IUSA promotes sustainability petition, joins forces with Coach Crean

In an effort to get the sustainability fund off the ground, student groups have reached out to men’s basketball coach Tom Crean and the IU Athletics Department.

Crean recently agreed to have lunch next semester with five randomly selected students who signed the sustainability fund petition.

The IU Student Association, the Student Sustainability Council, Residence Halls Association and other campus groups have been circulating the petition all semester.
The drive’s ultimate goal is to make the sustainability fund an available check box at registration.

The donation section of the registration process currently includes boxes for fundraising groups such as IU Dance Marathon and an option to purchase Little 500 tickets.

In order to get the check box put onto the registration website, the drive must collect 10,000 signatures in a single semester, which gives the groups until Dec. 17 to meet their goal.

IUSA Chief of Staff Neil Kelty said the drive is within 1,000 signatures of their goal. That means collecting about 190 signatures every day for the remainder of the semester.

“I think we’re on pace to where we should be,” Kelty said.

IUSA Chief of Sustainability Ian Kaelble said involving Crean helped them meet another goal.

“We’d been wanting to involve athletics somehow all semester,” Kaelble said.

He also said there was a push to collect signatures at sporting events, but that fell through for legal reasons.

Instead, the initiative team decided to use lunch with Crean as an incentive for students to sign the petition.

The sustainability fund initiative has existed in some form for multiple semesters, but no group has garnered the necessary 10,000 signatures. An advantage to the most recent collection drive is the availability of an online signature option.

The drive has collected 3,000 signatures online so far, Kaelble said.

However, Kaelble said IUSA hoped the online option would go viral via Facebook and other similar sites, and that has not been the case.

“It hasn’t been quite the success we thought it would be,” Kaelble said.

The drive has still used traditional collection methods, such as canvassing in Ballantine Hall and setting up tables outside of academic buildings to collect as many signatures as possible.

This drive has also involved multiple large student groups, rather than being promoted by a single group.

Kelty said if the drive is not successful, it will begin again next semester. However, he doesn’t see that being necessary.

“We’re gonna get it. I know we will,” Kelty said.

- Claire Wiseman