Sustainability

Arcata - Jessie Misha Cretser-Hartenstein traveled back to Humboldt County from the Middle East and Vanessa Vasquez is taking time off from grad school, both of them inspired to help organize the Fourth Annual Organic Planet Festival in Eureka.

The Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT), Humboldt State’s demonstration home for sustainable living, recently sent former co-director, Jeffrey Steuben to accept its award for Best Practices in Student Sustainability Program for the California State University (CSU).

Arcata - Rebecca Menten, a Humboldt State graduate student in the Energy, Environment and Society program, has been awarded a prestigious Switzer Environmental Fellowship worth $15,000.

By the end of fall semester solar panels, signage, and student art will adorn Music Building A (the Old Music Building) thanks to the Humboldt Energy Independence Fund (HEIF), a student funded energy initiative.

Humboldt State University has taken delivery of a hydrogen-powered Toyota Prius that will use clean hydrogen fuel produced and dispensed at a new fueling station built by the campus's internationally recognized Schatz Energy Research Center.

More than 20 HSU geography majors, accompanied by department chair Joe Leeper, professors Joy Adams, Stephen Cunha, Dennis Fitzsimons and Chris Hayne, attended the California Geographic Society's 62nd annual Conference. Adams chaired a panel discussion on “Strategies for Mentoring and Supporting Female Students and Faculty,” along with geography students Anna Leeper, Diana Muncy, Corinne Cogger and Angela Crane. Adams was also elected to the CGS board of directors. Leeper presented “Challenges Confronting Humboldt County Agriculture” and Cunha presented “The Changing Face of Vietnam.”

Arcata - Humboldt State University undergraduate Rani Ram will receive a $3,000 scholarship as one of 23 winners statewide of the 2008-2009 William Randolph Hearst/California State University (CSU) Trustees Award for Outstanding Achievement.

The Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources celebrated their 10th Annual Spring Banquet in the Kate Buchanan Room on Thursday, May 1. The event was beautifully catered by Twyla Henderson and her staff from University Dining Services.

Humboldt State University alumnus Michael Crooke (’90), a world leader of socially responsible business and former chief of Patagonia outdoor equipment, will be the Commencement speaker at all three Humboldt State University graduation ceremonies on Saturday, May 17 in Redwood Bowl.

It’s summer time and the surf is calling. Most surfers will be driving up and down the beach looking for that perfect set. This summer two surfers are ditching their car and doing it right.

Arcata – Humboldt State University will conduct dedications in early May to commemorate outstanding individual contributions to the University and the community.

Arcata - Humboldt State University wildlife major Lindsey Payne believes all people should take up volunteer service at some point in their lives.
 “You get to learn a lot about yourself, and you have fun doing it,” she says.

Earth Day is coming, but at HSU, one day is not enough. We’ve rounded up a variety of events the students at HSU have organized of this celebration. Earth Day goes back to the late ‘60s as a United Nations, and eventually a global environmental teach-in.

Got cable? Professor Greg Crawford gives a televised presentation on the Research Channel on April 27, 2008. The program will air four times that day: 1:00 a.m., 7:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. (Pacific time).

Dr. Kenneth Fulgham, HSU Professor of Rangeland Resources, and D.E. Coultrap, a former HSU graduate student, are among the co-authors of an article about western juniper in the inaugural edition of Invasive Plant Science and Management magazine, published by the Weed Science Society of America under the auspices of the University of California, Davis.

Arcata — Humboldt State's Environmental Resources Engineering students once again lived up to the tradition of academic excellence -- this time in the field of mathematics modeling.

Dr. James Russell of the Department of Applied Technology holds in his hand a brick that looks like leftover supplies mashed together after art period, but it's more than that. It could be a great way to repurpose used styrofoam for building insulation.

Arcata – Humboldt State University will recognize Dr. Carolyn Ward, Outstanding Professor for 2007-2008, at a formal dinner on Tuesday, April 29 at 7:00 p.m. in the Kate Buchanan Room, University Center.

Kyle Spragens rotates a large antenna mounted atop his state pickup truck as he drives past farm fields in the Arcata Bottoms, where he is searching for Aleutian geese. A receiver in the truck beeps as the antenna picks up a signal from a radio-collared goose.

Humboldt State’s College of Professional Studies has flourished under the leadership of Dean Susan Higgins, who has readied her institution for the 21st century with a train of progressive initiatives.

Arcata – Humboldt State University’s student-initiated Humboldt Energy Independence Fund (HEIF) Committee has granted $100,000 for two pilot projects: a photovoltaic system for the roof of the Old Music Building and new equipment to complete a Solar Radiation Monitoring Station (SoRMS).

KHSU and the Humboldt Fish Action Council are sponsoring a unique Adopt-A-Salmon program in connection with the public radio station’s fund raising drive April 5 -12.

Sustainability has long been on the mind of students, faculty and staff at Humboldt State. With every passing year it seems the campus adds another innovative program to its growing résumé of environmental initiatives.

Arcata - Dr. Howard B. Stauffer, Professor of Statistics and Chair of Humboldt State University’s Department of Mathematics, has written a new book that introduces natural resource scientists to more current methods of statistical analysis, helping them to enhance their estimates of the probability of specific occurrences in nature.

The streams and creeks of coastal Humboldt County come alive every winter with migrating salmon, which struggle upstream to reach spawning grounds. Having survived predators and several years in the Pacific, many of these salmon will die without completing their journey. The culprit: antiquated road culverts that block their passage.