Greeks Going Green

In order to make substantial reductions in the amount of energy used and

waste produced on large-scale campuses, we can start by making small changes to
their lifestyle. University of Marylands Greek community has created a chance for
people to starting making these changes.
Some fraternities and sororities are electing sustainability, recycling, and
facilities management directors for their chapters. The role of these positions is to
facilitate practices for their chapters
to reduce their environmental
footprint. A majority of the Greek
chapters homes house 20-50
students. With this number of
residents, there is a large amount of
trash produced. The increased
attention paid to disposing trash
appropriately and minimizing wasted energy is a great starting point. If all 40 on-
campus fraternities and sororities adopted these practices, the Greek community
would be on its way to helping UMD become a more sustainable campus.
Skutch Montgomery, Sustainability Chair for Kappa Alpha Order fraternity,
has been working with his brothers to minimize the amount of waste produced in
their chapter house. We currently have recycling on every floor, dual function
toilets, a compost station, motion sensor lights, and water bottle refilling stations,
The picture above is the chapter house of Kappa Alpha
Theta; it houses 50 women.
said Mr. Montgomery. Montgomery has goals to continue retrofitting various
aspects of the house budget and eventually gain LEED certification for the house.


Lena Kavaliauskas-Crain,
Housing Director at Kappa Alpha
Theta, says that the girls in the
house have been paying closer
attention what they throw away.
Kavaliauskas-Crain
mentioned the larger scale efforts
developing at Theta. She hopes
that Greek houses will continue to be more sustainable and work alongside other
organizations on campus, by
implementing a weekly meatless meal,
for example, we could reduce our carbon
footprint. By using our roof space to
capture solar energy or produce a rooftop
Pictured to the left are designated cans for different
waste at Kappa Alpha Theta.
garden, well be cleaner consumers. Each of these goals will require more time and
money, which has been set aside for sustainable efforts, but chapters are excited
about the opportunities they are pursuing.
The chapters that have initiated sustainable efforts hope to encourage others
as well. Rooftop gardens, solar panels, and other large-scale projects at Greek
chapter homes would be ideal in the future of sustainability at UMD. Recycling and
minimizing energy used around Greek houses are great first steps along the
sustainability path!