Changing energy-use habits often starts with changing the culture. And a $200,000 grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund recently awarded jointly to Hollins and Emory & Henry College will attempt to do just that. “Our mutual goal is to encourage students, faculty, administrators, and staff at each institution to become more conscious of the choices they make regarding energy use and the consequences of those choices,” said President Gray. “We anticipate that members of each campus community will benefit from changes in attitude and behavior and will continue to support energy conservation as a way of life.”

A key part of the project is hiring a shared energy manager who will conduct a comprehensive assessment of energy consumption on each campus, identify ways to decrease energy use, develop policies for each institution, and enhance educational activities to promote conservation.

To Gray, the two schools’ relatively smaller infrastructures “will make it viable for one energy manager to serve each campus effectively, allowing us to progress together more rapidly, benefit from shared experience with similar issues, and develop an energy conservation model that could be useful to other small liberal arts colleges.”