Environmental Audit of CSU, Chico
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2000
Joe Wills
530-898-4143
Mark Stemen
530-898-5428
Environmental Audit of CSU, Chico
On Friday April 21 at 10:00 a.m. students from the Associated Student Environmental Affairs Council and the CSU, Chico Environmental Studies Program will release their Environmental Audit of California State University, Chico.
Campus “environmental audits” first came into being in 1989 when April Smith and a group of graduate students in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles completed the first study that comprehensively examined the environment of a college campus. Their environmental audit project began as a thesis topic in environmental policy, and it produced a report titled “In Our Backyard: Environmental Issues at UCLA, Proposals for Change, and the Institution’s Potential as a Model.”
In 1992 the students, with the support of the Student Environmental Action Coalition, developed a guide titled “Campus Ecology” for use as a nationwide blueprint to study college campuses. Students around the country are using this audit outline to analyze the impacts of their universities. In 1995-96, a group of students from the Associated Students Environmental Affairs Council used this outline to complete the first environmental audit of CSU, Chico. The 1999-00 updated audit followed the same format. The audit asks 200 questions about all aspects of campus policy, and the document to be released is over 50 pages long.
The press conference will be held at 10 a.m. on April 21, 2000 at the Environmental Action and Resource Center located at 418 Ivy St.
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