Lavender Graduation at SMU

By Catie George | Editor-in-Chief

got the ‘yes’ after so many meetings and emails.”

Before this partnership, SMU did not compost anywhere on campus. Now, new, back-of-house green bins hold compostable items until Turn staffers arrive three days a week to retrieve the raw fruit, eggshells, coffee grounds and bread scraps. “More than 40% of the waste in Dallas disposal sites includes compostable food and yard scraps,” EWB Project Lead

Caroline Corbin said. “Now SMU can be a part of the solution that is having less food waste. It’s very exciting to see that when people advocate for something, change can happen.”

According to the 2010 SMU Archives, the university received a “B” grade in 2011 for its sustainability efforts by the College Sustainability Report Card, an independent evaluation of sustainable practice by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Neighboring colleges such as the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of North Texas have received comparable recognition for their sustainability efforts from the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System.

“These types of initiatives are critical and to have this level of impact is important to me,” EWB President Jack Lewis said. “To make the change on an institutional level is a completely different step up from individual efforts toward environmentalism.”

Leaders in EWB said that they had to prove that composting was necessary, and before members of SMU Dining would agree to any expenses put toward composting, they needed to see if students liked the idea first.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand what [it] composting really encompasses – it’s a big process,” Lara said, adding that originally members of EWB initially thought to use food scrapson campus as fertilizer. However, SMU’s relationship with Southern Botanicals prevented that idea. So, they looked to Turn as an alternative.

Corbin said a large reason for the red tape surrounding the composting project came down to funding. Partnering with Turn cost the university $4,220 for the initial setup and $9,030 per month as a recurring service fee. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” Corbin said. “SMU wants students to be happy and to be ‘Dallas’s school.’ To do that, we need to be more sustainable. We need to be focused on these types of student-led initiatives.”

Members of Student Senate agreed to fund the project’s pilot year, and SMU Dining paid for the one-time setup cost. Michael Molina, the SMU hospitality director, said Dining hoped to continue the venture past this year and planned to look at what percent university administration might be willing to fund in the future.

Looking forward, Lara and other EWB leaders hope to implement frontof-house composting where students can be more involved in the process. “In my ideal world, students are composting, and we’d have compostable containers and greenhouses,” Lara said.

SMU hosted its first Lavender Graduation Ceremony honoring LGBTQ+ students in April.

Kayla Earl, a senior theater student who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community, was surprised and excited to learn that SMU was hosting the event.

“It’s exciting to be the first class that gets to experience that,” Earl said. “It’s also kind of late in the game, especially at this point.”

Lavender Ceremonies began in 1995 and are currently held at more than 200 higher education campuses across the country, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Though Lavender Ceremonies are at colleges and universities nationally, this was the first at SMU. “The main purpose is to provide a space to specifically celebrate and recognize the accomplishments of queer and LGBTQ+ students on campuses and making sure to uniquely recognize them,” said Interim Director SMU LGBTQ+ Center’s Matthew Esparza.

The color lavender is important to the LGBTQ+ community because it is a combination of the pink triangle that gay men were forced to wear in concentration camps and the black triangle designating lesbians as political prisoners in Nazi Germany, according to the Human Rights Campaign website.

“The LGBTQ+ civil rights movement took these symbols of hatred and combined them to make symbols and color of pride and community.”

The LGBTQ+ Center invited and honored current and graduating students to attend. Faculty, staff and local campus partners also attended. Awards were given out that highlighted the impact LGBTQ+ students are having at SMU and in Dallas.

Earl emphasized the importance of honoring queer leaders at the university. “It’s just an awesome thing to celebrate and recognize,” she said.

Following the awards ceremony, student participants received a rainbow cord and a lavender stole to wear at their graduations.

The ceremony is symbolic of the steps SMU has taken to be inclusive, Esparza said. “SMU has been making intentional strides toward supporting their underrepresented students,” Esparza said.