UT Office of Sustainability hosts Earth Week events, celebrations

where student volunteers create mended outfits and model them.

Throughout the month of April, UT has been celebrating Earth Month. In tandem with UT’s Office of Sustainability and organizations in the greater Knoxville community, UT will be celebrating Earth Week from April 17-22. The week will be filled with events, programs and service opportunities to promote the goal to “Make Orange Green.”

In celebration of Earth Week, there will be a variety of events, including Micro Mobility Monday, Chalk the Rock, Green Thumb to Green Cash!, a Sustainability in Business Panel, an Earth Day Festival, Free Store Fashion Show, One Health Initiative Panel: Sustainable Development Goals and 3rd Creek Clean Up.

The Office of Sustainability has been planning these events since January, and Social Impact Coordinator Mak Harmon, along with The Free Store and Grow Lab teams, have been assisting in planning since the beginning of the planning process.

“Because the Office of Sustainability does so much on campus, we really wanted to highlight all of our various initiatives that work towards different facets of sustainability at UT,” Harmon said.

Harmon is most looking forward to the Free Store’s annual Slow Fashion Show, an event

“Since 2021, the Free Store has hosted a slow fashion show every year to eliminate the stigma surrounding secondhand items, encourage the repair and reuse of textile materials and, of course, promote the Free Store,” Harmon said.

Harmon hopes that students will be able to celebrate the Earth throughout the week, but also that they will leave events with a better understanding of UT sustainability.

“We are such an underutilized resource on campus, especially the Free Store,” Harmon said. “I’d love to see students excited about what the (Office of Sustainability) is doing and maybe even want to get involved in one of our projects.”

Outreach Coordinator for the Office of Sustainability Aoife Whitaker shares the same sentiment.

“Though all of these events are going to be very fun and a great way for students to get involved in sustainability on campus,” Whitaker said. “We really want to highlight that the most important part in all of this is educating students and faculty and staff about how to be more sustainable and the best environmental practices.”

Whitaker has worked to make sure that all events are first and foremost sustainable. From composting and recycling services being provided to making sure that any food they get for the events are packages as low-waste as possible, each detail has been thought out to ensure for the most environmentally friendly celebration of the Earth.

“We’re extremely excited to see it all come together to see the positive impact it has on students at UT as well as faculty, staff etc.,” Whitaker said.

Whitaker sees the main goal as sharing educational information regarding environmentalism on campus, hoping to demonstrate ways more students can be more involved.

“All of our data (through surveys and outreach) show that UT students place sustainability extremely high, second only to parking, when ranking what UT should prioritize,” Whitaker said. “We’re hoping to use these events to show how UT is working towards becoming more sustainable and ways that students can get involved in those efforts.”

Within the events, students will have the opportunity to learn about a plethora of topics that could help to contribute to a greener, more sustainable future. Beginning with a voyage to The Rock using clean transportation such as walking or biking, to learning to create your own herb garden, discussing the research going on at UT at the moment and discussing the potential intersection between business and sustainability, Earth Week is here to not just celebrate, but to

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Students said that they were waiting to tell their families back home about the law, both because they did not want them to worry, and because they felt the university could provide additional support or instruction in the coming days which would make the law easier to explain.

The university has spoken out in the past when legislation targeted members of the UT community. In March 2022, after a bill concerning curricula and trainings that use “divisive concepts” was passed by the state legislature, Chancellor Donde Plowman and Provost John Zomchick released a joint statement titled “We Are Here to Support You.”

That statement, in which the leaders said they were “concerned about the potential chill that faculty and staff may feel about the outstanding work they are doing,” was released days before Gov. Lee signed the legislation into law. It was a rare critique from administrators to legislators who have the power to write the university out of the state budget.

Meanwhile, the ban on Chinese apps on campus internet was filed in January, and students did not hear from the university until Friday morning, the day after it went into effect.

“There is no time for us to react for this, immediately you lose access,” Wang said. “For the young people today, social media is important. I mean, it’s not an organ in your body, but without this, it’s challenging to be on campus.”

According to the most recent data from UT’s Office of Institutional Research and Strategic Analysis, around 1,200 students, or 3.5% of the student body, identifies as Asian or Pacific Islander. Though there are not specific data about the number of Chinese students, Chang said that number fell during the pandemic, when many students returned home during lockdowns and did not return to the U.S.

Now, as leader of the main student organization for Chinese students, he said he is unsure if he would recommend that students from China come to UT to study because of the new law.

“This policy made me feel like something’s gonna happen,” Chang said. “I don’t know what thing, but I feel bad.” pecially for Chinese international students who may have used those apps their entire life,” Dong said. “It may just be TikTok that’s banned for most students at UT, but it may be an entire communication system with their family, friends, and loved ones that is banned by the school Wi-Fi.”

For Chang and other Chinese students, the new ban has created both new crises and everyday headaches. Wendy Dong, a sophomore studying industrial and systems engineering, said she tried to pull up sheet music on an app called XisoHongShu to practice in the music building, but because the app did not work on campus Wi-Fi and she had no signal, she had to walk an additional 15 minutes and had to leave practice early.

“I would say the more Chinese culture you were exposed to and integrated into your life, the more you are affected by this new law.” and lawmakers from both parties, and has revitalized sentiments that were popularized during the Trump administration and the era of the China Initiative, a Justice Department program built to counter Chinese espionage and theft of intellectual property that was ended in February 2022.

The law arrived as diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and China mount. Earlier this year, a massive Chinese spy balloon entered U.S. airspace and traveled the length of the nation before it was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to Beijing in response to the diplomatic crisis.

Pentagon documents allegedly leaked by Massachusetts air national guard member Jack Teixeira suggest that the U.S. knew of a network of balloons used by the Chinese government to collect data.

In March, President Xi Jinping of China visited President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Moscow, appearing to solidify their shared commitment of combatting U.S. influence as Russia’s offensive in Ukraine continues into its second year.

The first person to stand trial under the China Initiative was Anming Hu, an associate professor of engineering at UT and an expert in nanomanufacturing, who was arrested in 2020 on charges that he had not disclosed a connection with a Chinese university.

After multiple prosections by the Justice Department failed to procure enough evidence to convict Hu, he was acquitted in September 2021. A month later, Provost Zomchick offered to reinstate Hu to his former position and support his efforts to rebuild his career. The offer came after faculty publicly spoke out against the university for not protecting the tenured professor’s position or reinstating him sooner.

Dong, who spent the early part of her childhood in China before immigrating with her family to the U.S., said the law is particularly acute for international students.

“This law is more than a ‘TikTok ban,’ es-

The Biden administration has attempted to find ways of limiting American entanglements in the Chinese economy, including increased tariffs and limits on American investments in China, at a time when both nations face possible recessions.

Policy aimed at controlling Chinese influence has gained traction among U.S. officials

Though he is hesitant to say so, Wang said he sensed anti-Chinese racism when he read the list of banned apps on the UT System announcement, which included Sina Weibo, a popular platform similar to Twitter that has over 500 million users. He said that a slate of policies that would keep Chinese students away from UT is “the very last thing we want to see.”

“We don’t want to think that, but it’s hard not to think so,” Wang said. “We are all Volunteers, we are all working on the UT campus, but suddenly, the Wi-Fi networks separated part of us out.”