The Department of Dance strongly supports the pending ballot referendum that would raise the Sustainable Campus Environment (“green”) Fee from $5 to $14 per semester. This fee, allocated by the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), has been instrumental in moving the campus administration forward in this area.

Dance department supports increasing fee

The Department of Dance strongly supports the pending ballot referendum that would raise the Sustainable Campus Environment (“green”) Fee from $5 to $14 per semester. This fee, allocated by the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), has been instrumental in moving the campus administration forward in this area.

The Department of Dance and the School of Architecture received funds from the Student Sustainability Committee to support the cost of the second phase of a sustainable renovation of the East Art Annex 2, an underutilized, brick building on the south quad. Upon its completion, the School of Architecture and the Department of Dance will be gaining 4,000-5,000 square feet of valuable student space.

The East Art Annex 2 will be a demonstration of shared creative space between dance and architecture where seminars, studios and discussions can be held to conduct interdisciplinary discourse on creativity and sustainability.

The first stage of this project, a 2,000 square foot rehearsal dance space created by architecture students from a recycled basketball floor was opened in fall 2009. The second phase, which will be completed by fall 2010, will include the design and installation of an additional graduate rehearsal studio and energy efficient updates to the second floor of the building. The dance floor will be constructed out of recycled barn wood donated by an Illinois alumnus.

Our long-term goal is to completely renovate the entire building and bring it up to LEED Certification. The building will be a concrete emblem of the University mission to be a leader in radical new technologies, practices and policies in sustainable energy within a short time frame. This could have only happened through the imaginative and dedicated thinking of the Student Sustainability Committee. They provided not only funding, but also strategic advice in helping us move through the cumbersome institutional structures.

Increasing the Green Fee would allow the SSC to continue to move the campus forward on the most important issues of this century.

It would expand the number of projects that need capital and improve the position of students in moving this shared agenda forward.

For these reasons we strongly encourage all voters to support the Green Fee referendum to be held on March 2nd and 3rd.

Jacqueline Kinsman,

program coordinator for the

department of dance