Drive For Green Plan Memo


To: Prof. Jared Grogan

From: Drive For Green Team

Date: March 28, 2015

Subject: The Plan Memo

 

 

 

Our Purpose:

We will create a feasibility study on ways to improve funding for Wayne State's green sustainability initiative and how it is handled in the current committee.  The Office of Sustainability was created on 2011.  However, lately, the progression on making Wayne State University greener has been very slow due to lack of funding.  Wayne State does not have the funding to create new greener changes.  How the money is being distributed to the Office of Sustainability is a mystery and funds received per year is very small. Our goal is to provide with two to three potential projects to help support the funding and the process.  We will find ways to increase the funding for new projects and we create a feasible committee and its bylaws.  The audience is composed of Larry Fedor (Director of Energy Management), the Board of Governors, and the Facilities Planning and Management Group, and Professor Jared Grogan.

 

 

Research Process for Funding:

Our research begins with a set of interview questions for Larry Fedor.  This is one of our primary research sources.  These questions help explain how the Office of Sustainability is funded.  Listed below are the following:

  1. How does the Office of Sustainability get their funding today?
  2. How much do does the Office of Sustainability get on average per year? 
  3. What is the Michigan Economic Growth Corporation (MEGC) Grant?
  4. How much help is the MEGC Grant?

 

From here we ask this one question: what funding plan really works in other universities?  This question can be found through online academic blogs, academic newsletters, academic blogs and public news articles as our secondary research sources.  Using these sources we found that implementing an extra small fee could help increase the funding for green related projects in Wayne State.  Also, we discovered that self-replenishing fees could also help.

 

But before we conclude with our feasible solutions we want to ask the public regarding the possibility of paying extra through one's tuition here in Wayne State to help the funding.  This can only be done through a typical survey with a set of questions.  This survey is another primary research source.

 

 

Research Process for a New Committee:

Again, we start with interview questions for Larry Fedor as our primary research source.  We want to know how the committee for sustainability works in Wayne State.  Questions are as followed:

  1. Who is in the committee?
  2. How are they selected? 
  3. How long is one's work cycle in the committee?
  4. How often do you meet per month?
  5. What topics are discussed in these meetings?
  6. What are the current bylaws of the committee? 

 

We then find solutions through similar secondary research sources (listed above).  Our focus here is to find the best practice of creating a new committee and what bylaws should be implemented.  These are found through examples other universities have.

 

 

Our Criteria:

To determine what's the appropriate fee towards funding, we look at the approval rate of different fee percentages other universities utilize. We use set our ranges from the smallest percent fee per credit hour to the largest.  We then ask people through our survey what works for them.  This will give us a ball park as to the appropriate extra fee Wayne State can use.

 

In researching our secondary sources, we evaluate whether or not they are credible.  Things to consider whether a secondary source is credible (Montecino, 1998):

  1. Authors' qualifications
  2. The organization the author is associated with
  3. Whether or not the source is peer edited
  4. Whether or not the source is currently up to date
  5. Whether or not the source is biased and full of opinions

 

 

Team Member Responsibilities:

A charter is created detailing what is expected for each team member.  Each member must follow these guidelines to ensure that the project is done on time and successfully.  Not following these guidelines may hurt the overall success of the project and may lead to possible team elimination.

 

                   

 

Ryan Thai is the team leader.  His responsibilities are to update the website with necessary materials, set up meetings and their minutes, check the progression of everyone's work, and let everyone know of new updates.  Everyone is responsible for his/her work.  Also, every work is opened for peer editing.             

 

 

List of Possible Secondary Research Sources:

Funding Sources:

 


Dedicated Student Fees for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://www.aashe.org/resources/mandatory-student-fees-renewable-energy-and-energy-efficiency

 

 

Hewett, A. (2014, October 28). UCLA creates nation's largest self-replenishing fund for green projects. Retrieved March 21, 2015, from http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-creates-nations-largest-self-replenishing-fund-for-green-projects

   

 

Committee Creation Steps/Guidelines Sources:

 

Search Committee Guidelines. (2011). Retrieved March 26, 2015, from http://www.pace.edu/human-resources/search-committee-guidelines   

 

 

Student Sustainability Committee. Retrieved March 26, 2015, from http://studentaffairs.illinois.edu/about/committees-and-boards/student-sustainability-committee

 

 

Cited Sources:

Montecino, V. (1998). Helpful Hints to Help You Evaluate the Credibility of Web Resources. Retrieved March 27, 2015, from http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm