"The Green Poodle," a website created this summer, seeks to improve coordination amongst green-focused student organizations on campus.
The site contains a running blog with current events, a page with contact information for each organization and a calendar that will sync to the organizations' individual meeting schedules. As the site gains followers, organizers Jake Nonweiler '14 and Hannah Bristol '14.5 are hopeful that group leaders, alumni and faculty will also post information about green-focused internships, jobs and conferences.
"I want the GP to be a resource that people recognize," said Nonweiler. "I would love for people to think of the GP as the resource for all environmental information on campus."
Last February, Bristol and Nonweiler became aware of a lack of cooperation amongst student clubs and organizations on campus. Seeking to remedy this problem, the two established The Green Poodle – deciding upon a name that combined the moniker of two of the campus' servers (Portal and Moodle) and drawing inspiration from an image of a green Poodle that they had seen online.
Over the summer, the two students asked environmental groups to join the website, and received very positive responses. To date the site contains bios and contact information for 12 student organizations.
Stu Fram '13, co-leader of Eat Real – an organization that promotes food sustainability on campus – will serve as his organization's liaison with The Green Poodle. Fram is excited about the potential for collaboration amongst student groups.
"Without generating environmental relevancy to ostensibly disparate areas, I think we're just going to keep spinning our hybrid-powered wheels," Fram said.
Fram hopes that The Green Poodle will serve as more than a mere directory, and will encourage broader discussions about environmental sustainability on campus.
Bristol and Nonweiler are hopeful that the site will gain traction with students in September, allowing incoming students to find the groups that match up best with their interests.
"We hope that this will allow us to continue pushing Middlebury forward on environmental issues and to be more effective in various projects through collaboration," said Bristol.
New Green Website Builds Community
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