carbon emissions on behalf of Con Edison, the New York […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":296,"featured_media":11921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/296"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11897"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11949,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11897\/revisions\/11949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Energy_2735_DSC0184_v5-1024x684.jpg\")