Office moves to former Perk location

Just as Earth week at CSB+SJU comes to an end, the Sustainability Office takes on its new location and will officially open its doors on this Friday.

The Sustainability Office officially joined CSB+SJU offices in 2019 and since then has continued to grow its presence more on campus. The office has worked to coordinate efforts toward environmental, equitable and economical sustainability across both campuses. They are driven toward the needs of students and aim to provide for the needs of everyone. Moving into the new space has been a work in progress for the sustainability staff and students involved. Lots of time, effort and resources have been put into making this space viable for its purposes, as well as visible to the student body.

“It’s been a work in progress, but it’s been wonderful,” said Kyle Rauch, head of the Sustainability Office. “We’re getting settled in here. The space will be well used. It’s got this kind of workspace for our student teams to be working on their programs and projects, but we’ve also got this kind of front meant to be a gathering and socializing place for students to come together.”

The new office space, located in Clemens Library, is in an area of heavy traffic during the day where many students pass by, giving a new light and visibility to sustainability here on campus.

“We were so used to working in the back corner,” said Maya Ricard, CSB sophomore and Sustainability Office worker. “It has been nice to get a little bit more centrally located. I feel like people can see what we’re actually doing.”

Students like SJU junior Kaidan Popp have already experienced personal impact due to the new office location.

“The office was actually the first place that I got the idea to join the team. I had been looking for a job for a couple of months and saw the sign in the window here saying that I could apply. I finally did, and it ended up that a lot of stuff is just connected to what I like to do and is related to general sustainability,” Popp said.

Popp noted that being a student who identifies with a school that values sustainability is important to him and thinks that this new office space will hold great opportunity for growth and intake within our community.

“This space is a really good first step to create an image for people like us and what we want to do and what our goals for the future are,” Popp said.

The Sustainability Office has many plans for the future of the new space. As things are still being added and the process underway, the Sustainability Office has teamed with art students to create a mural for the space and CSB+SJU archives to retrieve photos of the campuses that represent the brothers and the sisters doing stewardship activities.

“Sustainability fits into our Benedictine value of stewardship, so we want to bring all those values within the space. We want it to feel like a place where everyone belongs. Everyone can be and should be involved in the conversation of sustainability, and that’s what we want to emulate here,” Ricard said.

Earth week has kept the Sustainability Office busy and working hard all week. Tabling, community events, gift basket giveaways and much more will come to a conclusion with the grand opening of the office on Friday evening. The opening will be a gathering within and around the new space with music and conversation about all the things the Sustainability Office has to offer. The new location is just the beginning for the Sustainability Office, as they will be releasing monthly newsletters, as well.

“Sustainability isn’t just an office or a place, but rather a principle, and it’s something we all have a stake in, whether you’re an art or science student, working in dining or just passing by, we all intersect with sustainability one way or another. In that mindset, we can make decisions that are good for ourselves and the environment,” Rauch said.

For more information and to hear about Sustainability Office events, follow their Instagram: @csbsjusustainability.