Tuesday, April 26, 2022
How OSU stacks up in the Big 12 in sustainability Kylie Hammack Staff Reporter Sonrisa Bebo, an OSU freshman French major, has a passion that is not typical of all language majors: sustainability. In addition to her French major, Bebo is studying fashion merchandising and global studies as minors. Bebo became interested in sustainability during her senior year of high school and has grown that passion in college. “It started out in fashion specifically and going thrifting but when I came here as a Freshman Research Scholar, I couldn’t find any research opportunities in French. So, I decided to do my own study on sustainability,” Bebo said. With the occurrence of Earth Day last Friday, OSU organizations hosted various events promoting sustainability and overall appreciation of the planet. However, through her research, Bebo is examining how OSU performs in sustainability in comparison to other Big 12 universities yearround. “There is actually a lot going on here on campus and people just don’t know about it,” Bebo said. To show this, one portion of Bebo’s research was a survey for OSU students that assessed their knowledge of and ideas about OSU’s sustainability. “With the survey I sent out, I had about 80 full responses,” Bebo said. “The consensus was that students thought that sustainability might be happening on campus, and wanted to believe that it was, but they weren’t for sure.” Some examples of sustainability on campus Bebo found when completing her case study included sustainable features in the Ferguson College of Agriculture’s new building, the position of campus sustainability director, a living-learning community in the Iba residence hall that practices living sustainably, and the panhellenic club “Green Greeks.” “I think OSU should advertise what is going on more. That would be one great way to start informing students of what’s going on or seeing if they can get students involved with sustainability,” Bebo said. To measure how well OSU is faring in its sustainability initiatives, Bebo utilized a database that scores universities on sustainability based on self-reported data. A few Big 12 schools, including the University of Oklahoma, do not report their sustainability data but Bebo was still able to gauge OSU’s sustainability success from the data available. “I looked at the Big 12 university scores and compared and, actually, OSU is the third best,” Bebo said. Although her time as a Freshman Research Scholar is coming to a close, Bebo is interested in furthering her research on sustainability. “I want to look at other universities that are doing very very well even if they are not in the Big 12 and see what they are doing and if we could possibly implement it here at OSU,” Bebo said. Bebo said she sees college campuses as the perfect environment to implement sustainability practices and measures. “I think it’s important that future leaders, business people, and citizens of the world are aware of how to make the environment better,” Bebo said.
Kylie Hammack
news.ed@ocolly.com
Sonrisa Bebo presents her case study, highlighting how OSU compares to other Big 12 universities in sustainability.