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The Medical University of South Carolina, USC and Clemson have joined in a new five-year, $4 million effort to promote environmentally responsible practices at state college campuses.

The Sustainable Universities Initiative, as the program is called, is governed by representatives of all three universities.

The project seeks to maintain and enrich quality of life without reducing resources and opportunities for future generations. That is, to incorporate sustainability into the teaching, research and operations of higher education.

Funding for the project comes from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, which is affiliated with a Danish company that has a window-making plant in Greenwood.

“The Rasmussen Foundation's philosophy is that our graduates will be tomorrow's leaders, and the best hope of ensuring that environmental threats to human and global health are recognized and addressed lies with them,” said Michael Schmidt, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and one of the principal architects of the initiative. “They want an understanding of the interconnection between the economy, the environment, health and other social considerations to become part of the culture of our universities.”

The grant will promote “green thinking” in a variety of ways, including faculty development, internships, and incentives to change university operations, said Trish Jerman, manager of the initiative. Innovations on each campus will be shared with other institutions around the state.

MUSC is in a particularly good position to use the grant to influence medical education across the country, according to Schmidt. “We have several of the nation's experts in environmental threats to children's health here at MUSC, and they're working with us to develop specific environmental pediatrics programs for medical students,” he added.

MUSC has already taken several significant steps to “green” operations, including a project spearheaded by Christine R. VonKolnitz of the Physical Plant to convert animal bedding and food waste to fertilizer using vermicomposting—worms—rather than traditional disposal methods. VonKolnitz's plan will send up to 300 pounds of waste per day to a composting unit where worms will process the waste and produce nutrient-rich castings. The castings will be tested for pathogens and nutrient content, then used as fertilizer on MUSC's grounds.

Another effort initiated by VonKolnitz was a demonstration program sponsored by MUSC's Library and Learning Center to test recycled paper in copiers, fax machines and printers. After a three month trial, the library found that comments from users were uniformly positive and that it had saved $69 on the 20 cartons of recycled paper used during the period. If extended campuswide, savings would be even more significant.

“This is all about changing how we think about resources and energy and health and the environment, and that kind of change doesn't happen overnight,” Schmidt said. “But if we get enough people thinking about these things, we'll start to see a difference.”