Since late December, all of the food waste from Annapurna Dining Hall —leftovers from veggie prep, leftover food in serving trays at the end of a meal, and diners’ uneaten food deposited in the colored bins — is being composted, amounting to about 720 lbs per day.
Although she was attending college in Southern California, Andrea Zapata was looking for a school with a commitment to sustainability and a focus on personal growth.
One night, her mother had a dream which led them to discover MIU. Two weeks later, Andrea was attending a Visitors Weekend.
On December 7th, 2015, Sally Wilson addressed a full classroom in the Sustainable Living building at Maharishi International University, where she will be teaching an Applied Systems Thinking class in February as an Adjunct Faculty member.
A farmer and rancher most of her life, Sally holds a PhD in Biology and currently heads the Entrepreneurial Agriculture program at Marshall Town Community College. Her training in Systems Thinking formally began at the Donella Meadows Institute. Sally has been teaching applied systems thinking for almost 15 years and has visited Fairfield, IA...
MIU Alumni Amy and Troy Van Beek visited the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris last December, representing Ideal Energy.
Loida Vasquez worked as a loss prevention executive for Bloomingdale’s, investigating financial crimes for the high-end department store chain. Even though she was successful at her job, she admits that the work didn’t feed her soul. She wanted to make a difference in the world, so she decided to return to school and study sustainable living.
The last time we spoke with Monica was back in August. The on-campus composting project she launched began with 10% of the dining hall waste, and quickly shot up to 45%. Since then, she has been focusing on ways to get that number to 100%, including building an on-site storage shed and hiring more helping hands.
As of this week, her focus and tenacity has paid off – Monica successfully organized the funds and purchase of a compost shed for the MIU campus dining hall! The shed will allow for...
LaToya Crick was attending community college in her hometown of Freeport, Texas, when one day a friend told her about MIU. LaToya had been learning about healthy eating and living, so MIU’s offering of organic meals and the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique appealed to her. She and her friend attended a Visitors Weekend and soon they both enrolled.
Daniel Harvey grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, among the farms of America’s heartland and worked on several large scale and industrial family farms. After high school, he spent eight years playing drums, touring and recording with various underground punk rock bands. He has always been interested in an ecological, earth-friendly approach to agriculture, so when he heard about MIU’s Sustainable Living program he applied.
Taking the High-Road on Turkey Day
With a tradition as deeply established as Thanksgiving, taking some extra time to change our habits toward more sustainable practices can seem overwhelming. What if Aunt Bessy comes to the feast only to find real, organic cranberry sauce in place of the sugar-laden gelatin product she is so accustomed to? We here at the MIU Sustainable Living Department have sewn together this guide to a more sustainable Thanksgiving that will be tighter than the sweater Aunt Bessy so kindly made for you...
AASHE, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, hosted its 2015 conference in Minneapolis, MN, and we had the pleasure of being one of their exhibitors! Beginning on October 25 and running through to October 28th, this conference was all about different sustainability-minded organizations coming together to share their ideas, network, and have fun while doing it. Held in the prestigious Minneapolis Convention Center, it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime event, with its largest turnout ever of 2,200+ attendees!
