Loyola orders about 15,000 reams of virgin copy paper annually. The university has about 1,400 parking spaces, with more than 5,000 students trying to park in them. Loyola only offers recycling services for aluminum and paper and no composting program.

Loyola is learning.

Campus copying machines usually have directions for two sided copying and a recycle bin near by. Freshmen are prohibited from buying parking passes. Composted soil is used in campus landscaping. New buildings on campus are built using various forms of environmental architecture, and much of the lighting in older buildings has been switched out with more efficient systems.

“We found out that Loyola is doing some really great things in a lot of areas, but there are plenty of areas where we are really far behind,” communications senior Kathleen Welch said.

Welch and 10 other students conducted an in-class audit of the university last semester with the help of Robert Thomas, who holds an endowed chair in Environmental Communications and is director of Loyola’s Environmental Communications Center. Professionals and professors were brought in to explain to students what they should be on the look out for and what already was going on around campus. The class also included a field trip to a downtown architecture firm to learn about green planning and building.

“I was really pleased with the opportunities to meet with environmental architects, as well as other ecological staff,” said philosophy senior Joe David.

Students learned that before they could properly evaluate their own university, schools from all over the nation had to be analyzed.

Pioneers in environmental education were the main targets: Stanford, Princeton and Humboldt University, just to name a few.

“It was really uplifting to know that there are other universities out there using the technologies available to advance their schools and their surrounding communities,” Welch said.

Liz Davey, environmental coordinator for Tulane University, presented her own students’ environmental audit. Then the Loyola class was able to come up with its own areas of interest and concern.

“We researched topics that students had questions about, but no one had ever really looked into,” said Kevin Fitzwilliam, who graduated in May with a degree in communications and environmental studies. “For example, we were able to look at how much paper the university uses and where our food is coming from.”

After students educated themselves on their specialized topics, they were able to see where Loyola was on track and where it needed some help. Students then were asked to make suggestions.

At the end of the semester, the class held an open presentation of its findings and made suggestions for the future. Environmental communications also posted the results of the audit on its Web site.

And just how green is Loyola?

“Everything was very impressive,” said music education senior Lisa Buchanan, co-chairwoman of the Environmental Action program at Loyola, who attended the presentation. “The recycling part laid out really nice requirements for what needed to be done.”

“I thought the study and data were very practical and well needed,” sociology chairman Anthony Ladd said. “I encourage the faculty and administration, from Father Knoth on down, to implement most of the study’s environmental recommendations over the next year.”

“If we are going to stand behind our Jesuit identity, there’s no better way than by supporting these green issues and addressing environmental concerns,” Welch said.

Thomas said he will be unable to continue the course himself in the spring, but he is looking for a graduate student or someone interested in working on an honors thesis to continue the audit.

Although the class falls under the Environmental Studies curriculum, there were a host of different majors in the class. “Even if you don’t like the idea of an ‘environmental’ course, this class would teach applicable knowledge for the job market that everyone should have,” said Creighton Burson, a psychology graduate.

“There’s so much more to work toward,” David said.