Arkansas Tallies Enrollment in New Sustainability Minor

Fifty-nine University of Arkansas students have formally declared the new sustainability minor this semester, said Stephen Boss, co-director of the program called Foundations of Sustainability.

The UA announced the interdisciplinary minor in March, and students could officially declare it in August. Tahar Messadi, an associate professor of architecture, is the other co-director of the sustainability minor.

The students who’ve declared so far represent 26 majors across each undergraduate-serving college at the university, with most – 57.6 percent — coming from the Fay Jones School of Architecture. All academic levels are represented, but 45.8 percent of the students are seniors, Boss said.

Based on advising information, Boss said, another 20 to 30 students have expressed interest in the minor but haven’t yet declared it. He expects to see 200 students enrolled in the minor by the end of the spring semester.

Boss, who’s also the director of the UA’s environmental dynamics doctoral program, led the committee that developed the curriculum for the minor.

The 18 hours of required coursework include two “gateway” courses — Fundamentals of Sustainability and Applications of Sustainability — as well as three electives and an experiential-learning “capstone.”

Boss said 75 students enrolled in Applications of Sustainability, offered this fall. Again, most are from the School of Architecture, and males outnumbered females 56 percent to 44 percent.

— Serenah McKay

Park Uses Home-Grown Technology to Clean Water

The University of Arkansas-affiliated Arkansas Research and Technology Park in south Fayetteville is benefiting from the technology developed by one of its tenants.

Equipment from BlueInGreen LLC, which provides systems for improving and maintaining water quality, is being used to manage the water quality in the park’s retention pond.

BlueInGreen’s patented Supersaturated Dissolved Oxygen (SDOX) system, touted as a more efficient, less expensive way to boost oxygen levels in water, delivers dissolved oxygen to water to improve and sustain environmental quality.

This process keeps the retention pond — an important part of the landscape in order to manage storm water runoff — in optimum health by maintaining proper oxygen levels to foster waste-eating microbes.

The retention pond out-flows to an unnamed stream that flows north. That stream flows into the Town Branch Creek.

The machine at the R&T Park, a small-scale version that’s now available for commercial sale, was installed about a month ago.

The U of A Technology Development Foundation, led by president Phil Stafford, obtained a grant for the full build-out and installation.

It was put in place “at our cost,” said BlueInGreen chief executive Clete Brewer, adding that the long-term outlook of further research opportunities for both BlueInGreen and the U of A agricultural and engineering departments would all benefit.

— Paul Gatling

Consortium Creates System for Measuring Sustainability

The Sustainability Consortium, a joint project of the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University, recently approved seven product category life-cycle assessments for independent review.

Its Category Sustainability Profiles for 50 products were released in late September. Another 100 will be released by December.

The profiles were developed as part of the consortium’s goal of creating a system for measuring and reporting sustainability practices in the manufacture and delivery of consumer goods. The information in the profiles will be accessible to both manufacturers and consumers.

Formed in July 2009, the group’s global membership includes companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tyson Foods Inc., Procter & Gamble, Unilever and General Mills.

The membership roster also includes nonprofits, NGOs and governmental agencies such as the World Wildlife Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Protection Agency.  w

— Serenah McKay