John All said he met some resistance when he tried to organize an Earth Day celebration during his first year at Western.

“People looked at me like I was crazy,” said All, an associate geography and geology professor.

That was six years ago, he said.

But All said Western’s campus has changed since then.

“It’s completely transformed and gone the other direction,” All said.

Officials say campus has moved toward sustainability in the last year, but there’s more progress to be made.

Sustainability Coordinator Christian Ryan-Downing said she credits professors such as All and several student organizations with getting more students involved.

“It’s not really anything tangible, but you can just tell there’s a growing interest,” said Ryan-Downing, who became Western’s first sustainability coordinator last May.

She said it hasn’t always been this way.

“Even a year ago you had to look to find this,” Ryan-Downing said.

Now there are a lot of people doing different things to make Western sustainable, she said. She wants to find ways to increase awareness of all these projects and activities next year.

“There’s so much happening and so much to share,” she said. “I think it’s a good problem to have.”

All said geography and geology professors have taught sustainable development courses for about ten years.

Now other departments, such as the College of Business, have started to get involved. Bringing course curriculums together is the next step, he said.

Nancy Givens, sustainability programs development coordinator since January, works with academic departments on integration.

Officials are working on two new online master’s degree programs that help integrate sustainability classes on campus, she said.

One would focus on the science of sustainability and one would focus on community organizing.

All said students need a variety of classes in areas including economics and sociology to understand sustainability.

It’s not just about changing to more energy efficient light bulbs, he said. It’s also about understanding why changing light bulbs is important and why some people don’t change them.

A Sustainability Committee, appointed by President Gary Ransdell, met for the first time in November, Ryan-Downing said.

The committee was formed to bring people in various areas together to recommend ways to advance sustainability, she said.

Sara Ferguson, chair of the Student Sustainability Committee, said a lot of the projects done this year will have lasting effects on Western, from building the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified College of Education and Behavioral Sciences building to creating an energy policy that explains how Western can be sustainable.

Ransdell said ways to be sustainable will evolve over time, but this year has been a good start to Western’s efforts to go green.

“I would say that the emerging of a serious sustainability commitment will serve as a hallmark of this academic year,” Ransdell said.

But Ryan-Downing said that, while sustainability is getting more attention, “it’s still not the norm yet.”

Half of the people on campus don’t turn their computer off at night, she said.

Ryan-Downing said recycling also hasn’t increased as much as she wanted.

About 9 percent of Western’s waste was recycled this year, she said. Six percent was recycled last year.

Officials want to recycle 40 percent of Western’s waste. That’s the amount of waste that can be recycled, she said.

Western’s recycling coordinator Cristin Lanham, who took that position in March, will work to reach that goal, Ryan-Downing said.

She said the resources to support recycling have greatly improved, with new bins placed around campus and more space being built to store the materials.

But Ryan-Downing said officials still have a lot of work to do to increase awareness.

“We still have a long, long way to go,” she said.