Kellogg Community College students this fall will notice a new addition to the College’s North Avenue campus in Battle Creek: 40 custom, newly installed recycling stations.
The highly visible, colorful recycling stations, each including separate containers for collecting paper, plastic and metal, are the culmination of the College’s Phi Theta Kappa honor society chapter’s Bruins Recycle initiative.
The PTK initiative was launched last fall after KCC President Mark O’Connell asked the group for ideas to help the College standardize the recycling program on campus to make it more robust and intuitive to use.
Student PTK officers and members of the Students for Sustainable Earth campus club came up with ideas and wrote grants to support the project, through which they received $2,576 from donors including the Battle Creek Community Foundation, Calhoun County Recycling, the KCC Foundation and PTK.
Funds were used to create the recycling stations, as well as an introductory video promoting the program, which can be viewed on KCC’s YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/FAXj_3DdRZI.
KCC students – many of whom are now alumni – who participated in the project included Emily Brenner, Diana Campbell, Amber Hartlerode (pictured above), Hamza Haque, Emily Hausman, Matt Maurer, Zachary Olson, Bob Psalmonds, Brooke Roberts, Audrey Shive and Steven Thawnglianrang. Additional assistance was provided by Holly VanDam, secretary to the dean of Student Services at KCC, and the Bruins Recycle signs and graphics affixed to the stations were created by KCC Media Design Staff Assistant Rachel Roelof.
KCC Student Life Manager Drew Hutchinson and Business professor Kim Madsen are the College’s PTK advisors and oversaw the student project. They said in addition to simplifying and making the College’s recycling program more visible on campus, the project helped participating students learn valuable skills in the process.
“The students gained leadership skills by planning and coordinating the project with KCC’s administration, facilities and marketing teams to successfully complete their permanent footprint on our beautiful campus,” Madsen said. “We are extremely grateful for their efforts on behalf of the College.”
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