Portland State Magazine Spring 2009

FOOD FOR THOUGHT If you graduated before 2002, you may not know that there is a student-run cafe in the basement of Smith Memorial Student Union that serves meals mostly made from local, organic, and sustainably grown food . Food For Thought Cafe serves up buckwheat pancakes for breakfast and vegetarian lasagna for lunch, to name just a few of its dishes. Students, who want to spread the word and the tofu, received Miller funding to make Food For Thought Cafe a "living laboratory" for campus research and teaching, while improving sustain– able practices throughout PSU's food system. COOL DATA FOR COOLING DOWN Large data centers with hundreds of computers can consume about the same amount of power as a small city. Decisions such as what racks and nodes to use can minimize power consumption and optimize cooling efficiency. A computer science professor plans to integrate this knowledge into system software, creating a novel approach to potentially reduce the power and cooling burdens for large labs and data centers. DAMMED IF YOU DO Roslyn Lake is gone and some Sandy residents are angry. A few understood too late that with the removal of the Marmot and Little Sandy dams in 2007 and 2008, the lake would drain away. PSU students learned of the residents's consternation from surveys they conducted as part of a Miller-funded project. The students shared their results with community partners, including the U.S. Forest Service, which will use the findings in future dam removals. Students and faculty from business, economics, environmental sciences, geography, sociology, and urban planning looked at the environmental, social, and economic impacts of removing two dams. With use of their research, they expect similar projects will lead to more sustainable results. GREEN BUILDING LAB A proposal to establish a Green Building Research Laboratory at PSU not only received Miller grant funds, it also attracted $300,000 from out– side sources, including the Oregon Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies Center. Faculty from engineer– ing, urban studies, and architecture are creating a lab that can test everything from green roofs and window glazings to interior moisture levels and a building's surface temperature. LOOKING TO EACH OTHER With so many sustain– ability projects on campus, it would be easy to miss what a colleague down the hall or a student in the basement is doing. Two faculty members who specialize in helping PSU faculty succeed received Miller funding to hold a retreat spring term that will enable faculty to share information about the green things they're doing. The pair is also using grant dollars to develop a video showcasing PSU sustain– ability teaching and research for campus newcomers. ■ SPRING 2009 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 13