SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/26719
work with the state we qualified for participation in the Michigan Business Pollution Prevention Partnership (MBP3). It was easy to at- tach a process to our commitment to environmental stewardship half way into the discovery of our successes. Of course, this opened up in- vitations to invite authors, consultants and administrators of these statewide programs onto our team. The partners helped with the next step of “How to do it.” Combining the campus team and state partners emphasizes the focus on the positive. With the positive in mind, ask the team to start dreaming. Much like facilitating the information from the interviews, with a white board, asks the group, “What if we could do more of what works and what could we accomplish?” “If we carry parts of the past forward, they should be what are best about the past.” On our cam- pus, we decided to finish the other 20% of the MTESP modules with the help of the students and enroll in the MBP3 partnership. We had another success story to build upon. The team believed that we made strides in environmental steward- ship fairly early in the process. The dream became a daily reality in other best management practices outside of the athletic fields. Purchas- ing started to consider Michigan-based companies and evaluated the company’s environmental awareness and visions. Technology Services engaged Consumers Energy to take advantage of re-lamping rebates to re-lamp buildings with energy efficient fluorescent bulbs. Students started to gain momentum reducing the solid waste landfill stream with student organizations willing to run a recycling contest. When extraordinary developments grow on campus as a result of just asking questions, as the leader, it is time to capitalize and display that every- one on the team made all this happen and there is still work to cele- brate. “It is important to value differences.” On our campus, we continue to see environmental stewardship ac- tion and innovation from faculty, staff, and students. We completed the MTESP and organized a multi-media press conference, bringing atten- tion to the success of adopting an Environmental Stewardship Program. In the process, I explored some poetic explanation to my motivation: A river is to the earth, as a vein is to the heart. The Kalamazoo cradles our acres of athletic fields, in the fold of a southern curve of least resistance. On a quiet day the river can be heard in the distance. If something spills on campus, its fate is the river, the vein to the earth. A quiet campus is the re- sult from the awareness of this relationship. (Our campus is a postage stamp of property in the Kalamazoo Water- shed. The Kalamazoo River Watershed encompasses approximately 2,020 square miles and includes parts of eight counties in the southwest area of the Lower Peninsula in Michigan. The watershed stretches 162 miles and varies 11 to 29 miles in width.) In summary, to start an environmental steward process and complete a successful program, start with self-organization and focus on what works. Success is found only if you’re looking for it and once it is found create the future around it. In this case, I choose to focus on Environ- mental Stewardship and in general much of this language can be applied daily. “The language we use creates our reality.”■ Mark Frever, CSFM, is director of grounds for Albion College, Albion, MI. www.stma.org SportsTurf 23