College of Business Administration

GROUP MEMBERS:

Jessica Hermansen
Dan Jesse
Dave Kurpinsky
P.J. Skarlanic
Michael Sugich
Chris Tominna

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The goal of our project is for both the students, and the faculty, at San Diego State University to conserve energy and to reduce the costs associated with energy. Specifically, we are spearheading a program to turn off the lights in the BAM building at night when they are not being used. In the BAM building alone, SDSU wastes $9,000 per month in lighting idle classrooms. $9,000 per month would be enough to pay tuition for 30 students a semester! It would be plenty to hire a couple more professors or add more classes.

We have partnered up with Scott Burns from the Physical Plant here on campus to help us get our message across. Scott has supplied us with financial information and energy costs for the BAM building from the last several months. Together, we feel that in order to make our efforts successful we need to start by making students and especially faculty members aware of this terrible waste of resources.

Our push to reduce the energy in the BAM building begins with the faculty members. They are usually the last ones to leave the classrooms at the end of the night, and therefore should consider it their duty to turn off the lights. Sure there are other alternatives, such as the motion sensor lights in the newer buildings around campus, but installing the sensors would be another cost that would create a bigger economic hole for SDSU. Taking responsibility for turning out the lights is free and virtually effortless. To get this message across to the teachers, we have put attention-grabbing flyers in their mail boxes. Trying to remain environmentally conscious, we have only put flyers in the professor’s mail boxes who teach classes in the BAM building. To reinforce the flyers we have also sent out emails to those same professors. In the emails we make note that thus far our efforts have saved SDSU an additional $2,000 per month on the electrical bill.

In addition to making the faculty members feel obligated to turning off the lights, we have also welcomed the help of various volunteers. Currently Sigma Chi is rounding up fraternity members to literally walk up and down the hallways of the BAM building at night and turning off the lights. We hope that eventually they will arrive at the BAM building to find all the lights already off! Sigma Chi has also helped our group to spread the word on the ridiculous energy bills by putting up stickers around campus. We have designed stickers bearing the slogan “Put your 2 cents back into the deficit!” Our hope is that this will increase awareness among the student body about the tremendous waste of all our money.

In a time where SDSU finds itself in a financial deficit we can not afford to throw money away. We have interviewed several students on campus and they all agree that this irresponsible behavior needs to stop. SDSU has many areas that are starving for additional funding including academics, athletics, and campus maintenance. If we can make a difference in just one of theses areas we will feel like the Lights Out! program has been a success.