By Emily Bartelheim, Features Editor
Earlier this year, the College of Wooster pledged to become an even more eco-conscious school by signing a contract with Carbon Vision LLC to install a 20,000 square foot solar roof atop the Scot Center, the new student recreation and athletic facility that is currently under construction on campus.
This installation will be the largest solar project on any college or university facility in the country. It will have a life of about 40 years and generate 271,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year, which is enough to power one of Wooster’s student residence halls.
Carbon Vision will install and own the solar fixture, leasing it to the College, which will purchase all the power generated for a period of 12.5 years until loans are paid and ownership is finalized.
Installation will tentatively begin on or around March 16 and the work will take about six weeks to complete. There will be a total of 1,081 panels in the array.
This new project will supply enough energy to run the Scot Center and all of its components: four intramural courts for basketball, tennis and volleyball; an NCAA regulation 200 meter running track; a fitness center with a full array of circuit training stations, traditional as well as elliptical running machines, rowing machines and free weights; and new locker rooms, athletic department offices and meeting rooms.
Needless to say, students and sports teams will no longer have to fight for gym time once this beautiful building is completed.
The solar panels are one of the many ways the College has become a greener school in the past few years. Through the re-usable mug program, abundant recycling bins, the compost program in Lowry Dining Hall and now the country’s largest college/university solar panel project, the College is setting a great standard for our gas-guzzling population to follow.
“For the last three years we have been getting progressively better organized, more ambitious and more serious about modeling sustainability practices that the larger society might adopt,” said Wooster’s President Grant Cornwell. “Today we take a dramatic and exciting step forward on that road.”
The tentative opening date of the Scot Center is January of 2012.
Lewis House Seeing Eye Dog Program
Rachel Kassenbrock
Voice Staff
Christine, our one-year-old Black Labrador “student,” is enrolled as a guide dog in training through Guiding Eyes for the Blind, an organization dedicated to smoothing the lives of visually impaired men and women.
The program, run by professionals and volunteers, aims to train dogs that will potentially serve as lifetime support for those who need it.
Guiding Eyes pups begin training at ages as young as six weeks, and work with their “puppy raisers” for 12 to 16 months. Ideally, after this stage is complete, socialized and well-prepared young adult dogs are passed on to the Guiding Eyes staff, at which point they are assigned to certified guide dog instructors.
After this next phase of training is complete, the dogs will be tested, and, if they respond effectively and reliably, are placed with blind†††††† partners.
Here at Wooster, Elizabeth Fridley ’11 is Christine’s primary puppy raiser. The rest of Lewis House, Maggie Cox ’11, Beth Wardrop ’11, Emily Billingsley ’11, May Tobar ’11, Colby Mills ’11, Sarah Rudawsky ’12 and myself, helps Fridley to ensure that Christine enters the next phase of her training as a competent††††† student.
Christine’s daily routine of practicing commands, going on well-monitored walks and, of course, romping around with her trainers, aids in her introduction to formal guide dog training.
In addition to at-home preparation, we accompany Fridley and Christine to bi-monthly “puppy class.” These classes, run by experienced Guiding Eyes trainers, teach the puppies obedience and emphasize relationship bonding between the dogs and their handlers. These classes are great learning opportunities for us as well as for Christine.
The class of between five and 10 puppies gives us the change to handle dogs in training other than Christine, and it puts Christine in a context where she can practice responding to commands in a busy and distracting atmosphere.
The dogs with which we are unfamiliar get used to greeting new people calmly, which is a very important skill for a working guide dog to possess. And we, as puppy raisers, learn to more successfully instruct and relate to the dogs in training through the exercises and drills included in the class.
When I returned to Wooster in January after spending first semester abroad, I had no idea what to expect in regards to Christine’s progress.
At that point, my only experience with guide dogs in training was being told not to pet the dignified dogs in public places wearing the “Guide Dog in Training” vests. Upon meeting Christine, I was taken aback at her rambunctiousness. She was easily excitable and didn’t ever seem to stop moving! She certainly didn’t listen to me.
Guiding Eyes specifically trains their dogs to be stubborn, and Christine demonstrates this by, for better or for worse, doing as she likes. How were we going to turn this highly energetic puppy into a determined and hard-working guide dog?
I must admit ó it was not until I witnessed Fridley and Christine in action at my first puppy class that I began to have some faith in her potential as a guide dog.
Watching Christine outshine many of the other puppies in class shocked me. She was attentive throughout, remained almost completely undistracted by the other dogs in the class, and mostly responded to Fridley’s every command.† She was such a different dog!
What I had failed to realize up until this point, as I struggled to get Christine to sit when I told her to sit, and to please not pull on her leash so much, is that just as I would take some time to get used to her, she would take some time getting used to me.
After four months of taking orders from seven people, an incoming eighth is unfamiliar and suspicious. Naturally, I took some getting†††† used to.
I also soon learned that it wasn’t just Christine who needed practice. We are now seven weeks into the semester, and I am still learning how to appeal to and adequately work with her.
The year or more puppy raisers spend with their potential guide dogs doesn’t just prepare the dog, it also prepares the handlers.
While Christine has learned to sit, stay, and loose leash walk, I have learned the hand signals, authoritative tone, and proper dog walking etiquette that accompanied her mastering those skills.
Although we have big plans for her, Christine is, for all intents and purposes, still a puppy. She is smart. She understands what we ask her to do and is capable of doing it, but her puppiness will, at least sometimes, trump her obedience for a while.
While she may have a long way to go before she becomes a safe and reliable guide dog, the foundation and potential of becoming one are there. I am thrilled to have had some part in her progress thus far.† Seeing her mature through her training and classes has been such a rewarding experience and I’m glad the College offers such an opportunity.
For more information about the Guiding Eyes program, see https://www.guidingeyes.org/.