The Brandeis Office of Development and Alumni Relations will host a campus clean-up event on May 12 for their employees. The clean-up day has been named Brandeis development, environmental, clean-up and awareness day, or Brandeca Day.
Development employees and senior staff will work primarily on litter and trash clean-up.
Senior Vice-President of Institutional Advancement Nancy Winship explained, “we’re going to take off our nice clothes and put on gloves and sneakers and clean up every piece of litter we can see.” She added, “the ground crew does a great job [and] we thought we could add a little.”
“We’ve worked very hard to have a beautiful campus and we want to keep it beautiful,” Winship remarked.
When she arrived at the university 15 years ago, she said, “the Great Lawn was a parking lot…there is more open space on this campus than ever before.”
Much of the aesthetic improvement, Winship said, is owned to President Reinharz.
Reinharz, she commented, leads by example. “I have never seen him walk by a piece of litter and not pick it up,” she said.
Along with campus beautification, Brandeca Day will also include a meeting with the university’s new sustainability coordinator, Janna Cohen-Rosenthal ’03.
“We’re all aware of the environment,” said Winship, “and we’re learning from the students.”
As part of her position, Cohen-Rosenthal, explained, she has approached different departments to discuss lessening environmental impact. The development office “approached me to give a talk about how their department could be involved,” she said.
“The part that’s really great,” said Cohen-Rosenthal, “is that they want to…think about how they can improve sustainability.”
Students for Environmental Action Vice-President Matt Schmidt ’11 agreed. Brandeca Day is “a great idea. I’m always in favor of university departments showing initiative on sustainability,” he said.
SEA President Stephanie Sofer ’09 echoed Schmidt’s comments. “It is very exciting to have more members of the Brandeis community get involved in sustainability at Brandeis.”
She continued, “in order to make environmental sustainability ingrained within the culture of this university, faculty and staff must be on board, as well,” she commented.
Winship said she hoped the event might inspire other departments to take similar action. “We hope this will become an event that takes place a number of times a year,” she remarked.
