Member Groups
Here is a list of the sustainability-related groups that are members of the SSI.
While we will try to keep this information up to date, we might not be aware of some changes that are going on. If you see any inaccuracies, please email us!
Official student groups are those that attend our roundtables at least twice a semester. Only official student groups are eligible to apply for small-scale grant awards.
If you are affiliated with a student org that is not listed here and would like to be added, please email the SSI Board.
List of Member Groups:
UM's only student-run food stand, working to make fresh fruit and veg available at a reasonable price to students, professors, and anyone studying and working on campus.
Contact: Zoe Stahl (zoestahl@umich.edu )
Better Living Using Engineering Laboratory (BLUElab)
Circle K Environment Committee
Circle K is an international co-ed service organization that is sponsored by Kiwanis International. Circle K clubs focus on the three tenets of service, fellowship, and leadership. The Environment committee works to better the environment and promote sustainability initiatives. Projects include tree-planting, gardening, working with organizations such as the Leslie Science and Nature Center and Inner City Outings, and service projects with animals.
Contact: Martha Johnson (jomartha@umich.edu)
Cultivating Community
Cultivating Community's mission is to empower and educate University of Michigan students to become leaders in the area of community food systems through hands-on organic gardening, community outreach, and volunteer activities. At our demonstration gardens, students can practice small-scale organic growing methods such as composting, crop rotation, and ecological pest control. Through field trips and community service, Cultivating Community introduces student volunteers to a variety of local food system organizations and businesses, such as local farms, community gardens, and urban agriculture projects. In addition, Cultivating Community offers workshops for students about preparing and preserving food, container gardening, and other topics of interest.
Contact: Lauren Beriont (lberiont@umich.edu )
Dance Marathon at the University of Michigan is the largest student-run non-profit organization in the State of Michigan. Since 1998, DMUM has been a year-round effort to fund pediatric therapies at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Beaumont Hospital. At the end of each school year, hundreds of students stand on their feet for 30 hours to show their dedication to the cause. Dance Marathon incorporates sustainability in the operations of the event.
Contact: Alex Thompson (alexjt@umich.edu)
EnvironDems
EnviroDems actively campaigns for environmental responsibility. At the local and state levels, the committee works towards this goal by promoting environmental causes and pushing for community action, as well as our representatives for national and international progress. This policy focus is what distinguished EnviroDems from a number of other environmentally-oriented groups on campus. In the past, EnviroDems has worked on a diverse array of projects, including partnering with major environmental advocacy organizations on issue campaigns, hosting a community education conference on the outcome of COP15, and even creating our own documentary on the benefits of sustainable redevelopment in Detroit.
Contact: Annika Doner (adoner@umich.edu )
Environmental Action (EnAct)
EnAct is a fun group of students focused on environmental outreach and education. We strive to ecological literacy within the student population by organizing events and opportunities for students to learn about ways they can improve the environment. We also teach environmental lessons to children in the community.
Contact: enact.info@umich.edu
Environmental Issues Commission (EIC)
EIC is a commission of the Central Student Government. EIC strives to make University of Michigan more sustainable through working with the administration and other student groups as well as outreach to students through events such as our Annual Sustainability fair.
Contact: Dana Rollison (dnrol@umich.edu )
Environmental Law Society (ELS)
ELS serves foremost as a forum for students energized by environmental issues and concerned about how the law may or may not adequately address those issues. To that end, we organize speakers, facilitate networking, and strive to provide firsthand opportunities to students who see environmental law in their futures.
Contact: Gus Winkes (winkes@umich.edu )
Greek Life Sustainability Team (G-LIST)
Our Trust for Cups campaign offers fraternities on campus discounted party cup prices in exchange for maintaining a high diversion rate of recyclables and instituting a sustainability leadership structure. We are looking to shift attitudes towards recycling and waste management in the Greek community through a universally appealing incentive. We are recruiting Recycling Operations Consultants to work with individual houses and guide their Sustainability Chairs through the process of organizing recycling efforts. Our group is working with fraternities and sororities on two separate ventures, in addition- installation of energy efficiency retrofits, and construction of solar panels and solar water heaters, where appropriate. We intend to help fraternities through the process of gathering funds to pay for the improvements, increase awareness of clean tech in the Greek community, and offer fiscally and environmentally responsible ways for alumni and alumna to give back to their respective chapters.
Cotact: glistexecs@umich.edu
Happiness Initiative
The purpose of this club is to create an environment for students where they are encouraged to pursue their dreams and search for meaning and passion in their life’s course. We will provide one another with the resources, inspiration, and support to follow our dreams in the pursuit of collective happiness. We will create this environment by bringing together students from diverse backgrounds and experiences, having discussions about what makes life worth living, and sharing our visions for a brighter future with one another. We hope that this group environment can be scaled to a campus wide culture; a culture where students pursue their passions for the sake of fulfillment and the betterment of society rather than to appease external forces. A generation of diverse, passionate, and driven people have the power to make the world a happier place.
Contact: Pete Wangwongwiroj (chirapon@umich.edu )
HaYerukim
As a student group, Hayerukim's goal is to provide a forum for students to engage in environmental activism from a Jewish perspective. We provide students with the opportunity to work toward creating a more sustainable Hillel, University, and world. We approach environmental stewardship through secular and religious education, political advocacy, behavioral awareness campaigns, community service, and the institution of environmentally-conscious practices at Hillel.
Contact: Becca Liebschutz (rliebs@umich.edu)
Kill-A-Watt
Kill-A-Watt is a month-long energy saving competition held in the residence halls. Starting on October 17th, eleven halls will compete to achieve a 10% reduction in energy use through simple behavior changes. Residents can attend several events throughout the competition to learn how to save energy and meet people in their housing community. Students in the winning hall are eligible to win scholarships. Through these activities, we hope to involve all students in energy and sustainability issues while reducing energy use for its environmental and financial benefit. Please visit our website for much more information and to take our energy-saving pledge: www.killawattum.org. What will YOU do in the dark?
Contact: Lexi Targan (ltargan@umich.edu )
Michigan Student Athletes for Sustainability (M-SAS)
Slogan: We play on PlanetBlue!
Michigan Sustainable Foods Initiative (MSFI)
The Michigan Sustainable Foods Initative is dedicated to increasing the amount of local and sustainably produced food on the University of Michigan campus. MSFI is also committed to educating students and the University of Michigan community about the importance of sustainable food practices.
Contact: Izzy Morrison (imorris@umich.edu)
MUSIC Matters
MUSIC Matters is a student organization at the University of Michigan with the ambitious goal of creating a capstone event for the community each spring that features a major concert along with a festival on the Diag highlighting different groups on campus. In its first year, MUSIC Matters hosted SpringFest in the Diag, a day full of free food and entertainment and a chance for student organizations to display what they accomplished throughout the year. This led up to the J.Cole concert in Hill Auditorium that brought the University community together for a fun night in support of a great cause. Using proceeds from the concert, MUSIC Matters donated $10,000 to C.S. Mott's Children's Hospital, one of the leading children's hospitals in the country. This year we are looking to build on last year's foundation to create an event that is bigger and better than ever before.
Contact: Jake Levey (jslevey@umich.edu)
Net Impact Undergrad
The University of Michigan Net Impact Undergrad's mission is to grow and strengthen a community of young and innovative leaders to use their careers to improve the world. To do this, we provide our members with career resources, educational events, and community involvement opportunities to inspire and empower students interested in using the power of social, environmental, and economic activities to lead in thoughtful action.
PitE Club
PitE Club works to foster a greater sense of community within PitE and to facilitate student involvement. The group serves as a sounding board for the PitE administration when making program changes that welcome some student input and feedback. The club also coordinates volunteer and social bonding opportunities in Ann Arbor for the PitE student body. In addition, PitE Clubl focuses on developing and maintaining the BEAR (Building Environmental Awareness and Relationships), the mentorship program between undergraduate PitE students and environmentally-focused graduate students. BEAR works to foster connections and relationships between the Program in the Environment undergraduate students and the environmental graduate community to promote generational leadership, career building, and camaraderie.
Contact: Rebecca Guerriero (rmguerr@umich.edu)
Website: http://umpiteclub.wordpress.com
Ross Net Impact (RNI)
RNI’s mission is to connect students with the resources and opportunities to build skills to make an impact, regardless of industry, seniority or function. Our three areas of focus are organizational change, essential to making an impact in any environment, and social enterprise and sustainability, the two areas where impact-related initiatives are most commonly directed.
Contact: Christine Kwon (kwonch@umich.edu)
School of Natural Resources Student Government (SNRE SG)
SNRE Student Government organizes social and community service activities for SNRE students, provides funding for student initiatives, and is the voice for student concerns. Currently, we are working to improve SNRE's curriculum and national reputation, and also reaching out to other schools and organizations on campus interested in environmental sustainability.
Contact: Emily Taylor (esltaylo@umich.edu )
Students for Clean Energy
Students for Clean Energy (SfCE) is a recognized student organization committed to promoting clean energy at the University of Michigan. We will fulfill this mission through advocacy, outreach, education, and student activism. The principle mission of SfCE is to encourage the University of Michigan to utilize energy sources that are clean and renewable. SfCE strives for stronger greeenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions than currently proposed by the University.
Contact: Chris Takahashi (ctak@umich.edu)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StudentsForCleanEnergy
Sustainability Actions and Reactions (SAR)
TEDxNicholsArboretum Organizer
Contact: Erica Seifert (eseifert@umich.edu )
Take Back the Tap
Take Back the Tap is a group on campus that is sponsored by the Food and Water Watch. It is part of a network of collegiate groups across the country that have the common goal of eliminating bottled water use on their campus. We find that the use of bottled water over tap water is environmentally and economically unsustainable and detriments the health of both the people and the planet. This group attempts to spread awareness about these issues related to bottled water and eliminate the misconceptions many people have about bottled water and tap water. It is our hope that through information campaigns and discussions with administrators, that the University of Michigan will be a leader in this issue and will discontinue its sales of bottled water on campus; to ensure that the athletic department is in line with the University's goal of campus sustainability, it is also our goal to have reusable water containers allowed into the football stadium, which provides game-goers a sustainable water option (for the Earth and their wallet).
Contact: Josh Castle (jpcas@umich.edu )
TREES (LSA Student Government)
TREES (Taking Responsibility for the Earth and Environment Subcommittee) is a subcommittee of the Student Life Committee of LSA Student Government. We were formed in order to bring more sustainable practices to the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and the university as a whole. TREES collaborates with other student organizations, university departments, and the city of Ann Arbor to create a more cohesive environmental presence on campus while promoting key environmental principles, encouraging sustainable lifestyles, supporting environmental education, and facilitating improved cooperation between students and the community. Some of our projects include Earthfest, Greening of Detroit, These Come From TREES Campaign, Stress-Free Diag Days, Homemade Cleaning Products and Self-Watering Planters. Help us bring together Maize & Blue to make a greener Michigan!
Contact: Tyler Mesman (tmesman@umich.edu )
Tzu Chi Collegiate Association
The Tzu Chi Collegiate Association (TCCA) at the University of Michigan is a local chapter of Tzu Chi, an international non-profit organization that focuses on charity, medicine, education, culture, bone marrow donation, international relief, community volunteers and environmental protection. UM-TCCA emphasizes on community outreach via ongoing projects such as teaching English to Chinese elderly, senior home care and performing at a nursing home. Tzu Chi strongly values environmentalism and in the past, we have organized vegetarian cooking classes with a great turnout. This year, we are planning a lot more new events to further engage the student community in this aspect...and we definitely need YOUR help!
Contact: Chen Aik Lee (chenaik@umich.edu)
UM Sustainable Food Program (UMSFP)
Though the UMSFP was christened in 2012, the ideas that led to its formation are much older and have been dancing around the university long before. The people that have formed and shaped the UMSFP from those early conversations were all drawn to the idea of a sustainable food system from different corners of our community because food integrates disparate fields and bridges the gaps between theory and practice, academia and the decisions that make up our daily lives. The UMSFP was created to foster collaborative leadership that empowers students to create a sustainable food system at the University of Michigan while becoming change agents for a vibrant planet. To achieve that goal the UMSFP supports and connects all of the sustainable food initiatives on campus, ensuring that we all have the resources needed to succeed. Think of the UMSFP as the trunk of a tree and the member groups are the leaves and fruit, connected, supported, rooted in the same soil, working toward the same goal. Visit www.UMSFP.com for more information
Contact: umich.sfp@umich.edu
Urban Planning Student Association
The Urban Planning Student Association works to enhance the educational, professional development and social opportunities available to urban planning students in Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
Contact: upsa.planning@umich.edu
United States Green Building Council (USGBC) Students at University of Michigan
USGBC Students is a student-run organization affiliated with the U.S. Green Building Council. We aim to promote green building and sustainable development on campus and in the greater community through outreach, advocacy, and professional development. Events include LEED workshops and classes, speaker series, networking events, hands-on project experience, and project site visits.
Contact: usgbcstudents@umich.edu