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Hamilton Alumni Review
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 The Hamilton Environmental Action Group provides a broad student-run forum for green issues, sponsors major events such as Green Week and the Dorm Energy Battle, and advises smaller, issue-oriented groups of students. Weekly meetings at the Glen House typically draw 30-40 students. HEAG: 'Connect, collaborate'THE LARGEST ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP ON CAMPUS IS THE HAMILTON Environmental Action Group, which meets weekly to discuss sustainability and ways to raise awareness of critical green issues. The group draws 30 to 40 students to its meetings and has 175 on its e-mail list, says Catie Ferrara '11, who serves as co-president with Jeremy Gleason '11. The group sponsors a campus-wide Green Week each semester, offering films, concerts, campus cleanups, outreach programs and other events. A second major fall event is November's Dorm Energy Battle, in which dorms compete to use energy more efficiently. The competition uses Hamilton's Energy Dashboard (www.hamilton.edu/dashboard), a real-time online measurement of kilowatt hours used by campus buildings."We see the competition as a way for students to become aware of and interested in how they use energy," Gleason says. "The incentive to win the competition is a pizza party for the dorm that uses the least energy." In addition, HEAG is working with Bon Appétit to reduce food waste and save water by limiting the use of trays in dining halls; a Trayless Tuesday was introduced this year, with the hope of making it a regular event. And the group has representatives on the College's Sustainability Committee as well as members who work with professors on individual initiatives related to the environment. HEAG "allows students with like goals to connect and collaborate," Treasurer Heather Parker '11 says, and the fact that it is a student-run group can make it "more effective in engaging students." But it has an importance beyond specific projects and activities. It also provides "an accessible and open forum in which students can toss around their ideas concerning environmental issues and activities," Parker says. In addition, Ferrara notes, part of HEAG's mission is to nurture and advise smaller issue-oriented teams. "We help these students find out who they need to talk to and request funding for projects," she says. "Often, at HEAG meetings, we break up into small groups with specific goals, like reducing energy use in dorms or reducing food waste in the dining halls."
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