SGA’s Green Innovation Competition flaunts student solutions for sustainability
Last year’s edition featured eight student research proposals aimed to find solutions for sustainability concerns on campus. This year, students will have the chance to implement their initiative instead of earning a funding grant like last year's winning proposal. Joe Zhao | Design Edtior
Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.
Syracuse University’s Student Government Association will host its second annual Green Innovation Competition on Friday.
During the competition, organized by SGA’s Sustainability Forum, groups of one to four students present on-campus sustainability proposals to a panel of judges comprised of SU faculty. The winning proposal will be supported by SGA and the forum as it’s implemented next fall.
“The goal of the competition is to encourage students from diverse backgrounds, from all over the university to come up with solutions to address sustainability concerns within the campus and community, both short term and long term,”said Bridget Dougherty, an SU student and co-organizer. “It’s really important, especially in the age of climate change, to adapt to our environment.”
This year, the winner won’t receive an explicit funding grant from SU due to broader university budget constraints — a major change from last year’s competition, said Mark Bauerschmidt, a junior studying environmental engineering and chemistry and a co-director of the Sustainability Forum.
Instead, the winning proposal will be “fully supported” by SGA, which plans to use its “lots of connections” to help the winners implement their initiative.
“While there’s not necessarily a monetary prize associated with this, there’s definitely still a lot of opportunity to seek the implementation of the initiative,” he said. “Along with the resources we have from the Center of Excellence and the ISC, and to whatever extent possible, the broader Student Government Association will help try to implement that initiative on campus.”
SGA President German Nolivos said initiatives like the competition are “vital” for raising environmental awareness in a statement to The Daily Orange. He also said the competition helps promote sustainable practices and encourages innovation on campus and in the broader community.
Bauerschmidt echoed Nolivos, and said the forum builds a competitive environment, allowing only the best proposals to win. He also said the competition expedites the university’s ongoing sustainability goals.
Unlike last spring’s competition, when the forum was “trying to get off the ground,” Bauerschimdt said this year’s competition will have more “depth.” He credited local sustainability organizations such as the Syracuse Center of Excellence and the Institute for Sustainability Engagement in helping to organize and promote this year’s event.
“This brings about a lot more opportunities to make policy changes to campus that in the long run increase our sustainability,” Bauerschmidt said. “We have a lot of different efforts across campus to try to promote sustainability in different ways, but this competition I see as a way to kind of bring everybody together towards a common goal.”
Dougherty, a sophomore majoring in environment, sustainability and policy, international relations and policy studies, said she wanted to take a more active role this year to further sustainability efforts. Her favorite part of last year’s competition was how it brought together students from “all facets of the university” — a trend that she hopes continues.
The competition’s inclusivity expands beyond SU’s campus, Bauerschimdt said. While the competition’s main focus is on improving SU’s sustainability, he encouraged participation from ESF students, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between the two schools. He also encouraged SU to adopt some of ESF’s sustainability models.
“At ESF, they do a lot with sustainability, and have a lot of really good initiatives,” Bauerschmidt said. “Part of this competition, and part of what the forum as a whole is trying to do, is trying to bring some of those initiatives and apply those to Syracuse’s campus to try to make us as an overall community, more sustainable.”
Last year’s competition featured eight student research proposals addressing sustainability concerns on campus. A panel of SU faculty judges voted on the proposals, selecting then sophomores Josephine Crow and Lilyan Minicozzi’s project for first place and awarding them a $15,000 grant.
Dougherty said she believes the competition will remain just as impactful without the university’s funding, noting the new format would offer the forum and SGA “more flexibility” when implementing the initiative on campus.
The forum plans to continue building up the competition each year, she added, and aims to make a lasting impact — with or without the funding from the university.
“There’s definitely been an increase in awareness,” Dougherty said. “We do intend to make it bigger and better every semester, and we have a few more connections this year that we think could go further for next year.”
