Right down the road from St. Thomas, Macalaster College reached a milestone in sustainability. In 2009, Macalaster opened the doors of Markim Hall, its new LEED platinum certified building.
Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED provides building owners and operators a framework for identifying practical and measurable green building design, construction and maintenance solutions.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops went behind closed doors at its fall meeting Wednesday to discuss what action it should take to increase oversight of the nation’s more than 200 Roman Catholic colleges and universities, which includes St. Thomas.
At least two people are dead and 21 are injured after a tour bus ran off a southern Minnesota interstate and rolled over in a ditch, officials said.
Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesman Andy Skoogman has confirmed the deaths from the crash that happened about 3:30 p.m. today just two miles west of Austin on Interstate 90.
[slidepress gallery=’smellystoryphotos-111809′] Five days a week, Pete Barthold from Barthold Recycling Inc., comes to St. Thomas to pick up the hundreds of gallons of leftover food. The scraps from the St. Thomas cafeteria help feed nearly 3,000 pigs.
This is News in :90 for Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009.
Students for Justice and Peace held a “die-in” in the Lower Quad Tuesday to silently protest the School of the Americas.
The St. Thomas cafeteria produces nearly 5,000 meals each day. With the high number of people being served, it is common to see nearly 200 gallons of wasted food at the end of the day.
In an effort to become more sustainable, the cafeteria puts the wasted food to good use. Scraps from the cafeteria help feed nearly 3,000 pigs at a pig farm just north of Andover in St. Francis.
St. Thomas students in addition to Hamline and St. Kate’s particpants staged a “die-in” in the Lower Quad to protest the School of the Americas.
[slidepress gallery=’nin-11.17.09′] This is News in :90 for Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009.
St. Thomas received a ‘B’ for its food and recycling program from greenreportcard.org and it seems as if St. Thomas is falling behind, as neighboring schools Macalester College and the University of Minnesota both received an ‘A-‘.
The food and recycling category examines dining service programs by giving points based on the quantity and availability of organic, sustainably produced and locally grown food.
Across the nation, more than one in five college students take at least one class online during their college career. With more online options available, this number is expected to increase.
Naked juice bottles and Starbucks coffee cups appear to be recyclable. But the containers cannot be tossed into recycling bins in the Twin Cities and that has been causing confusion for many.
This is News in :90 for Monday, Nov. 16, 2009.
The St. Thomas administration is finding ways to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to its advantage. The New Media Initiatives Group (NMIG) was recently developed by the administration.
For the second year in a row, St. Thomas received an overall C+ on the college sustainability report card. Meanwhile, the University of Minnesota, Carleton College and Macalester College each received an ‘A-‘.
