Two Degrees Campaign heats up

Author: Jason F. Siegel

A recent survey regarding a decrease in the temperature of campus buildings shows that student opinion is generally in favor of the initiative to lower the temperature of classroom buildings and dormitories by two degrees Fahrenheit.

The sponsoring committee, a division of the Sunday Night Group called the Middlebury Climate Campaign, started the movement known appropriately as the "Two Degrees Campaign" in late October. The goal is to lower the default temperature in all buildings on campus by two degrees and educate the student body about how the heating systems work, thereby saving around $60,000 in heating costs, according to the group.

The survey was comprised of eight multiple-choice questions with an opportunity at the end to identify certain buildings on campus as being too hot or cold. The questions posed to students sought to assess how hot buildings on campus are in general, their own ability to control heating in their dorm rooms and their support for a reduction of temperatures in classrooms and residence halls. The survey received 1,112 responses, or nearly half of the student body.

In general, student responses to the questions tended to be either in favor of or ambivalent towards a reduction of building temperatures. For example, more than 60 percent of respondents reported having to open their windows in the winter due to excessive heat. In addition, 71.4 percent of students supported or strongly supported the two-degree reduction of classroom building temperatures, and 72.6 percent would do the same for residence halls.

When asked about which buildings were too hot or too cold, certain buildings were mentioned many times. For instance, Munroe Hall was generally considered to be too hot, with more than 100 students calling it "too hot," versus 27 who believed it is too cold. Warner Hall, Proctor Dining Hall and Twilight Hall were the next hottest buildings. Conversely, Ross and Atwater Dining Halls and the New Library were the buildings most frequently dubbed too cold. In fact, all the new buildings on campus - that is, those that have opened since 1999 - were cited more often as being too cold than too hot.

The survey had long been in the works. On Sunday, Oct. 30, one of the members of the Sunday Night Group, Thomas Hand '05.5, went to the Student Government Association, requesting assistance with the distribution of an electronic survey, to be distributed to all students. After making several suggested changes, the survey was distributed to all students via e-mail on Nov. 17.

This is not the first campaign of this kind. Three years ago, Hand helped organize a similar effort to encourage all students to set their thermostats to the lowest level, explaining that the amount of heat delivered to rooms in various older dorms varies because the heating plant sets a temperature for the whole building rather than individual rooms. Thus, when students returned to their rooms and turned the thermostat to its highest setting, they would receive no heat whatsoever if the building was at its ideal temperature. Then, once the room became overheated, students would open their windows, and this alternation caused expensive fluctuations in heating. The initiative to get people to stick to one level to stay more consistently warm never gained popularity, which was part of the reason for the birth of the two-degree campaign.

Hand stated that the current campaign was also born out of the carbon neutrality report from two years ago. Citing a trend in the goals of environmental initiatives at Middlebury, he said that the Two Degrees Campaign was important not simply for its environmental merit, but that "it will also be a big financial benefit to the campus." The financial benefit would provide added incentive to support the cause. Hand warned that the savings would come only if people did not start to open their windows more than in the past. "When people are opening their windows and it's -25 degrees outside, a 100-degree temperature difference can erase the savings pretty fast."