Last Thursday the CT ran an article about how UR declined in the latest College Sustainability Report Card rankings (down from a B- to a C+ this). To recap, the College Sustainability Report Card evaluates the efforts of 332 schools in the U.S. and in Canada.

Last Thursday I also received a very nice thank-you card from UR for a donation I recently made to the college fund. At the time, it was my third thank-you. I also received a verbal thank-you from the student caller who convinced me to donate and a follow-up e-mail thank-you.

As a young alumna with a modest salary in an overpriced city, you can bet that my donation was not worth three thank-yous. I’m sure my donation did not cover the cost to print a handful of these cards. It seems that a school concerned with its sustainability ranking would take this into consideration.

One obvious way to reduce the UR’s alumni carbon foot print and save the University some money is to give alumni the option to opt out of print materials. Not everyone has a computer but alumni, especially young alumni, are computer savvy. My utility and credit card companies let me opt out of print statements; why not the University, too?
Many of the alumni materials are available online, but the University does not give alumni the option to receive only online materials. Some of these materials could include the alumni magazine (think of how many trees and stamps could be saved), event notifications (I love Meliora weekend as much as the next person, but only receiving an online catalogue would have been just as effective as receiving a print catalogue) and, of course, thank-you notes.