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 Representatives of university-based institutes and centers from around the United States will converge in Athens on April 6-8 for the 2016 Consortium of University Public Service Organizations (CUPSO) annual conference. CUPSO was first organized in 1979 as a coalition of university-based public service institutes in the south. The organization was founded to support these institutes in their service to state and local governments as they engage in work around contemporary public policy issues.  "CUPSO provides a forum for networking and information exchange among university colleagues," Mark Weinberg, founding dean of the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, said. "The consortium has a good mix of both large and small institutes and centers." Across its various workshops and presentations, the 2016 CUPSO conference will focus on university leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation and the relationship between public service institutes and government. New this year, the Voinovich School will sponsor a pitch competition, where four member institutions will showcase their innovative social and public policy initiatives to compete for cash prizes. The conference will also showcase Ohio University, highlighting the Voinovich School's programs and offering a campus tour the Voinovich School, a horse-drawn carriage ridge through the historic Ridges, as well as a tour of the Kennedy Museum. "This gathering promises to provide a unique opportunity to network with other university-based public service organizations and engage in productive discussions on topics that are high on the agendas of organizations such as ours," Weinberg said. "Because of the relatively small size of the gathering, there will be plenty of opportunities for the kinds of interactive, practical and candid discussions that are often of most benefit." |
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|  our entrepreneurs and startups in southeastern Ohio have been named Rising Startup Stars for the fourth annual celebration of regional innovation and entrepreneurship, TechGROWTH Ohio's Innovation Celebration. This premiere event will take place March 29, 2016 from 5:30-7 p.m., in the Ohio University Baker Center Ballroom.
The Fourth Annual Innovation Celebration Rising Startup Stars include:
- Sense Labs, Ben Lachman - America's 129 million residential electricity customers, on average, waste 40 percent of the energy they pay for and have almost no feedback on the cost of that waste to them or to their environment. Sense Labs has developed Glow, an intelligent energy tracker that helps users reduce their electricity usage and carbon footprint through real-time ambient feedback and actionable usage data. Lachman has started two software companies and currently runs a working space for independent professionals in Athens.
- YOST Labs, Greg Merril - YOST Labs is one of the fastest growing tech companies in Ohio specializing in patented sensor technologies that enable motion and position tracking in many of today's and tomorrow's upcoming products. Merril, CEO at YOST Labs, is an inventor with 19 issued patents, an author of numerous peer reviewed technical papers and was the founding CEO for three prior venture capital backed fast growth sensor and simulation product companies.
- Jersey Watch, David Carter - Jersey Watch helps youth sports organizations creatively use digital technology to impact their players, followers and fans through free custom-built websites. Carter, a collegiate football player turned entrepreneur, has served more than 100,000 athletes in the Midwest as co-founder of Jersey Watch.
- FWD:Energy, Inc, Rich Sloan - FWD:Energy is a renewable energy business focused on converting waste to energy through renewable energy plants and other commercially valuable products. Sloan, CEO at FWD:Energy, Inc., is an entrepreneur and nationally syndicated talk show host who has been recognized as one of America's most passionate evangelists for small business.
Registration for the Fourth Annual Innovation Celebration is free, but pre-registration is required. For more information, and to register, visit gala.ohio.edu.
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As the Voinovich School Race to Zero Waste continues, we're focusing on a different topic each week to help faculty, staff and students manage their waste outputs. This week, we're exploring paper and what can be done to reduce use in a paper-heavy office setting.
In Buildings 19, 21 and 22, we're working to convert all printers to automatic double-sided printing. In the meantime, we've collected tips for you to easily reduce your paper use at The Ridges.
Nine tips to reduce office paper use at the Voinovich School:
- Use caution when printing from Excel. Choosing "print selection" rather than "print workbook" ensures paper is not wasted on unneeded tabs and columns. Also, choose landscape versus portrait orientation carefully and use the print preview to make sure you're printing more than just a few rows per page.
 - Maximize space within Word. Margins and font sizes are easily changed in Word, and a .75-inch margin is becoming more common. If you need to print only one or several pages of a many-paged document, specify which page(s) you want to print in the "pages" section of the print screen.
- Move internet text to Word first. If you must print a web page, copying and pasting the text to Word controls exactly what gets printed and eliminates ads, comments, etc.
- Screenshot important documents. If keeping an online receipt or other internet-based document, screenshot it and put it in a hard drive folder like you might with a tangible folder. Use the snippet tool or Alt+PrtScn on PCs and Command+Shift+4 on Macs.
- Consider scanning instead of copying. If you need to keep a copy of a physical document, scan it to a computer-based folder rather than making a copy and filing it in a paper folder.
 - Keep personal alternatives to office paper towels and tissues. These may include handkerchiefs, rags and cloth napkins.
- See if online bill pay/ordering is an option. When purchasing from a company where they offer the option for e-mail order confirmations or receipts, select it whenever possible.
- Reuse paper that only has ink on one side. Handwritten notes can be made on the back of old papers or even utilizing the recycling bin to see what usable paper remains.
- Always ask yourself: Do I NEED to print this? It's the most common way to reduce paper usage, but also the simplest.
In next week's newsletter, we'll explain how to determine what is recyclable and provide locations for hard-to-recycle items.
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 Location: Athens, OH Description: Athena Solar Power is seeking an intern for Summer or Fall 2016. We are a worker-owned cooperative doing residential solar installations in and around Athens county. Our focus is on low-income residents and, being structured as a lean startup, we have managed to bring the price down substantially. However, there are still many people in this region that would like to get renewable energy, but the cost remains beyond their reach. We would greatly appreciate assistance in any of the following areas: Identifying grants and innovative financing options for customers; Developing a detailed business plan and growth strategy that facilitates expanding membership; Gathering market research and/or creating an advertising campaign (preferably via non-commercial local media).
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 On Friday, February 26, Dr. Derek Kauneckis presented his latest water-related research at the second CE3 Brownbag Lunch of the semester, organized by CE3 and the Voinovich School's Environmental Studies Program. His talk, entitled "Water Out West: Using Decision Sciences to Understand Complex Socio-ecological Systems," explored the complex governance and institutional design challenges that water resource management faces in the western United States, now further complicated by climate change. An associate professor with the School's Environmental Studies program, Dr. Kauneckis received his Ph.D. in public policy from Indiana University at Bloomington and served as the director of graduate studies in the Department of Political Science at University of Nevada, Reno before coming to the Voinovich School in January 2015. His latest project, Water for the Seasons, is supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This 5-year project, in collaboration with the University of Nevada, Reno and the Desert Research Institute, is "a research and outreach program that partners scientists with community stakeholders" and looks specifically at Nevada's Truckee-Carson River System as "a model for snow-fed arid-land river systems across the American West," according to the Academy for the Environment at University of Nevada, Reno. With the infamous California drought now entering its fifth year, a majority of western states have already experienced earlier springs and shorter winters. The significant reduction in available snowpack, as is the case in the Sierra Nevada mountain region feeding the Truckee-Carson River System via Lake Tahoe, causes tension among the many stakeholders vying for the same water resources. "The goal of this project is to understand how to build more resilience into our western water systems," Dr. Kauneckis said at the brownbag event. "We know that climate change is expected to add increased variability...and what that means is we're going to get in the West less snowfall and more rain."
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Two students in the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs Master of Science in Environmental Studies (MSES) program were on the top-placing teams in a regional competition sponsored by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) Student Simulation Competition on climate change.
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| | Alexandra Sargent |
In the competition, teams of up to 21 students from universities across the world were asked to create an achievable plan to limit global warming, and competed at regional locations around the globe. MSES student Alexandra Sargent's team won and MSES student Courtney Donker's took second place in the Midwestern NASPAA competition, held Saturday, Feb. 27.
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| | | Courtney Donker | |
The NASPAA simulation allowed students to build their networking and interaction skills while working to quickly produce climate solutions across many sectors. Organizers sent a 50-page brief on Thursday, Feb. 25 expecting students to have digested it by Saturday morning with travel and a Friday mixer in between. On Saturday, each group prepared a six-page written report and an oral presentation for judges.
"The NASPAA event was a great networking opportunity, and I met some truly wonderful individuals from universities around the Midwest," Sargent said. "I think we were successful because of the amount of collaboration we did as a group -- it was not easy, mind you, since we had many vocal, strong-willed individuals representing different stakeholders, but it made for great debate and conversation."
The simulation emphasized the numerical values within climate change models and intellectual debate among sectors for enacting policy changes. The internal debate involved the complexities surrounding stakeholders, gross domestic product, agriculture and land use, fossil fuel retirement, research and development into new technology, and more.
"The advantage of taking part in this competition was the ability to learn about modeling techniques, the economics between sector interests, and the vested, environmental losses or gains with the prioritization of industry," Donkor said. "The collaborative group work equated to a better understanding of the complexities with an increased number of solutions."
Donkor served as a Climate Hawk, which meant that her sector mitigated implementation strategies among the other sectors such as sustainable energy, fossil fuels, agriculture, and human population and consumption.
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Earn Your Bragging Rights Workshop
March 22, 5 - 6 p.m.
Baker 230
"The Sustainable Food Movement Rising"
March 23, 7:30 p.m.Baker Ballroom More informationCE3 BrownbagMarch 25, 12 p.m.Bldg 22, Room 221, The Ridges
Sustain OHIO Deadline for entry
March 25
More information
Innovation Celebration
March 29, 5:30 - 7 p.m.
Baker University Center
Voinovich Future Leaders Spring Potluck
April 1, 5 p.m.
Bldg 22, The Ridges
Green Jobs Panel
April 5, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Alden 319
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"These grasses, we think, have greater environmental benefits compared with corn. It requires a lot of fertilizer, and manufacturing fertilizer requires a lot of energy, and there are greenhouse gas emissions associated with that," Davis said. "And then we worry about runoff with all that fertilizer, and the additional nitrogen and phosphorus in our waterways."
Dr. Sarah Davis, assistant professor at the Voinovich School, as quoted in
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Impact & Innovation is a newsletter for the students, faculty and professionals of the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs.
Have an article idea? Contact Laura Alloway, Voinovich School Director of Marketing and Communications.
Impact & Innovation is written and created by undergraduate students Diana Wiebe, M.C. Tilton, Jasmine Grillmeier and Daniel Kington.
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Join us for the fourth CE3 Brownbag Lunch of Spring Semester on Friday, March 25 at noon in Building 22, Room 221 at the Ridges. 
Voinovich Scholars, MSES & MPA Students - want to make your resume and cover letter even better?
The Voinovich School Future Leaders group would like to invite you to their spring potluck. All MSES, MPA, Voinovich Scholars, faculty and staff are invited, as well as friends, significant others and children!
