WMU students encouraged to seek spring campus sustainability grant funding

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—The 2021-22 Western Michigan University Student Sustainability Grant competition, which supports student research, projects and initiatives that have the potential to advance the University’s campus culture of sustainability, is open for another round this semester. Applications for the spring 2022 grant allocations cycle are due on Thursday, March 3, by 11:59 p.m. Awards will be announced by mid-April 2022.

Collaborators expect to award up to $32,500 in spring 2022. Funding is awarded twice per academic year by a committee of students appointed by the Western Student Association under the direction of undergraduate Piper Meldrum-Roy, the association's vice president for sustainability and Student Sustainability Grant Allocations Committee chair. The grant program is a collaborative effort among the association, Office of Student Engagement and Office for Sustainability.

Interested applicants can find more information on the Student Sustainability Grant website, which includes past project abstracts, competition rules, the application and program contact information.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, applicants will need to describe how their proposed research, projects or activities will comply with health and safety guidelines. Technically complex or infrastructure-heavy grants typically require reviews and commitments from multiple University units prior to submission. It may not be possible for these types of grant requests to meet the application deadline and achieve eligibility. Applicants seeking these types of grants should target the fall 2022 application deadline in order to maximize their planning time.

Fall 2021 grant projects were recently awarded for the following initiatives, research, projects or programs designed to:

• Help bolster the WMU Dining Services reusable take-out container program. (Keaton Connelly)
• Replace sustainable drip irrigation equipment at the Gibbs House Permaculture Research & Demonstration Site. (Samantha Atkins)
• Provide a bench-scale fuel cell for catalyst research. (Hassan Jahromi)
• Help provide materials for the next generation of WMU Sunseeker solar car solar cells and batteries. (Tyler Ralko)
• Provide outdoor educational signage at the Gibbs Site. (Elizabeth Tran)

The mission of the Office for Sustainability is to guide and assist the Western Michigan University community in fulfilling and growing its sustainability commitments. Through building a diverse and flourishing learning community around sustainability, we will continually explore and develop new opportunities to create a culture of sustainability and improve quality of life for all.

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