Last July, Phil Zapfel ’09 became the College of William and Mary’s first full-time employee dedicated to reducing the College’s environmental impact. Zapfel works as a fellow with the Committee on Sustainability, which develops the College’s sustainability strategies, publicizes sustainability programs and supports students, faculty and organizations in sustainability efforts. The COS received an endowment in May that enabled the creation of a sustainability fellow position this year.

But the position isn’t a normal 40 hour-a-week job.

“I end up working more like 60,” Zapfel said, “But it’s what I love, so some nights and weekends are expected.”

While some of these hours are spent in the comfort of his office in Blow Hall, most of Zapfel’s time is dedicated to meeting students, faculty and staff interested in sustainability initiatives or answering questions about his work.

His newly created position is already helping to streamline and facilitate the College’s ecological ambitions.

This past summer, Zapfel worked with intern Lauren Edmonds ’11 to finalize the College’s first official greenhouse gas inventory, which revealed that the College’s CO2 emissions per square foot of building space have been cut by 16 percent since 2003.

Two other COS student interns, Tyler Koontz ’09 and Judi Sclafani ’11, spent their summer researching how to improve the College’s recycling program and came up with cost-cutting measures that could save more than $40,000. Zapfel said he believes these measures will significantly improve the economic feasibility of the recycling program.

Zapfel is also working with Larry Smith, director of the Commons, who has hired three sustainability interns
to improve recycling, composting and sustainable food purchasing at all of the dining halls across campus.

One of the most significant aspects of the fellow’s position is working with the COS, the largest committee in the history of the College, consisting of over 100 student, faculty and staff volunteers spread out over 10 working groups.

Zapfel said he has received 50 student volunteer applications for the committee in the last two weeks.

The general goals of the committee are set by the COS’s Steering Committee, but the individual groups are given the independence to decide their own priority.

“It’s worked incredibly well so far,” he said.

As the environment has moved to the forefront of people’s minds, Zapfel has numerous tips for students looking to reduce their environmental impact here in Williamsburg.

“Our bus system is actually quite reliable,” Zapfel said. “I recommend everyone try it at least once. Also, bring your own coffee mug to Wawa, Starbucks or the Daily Grind. You can cut down on waste and receive a discount.”

For Zapfel, this fellowship is a continuation of his life’s passion. He was involved in numerous environmental groups at the College before graduating last spring.

“I love the job. It’s exactly what I want to do, in an environment I already know quite well,” he said.

For those interested in sustainability events, Zapfel maintains a blog, titled “Hark Upon the Green,” at harkuponthegreen.blogs.wm.edu. The site carries news about continuing projects and eco-conscious events.

Tuesday afternoon, the College of William and Mary post office took a suspicious package, it had no return address, to the College’s Police Department as a precaution.

Campus police then took the package to the William and Mary Parking Deck, the nearest safe location, after clearing the building of bystanders.

According to College Spokesman Brian Whitson, campus police then called in a Naval Weapons unit from the nearby Naval Station, and the unit safely disrupted the package. The package’s contents posed no danger to campus.

The parking garage was closed for nearly an hour.

“These were all precautionary measures,” Whitson said.

The Student Assembly passed the Fall 2009 Elections Delay Act Tuesday, delaying the SA freshmen election day back from Sept. 24 to Thursday, Oct. 1.

“We did not have a very high turnout of declarations by the deadline,” Chief of Staff Charles Crimmins ’11 said. “We didn’t have time to sufficiently publicize it.”

Elections Commissions Chair Jasmine Piña ’11 agreed, noting that publicizing the elections was difficult due to the amount of coverage devoted to the swine flu and sorority recruitment.

“[The delay] would make things a lot easier, and it’s calmer for freshmen, too,” Piña said.

The bill passed unanimously.

Vice President Ryan Ruzic J.D. ’11 announced an initiative to assist students in paying for STI testing.

After meeting with Director of the Student Health Center Dr. Virginia Wells, Ruzic learned that approximately 950 individual STI tests are administered on campus each year.

“I think if a student has a real concern, they’re probably going to swallow the cost of the $75 test,” Ruzic
said.

However, he expressed concern that some students may be deterred by the cost.

Sen. Imad Matini ’11 announced the success of the Seasonal Influenza Prevention Act, which increased the number of free flu shots from 100 in 2008 to 300 this year.

“This year there was obviously a stronger demand. They actually ended up giving out 811 shots,” Matini said. “The event went really well.”

The 2009 Omnibus Code Update Act, a measure to reform the SA code, passed last week and is now available on the SA’s website,
www.thestudentassembly.org.

According to Sen. Brittany Fallon ’11, the SA also approved “four productive changes” to the student “Know Your Rights” cards.

The cards will be printed with these changes and then distributed to students.

The cards will be printed with these changes and distributed to students.

A new secretary of the senate, Sen. Betty Jeanne Manning ’12, was elected after Fallon stepped down. Fallon said she felt she could be a more effective senator without the duties of secretary.

“I type fast, and I’m organized,” Manning said in a short and convincing speech delivered before she was voted unanimously into the position.

The Williamsburg Planning Commission held a public hearing Wednesday evening on PCR 09-017, a resolution that would allow four unrelated people to share a residence. Currently, the city prohibits more than three unrelated individuals from sharing a residential unit.

Jim Joseph became the second planning commissioner to voice his opposition to expanding the ordinance to four people, citing the economic and social dangers of transitioning single-family neighborhoods into a collection of rental properties. Commissioner Greg Ballentine has also come out against the proposal.

“We are guilty of acknowledging this transition,” Joseph said. “We should stop it by holding the line on the three-person rule.”

A majority of the residents in attendance agreed. Those who spoke at the hearing expressed concern with the proposal, centering their complaints on how more renters would negatively impact their communities.

“[The three-person rule] keeps a lid on what happens when you increase the numbers,” city resident Henry Coleman said. “The change is not a reasonable thing to do to the community.”

A common theme throughout the hearing was anxiety that increasing the possible number of renters per unit would skew the character of neighborhoods surrounding the College of William and Mary. While property values would increase for landlords hoping to rent their houses to students, homeowners trying to sell homes to other families would be hamstrung by the neighborhood’s declining surroundings.

“We do not want a house to become more valuable as an investment … than as an owner-occupied home,” chemistry professor and city resident Dave Kranbuehl said.

Some elements of the proposal being discussed were crafted in the spring by the City of Williamsburg’s Focus Group on Rental Properties Near the College. Although the focus group failed to reach a general consensus on enforcement, city staff created a proposal that incorporated a permit application system that had been discussed by the group.

Based on the proposal, landlords would be able to apply their properties for permits allowing four tenants per unit. If the property met certain criteria, including number of parking spaces, square footage and number of bedrooms, the city would issue the permit. However, violations of city ordinances would result in a permit’s revocation.

After assessing the proposal at its Aug. 10 meeting, the Williamsburg City Council voted to refer the proposal to the planning commission. The planning commission, which consists of seven members, has until Nov. 27 to present a recommendation on the proposal to the city council. However, if the commission can prove that they have been working diligently on the proposal, they can receive extensions of up to 100 days.

The three-person rule has been a sticking point for town-gown relations in recent years. Students residing at 711 Richmond Rd. were sued by the city last year for violating the ordinance, and numerous student efforts to change the law have failed.

Only one student, Kirstie Brenson ’12, spoke at the meeting.

“The [proposed changes] don’t solve anyone’s problems,” she said.

Instead, Brenson said the city should focus on enforcing existing ordinances that target the behavioral problems associated with some off-campus houses.

The Student Assembly’s Undersecretary of Public Affairs to Williamsburg David Witkowski ’11 said that the SA will refrain from publicly commenting on the proposal until the commission meets for its Sept. 23 work session.

“I didn’t feel like I had anything constructive to say,” Witkowski, who attended the session, said. “Nothing that was said today is going to make or break the process. This was more of a chance for the planning commission to gauge public sentiment.”

At least one member of the planning commission agreed with Witkowski’s assertion.

“I think that a lot of the discussion hasn’t zeroed in on the important issues,” commission member William
Kafes said in an interview. “I want to hold off expressing my opinion until the work session.”

Other members of the planning commission could not be reached for comment.

Aggressive tuition hikes may be just one of the ways that the College of William and Mary combats the latest round of Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine’s budget cuts.

Potential tuition increases were among the many solutions suggested by faculty and staff Wednesday and Thursday at the Board of Visitors’s September quad-annual meeting. However, most of the BOV remained quiet on the issue of rising costs, seeking to wait until future meetings to discuss it.

The main concern of the BOV and the campus community was the effect of Kaine’s latest budget cuts on the welfare of the College as a whole.

The issue is drawing attention throughout the College — one of the first meetings Wednesday was packed beyond capacity, forcing additional chairs to be taken from neighboring rooms to accommodate the number of people in attendance.

College President Taylor Reveley attempted to lighten the atmosphere by discussing several of the College’s key accomplishments since the BOV met last April.

Reveley mentioned the hiring of 25 new professors, the record number of freshman applicants to the College, and the seamless transition in most of the College’s senior leadership.

“Great people are in place,” he said. “People are crucial. Without great people, even a huge endowment will be useless.”

Reveley also stated that the leadership was intent on designing a new financial model, one that does not rely heavily on the state to cover the institution’s operational costs.

“We are deadly serious, in a very sophisticated fashion, in trying to come up with a new financial model that does not heed upon the unrealistic expectation that the state will provide for our operating budget in the way that it used to provide for our operating budget,” Reveley said.

The BOV received positive news on the status of the College’s endowment from Wells Fargo, the investment bank charged with investing the endowment.

Wells Fargo reported that the College’s portfolio had gained back around 17 percent, or $46 million, of the money it lost during the recessionary period of 2008.

The good news did not extend to Vice President for Finance Sam Jones’s report on the College’s finances.

Jones explained that the state, in addition to the $10.5 million budget shortfall they had foreseen, had just added another $6.2 million to the shortfall with Kaine’s current budget cuts.

In response to this additional cut, Jones explained that a majority of the $7.6 million federal stimulus money would now be allocated to the current fiscal year.

Jones also discussed the one-day furlough proposed by the governor’s office — a plan that will save the state an estimated $15 million without affecting the retirement benefits of state workers.

“The idea is that you don’t work, and you don’t get paid,” Jones said. “We don’t appear to have the flexibility to say we’re not going to do the furlough and cut somewhere else, nor do we have the flexibility to add additional furlough days.”

A furlough would not take effect until approved by the Virginia General Assembly.

For the fiscal year 2010, with the addition of Kaine’s budget cuts, the College would have to tackle a $3.35 million shortage, Jones said.

Because of the increase in cuts by the state, Jones said that a large portion of the federal stimulus funds given to the College from President Barack Obama’s policies would have to be moved to the current fiscal year to alleviate some of the pain.

“We can eat nuts and berries for a couple of years,” Reveley said, but he stressed that this was not a long-term solution, and that a new financial plan independent from the state had to be forged.

“We’re a public university with declining public support,” new BOV Rector Henry C. Wolf ’64 J.D. ’66 said in response to one member’s comment that the College was not state-funded anymore, but state-supported.

During a meeting of the Committee of Academic Affairs, Provost Michael R. Halleran highlighted the importance of keeping the College’s decision making independent of monetary hindrances.

“There are a lot of things that we do control,” Halleran said. “The most important things that happen on this campus — who we hire, what we teach, whom we teach, how we teach it — all of these are things that we decide, regardless of what our budget is.”

But Kate Slevin, chancellor professor of sociology and Chair of the Faculty Assembly’s Liason Committee to the BOV, disagreed, responding that faculty at the College simply had come to the point of losing faith in the institution’s ability to raise revenue.

“We are very worried to the point of being discouraged,” Slevin said. “We’ve had cut after cut … our biggest concern is the integrity of the academic program.”

Slevin explained to the committee that with low salaries, no raises, larger classes and more students, faculty had come to the belief that it was almost impossible to keep up with the international standards that the College expects of them.

“Please find revenue,” she said. “We really are asking that the BOV be bold, really bold, bolder than you’ve been in the past, and we think you must be extremely aggressive in finding other forms of revenue.”

Gene Tracy, FA president, also stated that the faculty members of the Faculty University Priorities Committee (FUPC) had unanimously voted earlier that week to have the BOV consider aggressively raising tuition in coming years.

But the faculty was not the only entity to believe tuition should be increased.

Reveley and Halleran were in unison during the Committee on Strategic Initiative meeting, stating that the most logical way to solve the budget problem was by raising tuition within reasonable limits while simultaneously increasing need-based aid, a dramatically new plan for public institutions.

The Committee of Strategic Initiatives’s meeting witnessed a heated debate among BOV members when guidelines for a new financial model simply tweaked the existing model. BOV member and Committee of
Financial Affairs Chair Charles A. Banks III was concerned that the College should be coming up with an original model for how it was going to handle financial affairs.

“I’d hate to miss the opportunity, while the economy is keeping us in heat, to get more efficient,” Banks said.

Reveley responded by stating that there really was not a strategic plan out there for a public university like the College to adopt.

“Rich privates have spent money like drunk sailors and left no financial model for themselves or others,” Reveley said.

Others, like Wolf, agreed with Reveley, stating that in a world where change is inevitable, the strategic plan should be something that can ensure the future of the College.

“We need to look at the strategic plan like a work in progress,” Wolf said. “Let’s look at the strategic plan like an evolving plan.”

The BOV opened their first meeting of the year with the introduction of two new members, Dennis H. Liberson ’78 and Michael Tang ’76, to the Board. Pending approval from Kaine, the two will replace outgoing members Barbara B. Ukrop ’61 and Michael Powell ’85. Due to a previous commitment, Tang was not present at the meetings.

*Former Board of Visitors member passes away*

Former Board of Visitors member Harriet Nachman Storm’64 passed away suddenly Tuesday.

Storm was involved with the College of William and Mary for over four decades, serving on the BOV from 1979 to 1988 and as a member of the Alumni Board of Directors from 1972 to 1978. In 1989, Storm helped found the Cypher Society, an organization of former BOV members who would like to continue their involvement at the College. She was elected its first president, a position she held until her death.

Storm was a graduate of Newport News High School and transferred to the College after two years at the University of Maryland School of Journalism. Upon graduation in 1964, she worked as a writer and editor for the Daily Press for eight years.

*College Police Department gets new captain*

The William and Mary Police Department has welcomed a new police captain. Ed Schardein is the police department’s third captain in its 35-year history. He has a 22-year background with the Portsmouth, Va. Police Department.

While serving in the Portsmouth police department, Schardein led Forensic Services and Community Policing units and a special operations division that handled narcotics and homeland security.

Schardein has worked on Uniform Patrol, SWAT, the Marine Enforcement/Dive Team and the Tactical Response Unit.

Schardein said he was attracted to the department at the College because of its reputation as a professional and accredited force, its size and because he would be able to remain on the peninsula.

*Students to create videos for incoming class*

The Office of Undergraduate Admission is challenging College of William and Mary students to create videos highlighting what makes the College special.

The contest comes through the office’s “More Than Bricks” film challenge. The contest’s purpose is to use the creativity and video editing skills of current students to garner excitement for the College amongst the next freshman class.

This is the contest’s second year, and the winning video will be seen by more than 3,000 campus visitors during admitted students events for the Class of 2014.

An alliance of students has held protests at South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand since Monday after the administration announced plans to increase fees for the 2010 academic year.

“The students are protesting against a proposed fee increase for 2010, which averages at 9 percent to 9.5 percent. The MBA [Masters of Business Administration] is one exception… it is proposed that it be increased by 15 percent,” Witwatersrand spokesperson Shirona Patel said in a released statement. In addition, residential student fees will be increased by 11.8 percent if the proposal is implemented.

Several hundred students handed out a memorandum of demands to the administration Tuesday and marched through campus, disrupting classes, chanting songs and yelling slogans. According to the South African Press Association, protests stayed peaceful Wednesday, but university officials still called in police.

The South African Students Congress, the African National Congress Youth League and the Young Communist League all form the Progressive Youth Alliance. Their demands include capping registration fees instead of increasing them to 6,000 rands, or approximately $820, as well as placing a moratorium on any fee increases.

“Registration fees determine access to the institution,” SASCO President Mawethu Rune said to the South African National Press. “Due to the economic recession, the increase will deny many students access [to education].”

Additionally, protesters want an investigation of the student fee structure and of university services that have been outsourced, such as security, cleaning and catering.

They are also calling for the removal of the university’s vice-chancellor, Loyiso Nongxa, who they allege has not seriously addressed student concerns. Nongxa was booed when he refused to personally accept the memorandum listing student objections, instead sending Wits’s registrar. The memorandum was finally given to Vice Principal Yunus Ballim.

Nongxa condemned the protest for violating the rights of students whose class time was disrupted and threatened disciplinary action against students not in compliance with Wits’ code of conduct.