Case study reflection
Nicole and I took on the Waste Management portion of the STARS assessment, and after discussing with Alethea on the project, Nicole and I did some additional research on other schools that also participate in a move out project. In the past, UNE has created our own form of the move out program that fits best with our community, we ran into some struggle with the program but have been working with the UNE community. One of the main problems the university came in contact with was the amount of trash left behind at the end of the year that was not donatable that piled up and became a burden on us. Last year, the University of New England’s eco-reps got together with the Sustainability office and set up collection bins in each of the residential buildings. This would help collect everyone’s unwanted items in a location for the members of the move out program to come along and collect. We ran into issues with students leaving behind trash, and non-donatable food items which made it extremely difficult for the volunteers to sort through and dispose of it properly.
Nicole and I found two schools that participate in a moveout program, and have modified it over the years and have a pretty good set up for their school. Northwestern University participates in the “Take it or Leave it” program, they work with University and Student Services to help make the moveout day stress free. They partnered with a moving crew that will come and collect all of the boxes, transport them to an air-conditioned storage unit, and bring the boxes back to the student’s new address the following fall. This method has shown great results and many of the students are pleased with the care of their belongings. They market this program a few months before finals start allowing the students time to gather their belongings together for the movers to take it off their hands. Hanging signs around the campus explaining the program and what they need to do. Although this program has proven to be successful, the university has also run into trouble with not having enough people to volunteer their time to help move the program smoothly.
Bowdoin College was another establishment that Nicole and I took a look at, “Give & Go” has partnered with goodwill and donate all usable items to them at the end of the year. We were unable to get in contact with Bowdoin due to the coronavirus closing the university down, but we were able to retrieve some information from their website. Bowdoin also held a yard sale for the students to donate their belongings which the chance to also purchase other items that were donated. The college relied heavily on the employees of Goodwill to come in and handle the donatable because the college also didn’t have enough volunteers. In similarity to UNE, Bowdoin highlights environmental stewardship and has a smaller student body.
Rough Draft Project Proposal Reflection
During the academic year, my partner Nicole and I took on the waste management portion of the STARS Report, with the information we gathered from STARS we were able to join in on the Move-out program at UNE. Completing this software program before taking on the move-out program gave us a nice starting point for our project proposal and how we move forward in the future. We found out that even though UNE donates a large amount of material to goodwill each year, we didn’t have a proper way of measurement which made it very hard to track the growth rates of the items collected. I found it insightful doing other research on different schools that takes on their own form of the Move-out program to get information on how we can make our program better. Actually sitting down and writing out the proposal was a challenge for me, it made me think more in-depth about what needs to be done for future projects. Sending in my rough draft I felt that I missed a lot and wasn’t able to express my feeling properly rather than me sitting with other people having a discussion. After meeting with Alethea. I was able to wrap my head around the true meaning of the proposal.
Project Proposal Feedback Reflection
As I went over my rough draft, took the revisions from Alethea, and started to write my final proposal; I’m still unsure if I covered everything in my project. Receiving the feedback from Alethea helped me understand a little more of what needed to be in the proposal, I hoped that I was able to cover it all. I was able to get more information from other schools that helped me write my proposal, Northwestern and Bowdoin had some great ideas that we can implement into our Move-out program. I’m feeling confident about my final work, I feel after discussing more with Alethea I was able to provide a better description and justifications for the project proposal. I was struggling to come up with the main goals and objectives for this project, I felt like I was taking it too far and I was having trouble with keeping this project simple. For the time being, having a simple plan to go from is a lot easier than trying to come up with ideas that we could bring in the future. Even if we have a solid plan of action, problems can appear down the line that we didn’t expect. I’m fully confident with the team involved with the move-out program that we will be able to have quick solutions if we run into any problems.
