On Thursday, the focus was on student initiatives, not university efforts, to make the campus a friendlier place for the environment and students who live there.

The Green Gathering was hosted by Housing and Dining and featured a panel of university faculty and a graduate research assistant to encourage students to initiate realistic changes on campus to not only benefit the environment but to save the university money and possibly reduce costs.

“If you have ideas, you should definitely be pushing them,” said Mary Drain, energy specialist for the campus’s physical plant.

She and the other panelists encouraged students to be aware of energy efficiency issues and make requests for them to be changed.

They talked about the costs of specific on-campus technology entities such as the individual labs where computers are left on at all times even when not in use.

“I can’t tell the administration to shut the computers down; students have to do it,” Drain said.

Associate philosophy professor Mylan Engel said faculty computer labs in DuSable Hall have signs asking staff to leave computers on after use so the next user doesn’t have to restart the computer.

“They’re really doing a disservice to the university,” Engel said.

A discussion also opened between panelists and guests about the trade-offs between different options for on- and off-campus dining.

Graduate research assistant Melissa Burlingame said students should consider the silverware and china options of where they choose to eat on campus and make conscious decisions to eat in dining halls that offer options other than throw-away takeout containers.

Assistant geography professor David Goldblum said everyone should find out where their food is coming from and purchase locally, especially in the summer from farmer’s markets.

“If you start to buy produce locally, you will make an impact,” Goldblum said. “You can buy in bulk over the summer and freeze it to use in the winter.”

Engel said the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases is the livestock industry, and it is an inefficient means of food production.

“It takes 13 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat,” Engel said. He explained different ways in which adopting a vegan diet is healthier for both the environment and human consumption.

He said that reducing the amount of animal products in diets of Americans will lower the risk of heart disease, stroke and some forms of cancer.

“Any time you opt for a plant-based meal over a meat-based meal, you reduce your carbon footprint,” Engel said.

The panel covered a wide range of topics from food consumption habits to reducing energy used to power the campus. The overall message from the four panelists was for students to be proactive about things on campus they want to see changed.

“One of the factors that students will start considering when deciding which college to go to is how green the campus is,” Goldblum said. “NIU is catching up, but there is a lot more that can be done.”