The “Greening” of Evangel: Campus redevelopment leads community conservation efforts
The grounds crew has greatly enhanced Evangel’s campus green space, trees and plant life.
Currently, Evangel is building a new Administration Building, a three-level, 69,000-sq.-ft. facility that will replace another half-dozen leaky, old barracks.
Three residence halls have been renovated and made more efficient in the past three years.
March 10, 2008
Contact: Paul K. Logsdon, Director of Public Relations and Publications, 417-865-2815, Ext. 7292
Springfield, Mo. — Evangel University has joined with key local business, government and educational organizations in an effort to lead the Springfield community in areas of sustainability.
The Partnership for Sustainability, launched in Dec. 2007, will help coordinate and catalogue members’ efforts, and will serve as a regional clearing house for projects to help conserve energy and resources.
“Sharing ‘best practices’ is one way that we can learn about new ideas and technology,” said Paul K. Logsdon, director of Public Relations and Evangel’s representative to the Partnership.
Partnership members include: the City of Springfield, City Utilities, CoxHealth System, Discovery Center of Springfield, Drury University, Evangel University, Greene County, Missouri State University, Ozarks Technical Community College, St. John’s Health System, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Springfield Public Schools.
“Evangel has been a local leader in resource management,” said Logsdon. “Our coordinated efforts to recycle, for example, go back to early-1991.”
Evangel’s “best practices”
The most important environmental changes at Evangel University have involved replacing WWII-era buildings with modern, efficient, permanent facilities.
- During the past ten years, eight major building projects have replaced more than 30 of the old O’Reilly Hospital barracks.
- “The heating and cooling systems for the new facilities also employ the Johnson Controls Metasystem facility management system,” said Tom Keltner, director of the Physical Plant. “This allows us to save more energy by programming temperature setbacks when buildings are not in use.”
- Much of Evangel’s campus is heated with steam. “Our two main boilers have been replaced in recent years with modern, high efficiency units, resulting in a major increase in efficiency,” Keltner added.
- During the past three summers, three residence halls—Scott, Walther and Burgess—have been completely renovated, replacing thin window walls with heavily insulated walls and thermo-pane windows. The remaining three residence halls are scheduled for comparable upgrades.
- In addition, all six residence halls, as well as the Library and Chapel have had new, insulated roofs installed in recent years.
- “Campuswide, our plant personnel are replacing florescent fixtures with ‘green’ lamps and ballasts that lower power usage. Naturally, these products are recycled to keep the mercury out of the landfill,” said Keltner.