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.

Shantz had two choices: tear it down or renovate it. After consulting with, as Shantz puts it, 鈥渢he one-man maintenance department of Gordie Shantz,鈥� the decision was made.

Under his direction, youth group volunteers gutted the building, put on a fresh coat of paint, and turned it into a storage shed. The oldest permanent structure at Highland Retreat still stands.

This is a common problem among many camps with long histories and old buildings, Shantz realized. Maintenance teams must keep an eye on budgets and eco-friendly choices, while still being sensitive to architectural history.

Thus came the origin of a recent workshop, 鈥淣ew Wine in Old Wineskins,鈥� for maintenance teams from camps in the eastern region of the (MCA). The informative visit to 草莓社区 to learn about sustainability initiatives was facilitated by Ed Lehman, assistant physical plant director.

MCA, which was founded in 1960, is, 鈥渁 clearinghouse for directing and promoting Christian camping among Anabaptist/Mennonite conferences and congregations around the United States and Canada.鈥� Thirty-one North American camps are members, including Camp Men-O-Lan, the first Mennonite camp, located near Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

While the scale of EMU鈥檚 renovations are much larger than that required by the camps, EMU representatives, including building automation coordinator Greg Sachs ’03 and sustainability coordinator l ’00, could provide general trends that translate to a smaller scale.

After a Powerpoint presentation highlighting significant renovation projects at Roselawn, Suter Science Center, and the two LEED-certified dormitories, participants had a brisk discussion about issues related to their specific facilities: , which first began hosting guests in 1935, in New York; Highland Retreat, dating from 1958; and the newest facility to be represented, in Toano, Virginia, which started in 1984. A representative from also attended.

Camp Deerpark, which includes new buildings as well as some older structures that predate the current organization by several years, has a heating system fueled by a large wood stove and generators that run on overdrive during the cold northern winters, said maintenance director Sean McConaghay.

Among the valuable bits of information that Shantz gleaned from the visit is EMU鈥檚 20 percent cost model on new projects. For example, if a new building costs $100, then renovation for an old building should only be considered if the total cost is $80 or less.

Shantz also favored EMU鈥檚 five-to-seven-year payback model, in which new equipment is expected to return the investment within a range of five to seven years.

For Shantz and others involved in the important but often overlooked job of keeping camps functioning and aesthetically attractive, the time to sit down, learn and share with other professionals was valuable 鈥� regardless of whether the discussion was about replacing a lightbulb, he said, or installing new toilets.

As is the case with some rural camps, the opportunity to acquire adjacent new property sometimes comes with old buildings 鈥� and a price tag. That is the case at Highland Retreat, which has recently been offered a nearby property at a favorable price, but with an old but solid building that may need renovation. Shantz has formed a committee to discuss potential uses, he said, adding that EMU鈥檚 sustainability initiatives could be a helpful model for Highland Retreat in this instance, and in any future construction project.

鈥淲e鈥檝e been able to replace under-utilized space with well-utilized space, develop classrooms that would accommodate bigger classes, and create a better working environment for faculty,鈥� said vice president for finance .

In recent years, EMU鈥檚 growth called for more classrooms and consolidation of office space. Various academic departments occupied available space across campus, usually in former homes acquired by the university. The faculty who occupied these houses often felt disconnected from the greater community, according to , who provides special projects support for the provost鈥檚 office. One goal of the renovation, then, was to consolidate scattered faculty and provide more opportunities for interdepartmental communication and collaboration.

That goal was first met on two consecutive Saturdays in September, when an interdisciplinary group of volunteers and faculty members began the move-in process.

The , , and departments were the first of the five academic departments to occupy Roselawn; and soon followed.

During the lunch break on that first move-in day, faculty and volunteers gathered in one of the new office spaces to share a meal. For Bible and religion instructor , the value of the move was reflected in this small experience of breaking bread with faculty she had occasionally seen in past semesters.

鈥淚t is fun to have a sense of collegiality,鈥� said Schrock-Hurst, whose office was previously located across campus in Blosser House. Being in Roselawn 鈥渉elps me to feel part of the bigger picture.鈥�

Although university planners considered several ideas for occupants of the new space (including moving the advancement division into Roselawn), they settled upon allocating the space to academic departments with a natural 鈥渟ynergy,鈥� said Bert, the vice president who monitors construction and renovation projects.

Bert is also one of the supervisors of the much bigger across campus. Undergoing two major renovations at the same time was not ideal, Bert said, but neither was leaving Roselawn mostly unused for another couple of years. The project reached completion on a very tight schedule 鈥� almost entirely over the summer of 2014.

Built in 1969, Roselawn began as a women鈥檚 residence hall. Until the mid-1980s, it was considered one of the 鈥渘icer鈥� dorms, said vice president , who was a community assistant there from 1985 to 1986.

By 2011, when the dorm ceased to be used for residence life, it desperately needed renovation and was considered the most undesirable on-campus housing option, said Smeltzer.

In 2012, EMU revamped the first floor of Roselawn for occupancy by the rapidly growing , which moved from its former cramped location in a small house near the seminary building.

EMU leadership, in tandem with contractors, paid special attention to energy and design principles that would make Roselawn as sustainable as possible, as has been done for all recent EMU buildings and renovations.

View more photos of the renovated Roselawn through