As a Top Ten finisher, EMU was awarded the grand prize of a one-year license to equip two buildings on campus with competition sponsor 鈥檚 energy monitoring hardware and software.

The accomplishment was particularly notable. “As a first-time participant, EMU placed solidly in the top 10 reducers, consuming 21% less electricity in just three weeks,鈥� said Lucid CEO Vladi Shunturov. 鈥淭he commitment from EMU鈥檚 students and staff is truly inspiring.”

The win is 鈥渁n affirmation of the 草莓社区’s long-running commitment to reducing our school’s energy use,鈥� said campus sustainability coordinator .

The end result of the CCN competition not only raised awareness about individual consumer habits, but resulted in a substantial savings of resources and finances. The competition monitored 1,374 buildings used by approximately 345,000 student, faculty and staff, and reported a total savings of 1.9 million kilowatt hours, 394,000 gallons of water, and $290,000.

According to the CCN website, this is the equivalent of removing 182 homes from the grid for one year, saving 1.5 million one-liter bottles of water, and averting 2.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

CCN, in its fifth year, is hosted by the at the , Lucid, the and the .

Campus ‘climate’ contributes

From March 8-28, ten campus buildings were monitored for energy usage. Roselawn came out on top with a 40.2 percent reduction, followed by Maplewood (39.7 percent) and Elmwood (37.3), Hartzler Library (28) and Cedarwood (23.2).

The results make sense to Lantz-Trissel: such as Roselawn, and the LEED-certified dormitories 鈥渁re carefully designed to heat and cool efficiently in small zones, where older buildings have fewer thermostats and less flexibility and response to users or outside temperature changes.鈥�

However, plays a large role in this success. 鈥淲e also have a strong community ethic to conserve and care for creation, which means in a competition the community responds to the challenge to reduce energy or recycle and EMU usually outperforms our peer schools.鈥�

, whose job is to implement energy management, efficiency and sustainability measures as EMU鈥檚 building automation coordinator, had some idea of how competitive faculty, staff and residents were getting when he heard some voicing disappointment during March that 鈥渢heir building wasn鈥檛 doing better.鈥�

That bodes well for next year, Sachs said, when he plans to implement a social media campaign to raise awareness and get more people involved.

The competition also includes regional sub-competitions, such as the Big Ten Unplugged, the New York Negawatt Challenge, the California State University Conservation League, and the Campus ConseRVAtion Nationals, featuring three Richmond area schools.

Sachs hopes to invite Shenandoah Valley area universities and colleges to compete next year. He鈥檚 also pondering a friendly rivalry among Mennonite colleges.

鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing to watch the influence of CCN continue to grow,鈥� said Chelsea Hodge, director of programs at Lucid. 鈥淓very year, more and more students and staff prove through CCN that they are committed to using behavior change tools to achieve short and long term reductions in their campuses鈥� carbon footprints.鈥�

Publicizing user habits

The grand prize of Lucid hardware and software will complement the monitoring system already present on campus, according to Sachs. Preliminary plans will enable a more public showcase of campus sustainability efforts, with television screens projecting constant data to building users.

鈥淲e were planning to place one monitor in the , which gets a lot of foot traffic and would be a nice feature for that building鈥檚 users,鈥� Sachs said, adding that he鈥檇 also like to track energy use and trends in the newly renovated building.

That feedback will help users adjust their behaviors, 鈥渕uch the same way a fitness monitoring app might help a person be more active, lose weight, or work to improve in a sport,鈥� says Lantz-Trissel. 鈥淏ut in just the same way as a fitness app, data monitoring is only so useful, and improvement is up to the habits and behaviors of the building’s occupants.鈥�

EMU has a history of engaging its competitive spirit towards sustainability efforts: the campus recently , and has .

Last year, the university was awarded a silver ranking by the , based on its sustainability initiatives in operations, curriculum, planning and other areas.

Bowman, historical librarian at 草莓社区, is a creature of habit. She follows the same sinuous route through Park View each time she rides: first south along South College Street, then north to the very tip of Harmony Heights, with frequent side jaunts, back-tracks and loop-鈥榬ounds to add more miles.

She usually rides at least eight miles, and has been recently adding more twists and turns to the route, trying to up the total while remaining within the relatively flat, quiet and friendly confines of Park View. If she gets back to the seminary and feels like tacking on a bit, she does loops of the parking lot, which is a good, strong tenth of a mile in perimeter.

As of July 19, four days before her 76^th birthday, she鈥檇 ridden 234 miles since May, as part of EMU鈥檚 contribution to the 鈥撀燼 nationwide effort to have 50,000 riders log a collective 10 million miles through the end of August.

At first, Bowman thought she鈥檇 just do it for fun. Then she discovered the online 鈥渓eader board鈥� that allows her to compare her mileage totals to other participants at EMU, and her competitive spirit kicked in.

鈥淚 figured if I could ride a couple times and get ahead of the next person, well I would do that. It鈥檚 been fun, and a challenge,鈥� she says.

The gently competitive aspect of the National Bike Challenge is part of its allure for other EMU bikers too.

鈥淚t definitely is motivating to look and see where other people are,鈥� says , EMU鈥檚 director of , currently trailing Bowman in the overall standings. 鈥淚f you see Lois Bowman beating you, it makes you want to put in some extra miles.鈥�

On her regular circuits, Bowman enjoys tracking the progress of a few homes under construction in the neighborhood. She gets a feel for who keeps up their yard and who doesn鈥檛. She鈥檚 become acquainted in passing with the people who spend their evenings outside as she rolls on by.

Bowman rides as often as she can, whenever she has a free evening and the weather鈥檚 kind. That means Monday is always out, because that鈥檚 the night she plays her fiddle at a country jam out west of town, and she 鈥渨ouldn鈥檛 miss that for anything.鈥� And the first Thursday of the month is out: HAM radio club. And the second Thursday of the month is out, too, another music jam at . But other nights, she usually bikes.

This started back in 2005, when Bowman would accompany her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren to Hillandale Park, where the grandkids were learning to ride their bikes. And when they got the hang of it, she felt like she wanted to keep up. So she paid a visit to Mole Hill Bikes in Dayton, where she bought a Giant, equipped with lights, mirror, computer, drink rack and 21 speeds, of which she uses about the easiest third.

Riding it does wonders for her strength, she鈥檚 noticed. She just feels good, and it has worked wonders for her back pain, she says. Everyone should try it.

After she and the grandkids began biking together, they rode the five-mile route at the fundraiser in 2006 and for the next couple years. Now her grandkids have gotten old enough that they鈥檝e lost interest in Bike Shenandoah, but Bowman鈥檚 still at.

The route gets harder up north, on the ascent to Harmony Heights toward the cul-de-sac beside EMU house. At the summit of a rolling hill on Park Road, Bowman gears down and accelerates. 鈥淟et 鈥榚r rip!鈥� she exclaims, leaning forward against the wind, topping out at 23 miles per hour.

She was nervous to be out on the bike at first. She says she鈥檚 been intimidated by a lot of the things she鈥檚 done in her life, like going to Harvard University, where she earned a master鈥檚 degree in Germanic languages in 1963. And she was intimidated about returning to Park View to join the faculty of what was then EMC, teaching Latin and German. But being intimidated, she says, is different than being unable 鈥� something she鈥檚 become more convinced of the older she gets.

鈥淧eople shouldn鈥檛 make excuses for their age, because you never know what you can do until you try it,鈥� she says. 鈥淒on鈥檛 back off of something just because it鈥檚 intimidating. Give it a try. Usually it鈥檚 not half as bad as you think it鈥檚 going to be.鈥�

In its final half, Bowman鈥檚 route winds around the apartment building neighborhoods near Food Lion. All this used to be fields when Bowman moved here, at age 12, in 1948. When she was a girl, she lived on Chicago Avenue and took piano lessons in the house that鈥檚 now the , a home for prisoners transitioning to freedom. She rode her bike, an ancient, single-speed hand-me-down, up the Mount Clinton Pike hill to get there, zigzagging across the road when the grade got too steep. Park View has 鈥渃hanged dramatically鈥� since then. It鈥檚 amazing how quickly the time鈥檚 gone by, says Bowman, now, decades later, traversing the same familiar terrain, again by bike.

Approaching mile eight, Lois makes a regular stop at the home of her sister, Ruth L. Burkholder, who lives along Park Road on the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community campus. Lois drinks a glass of Ginger Ale. She usually gets to her sister鈥檚 place partway through Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy!, and they chat for a minute, and then, she鈥檚 back on the bike, homeward bound, another nine miles in the books.