Education
UW-L would need more money for sustainability specialist, chancellor says
A protest earlier this week over the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse not having a sustainability coordinator, while other UW colleges do.
According to UW-L Chancellor Joe Gow, money is the key reason there isn’t one.
The chancellor said Dan Sweetman works as the UW-L campus sustainability manager but a full-time coordinator position would cost about $80,000 a year — funding Gow says is “hard to get for us right now.
“What we would need in terms of a sustainability coordinator would be base funding, and so that has to recur every year,” Gow said in response to a climate change rally Monday on his campus.
Demonstrators at the rally didn’t accept the claim that a lack of funding is preventing the school from promoting more sustainability measures.
Gow said Sweetman does a “wonderful” job on sustainability.
“We don’t see the need for an entirely new position,” Gow said, surprised by the rally, because he meets regularly with students on environmental topics, and expects sustainability to be a top priority on campus in the near future.