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Scholar House hosts event marking year anniversary
A celebration held on Oct. 6 at 3 p.m. marked the first anniversary of the Gladys and Lewis “Sonny” Bass Campus of the Louisville Scholar House.
The facility provides affordable housing, education and childcare for single parents who receive low incomes. At the event, Provost Shirley Willihnganz and the dean of the College of Education and Human Development, Blake Haselton, were special guest speakers.
Lewis “Sonny” Bass is a philanthropist in Louisville. He and his wife, Gladys, donated $1 million to the cause in October of 2007. The $13.8 million project is a joint effort between the Family Scholar House (formerly Project Women), the University of Louisville and the Kentucky Housing Corporation. It is operated by the College of Education and Human Development at U of L.
This center saw great enthusiasm before its October 2008 opening, by triggering a waiting list of nearly 300 applicants. Today, all 56 apartments are occupied. Its childcare center cares for children from six weeks to five years old, and is nearly full. These children include the children of the parents that live in the facility, along with the children of U of L’s faculty, staff and students.
The Gladys and Lewis “Sonny” Bass Campus of Louisville Scholar House is currently located at the corner of Fourth and Bloom streets.
U of L ties Berea for Kentucky’s top green school
Graded by a non-profit organization that monitors environmental sustainability at different colleges and universities, the University of Louisville received a B+ on their report card. This ties U of L with Berea College as Kentucky’s top green school.
For the fourth year in a row, the university has improved its grade issued by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. This Rockefeller Philanthropy Project rates 332 schools throughout the U.S. and Canada on the eco-friendliness of the school.
The only other Kentucky school to have scored as high on their 2010 report card from the organization was Berea, which also earned a B+.
U of L merited an A in five of the nine categories, including: administration, climate change and energy, transportation, endowment transparency and investment priorities.
President Dr. James R. Ramsey signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2008. This is a campaign that involves more than 600 higher education schools, in order to curb global warming. In the past year, U of L has begun a $21.7 million project to cut its energy use, gathered its first report on greenhouse gas emissions, created a Sustainability Council and hired a new coordinator for environmental issues.
The strategic plan for U of L standardizes many attainable goals for the university, through the year 2020. These practices include increasing its score in the Sustainability, Tracking and Assessment Rating system that is being improved upon by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Student group to offer coal mining film and discussion
A student group that works to promote environmental sustainability at the University of Louisville will show a film on the Belknap campus on Thursday, Oct. 16 at 8 p.m. in the Gheens Science Hall and Raunch Planetarium. The documentary, titled “Mountaintop Removal,” is about the negative effects of coal mining. This event is sponsored by Group Recycling and Sustainable Solutions, also known as GRASS.
Originally broadcast in 2007, the documentary was produced by Louisville-native Gill Holland. Holland will attend the 74-minute showing and lead a twenty-minute discussion afterward. This film has won many awards at various film festivals and shows how strip mining in the Appalachia of West Virginia is affecting not only the landscape, but the people as well. It also includes interviews from environmental activists, geologists and an official from the West Virginia Coal Association.
The showing of this film is part of the 2009 Bluegrass Bioneers Conference on campus, which is running from Oct. 16 to 18 and is organized by the Center for Environmental Education at U of L. The event is free and open to the public.
