Public Affairs Discussion Group

"Case Recycles," and How That Works

Gene Matthews - Director of Facilities Services at Case Western Reserve University



Friday February 25, 2011
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall - Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University

Virtually everyone says they're in favor of recycling. Yet doing it is a lot of work. We have to do our part with our own trash, but containers have to be distributed, the materials collected, and someone has to want them. It's a major task that requires a lot of cooperation and organizing and perhaps involves some frustrations.

The University participates in programs like "Recyclemania," a competition among universities, to encourage faculty, students and staff to recycle. But how does that work? What happens to the recycled material? Why are some things recycled and others not, and what more could be done? Gene Mathews organizes and manages CWRU's recycling efforts, as well as working on CWRU's energy conservation activities. Join us for his perspectives on conservation in practice.

There will be no parking available in the visitors parking lot next to Crawford Hall on Friday February 25, 2011. On other Fridays a few spaces are available for visitors with mobility concerns. Parking options for visitors from beyond campus include the Severance Hall parking garage on East Boulevard, the small lot on Adelbert Road just uphill from Euclid Ave, and other lots on campus.

More About Our Guest....

Eugene Matthews, is Case Western Reserve University's director of facility services. He won the 2006 Champion of Sustainability award from Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, a diverse network of over 2,700 leaders who are putting the principles of sustainability into action.

Matthews joined the university almost 15 years ago to head the facilities services division, and his team has worked on projects such as the university's energy consumption patterns, the lighting retrofit project at Kelvin Smith Library, and has been involved in the construction of new buildings on campus.

At last October's CWRU Climate Action Plan Forum, Matthews was quoted as saying, "The most important thing is to track utility consumption on campus," he said. "It's the little things, like turning off the lights when you leave a room or shutting off the water while brushing your teeth."

"Take stock of how you use your energy," Matthews said. "Pay attention to what you're doing and don't assume that energy reduction is somebody else's responsibility. We all use energy every day in everything we do".

"If everybody does a little bit, collectively we do a lot."

Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

March 4: Shirley M. Moore, Professor and Associate Dean for Research, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing: Even After a Heart Attack - The Challenge of Encouraging Healthy Behavior

March 11: No Session, Spring Break

March 18: Special Inamori Center Event, Howard Ernst, Associate Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy, Dirty Water:  A Critical Look at Regulatory, Cooperative, and Market-based Solutions to the Nation's Growing Water Pollution Problem.

March 25: Mark Votruba, Associate Professor of Economics: The Social Effects of Economic Dislocation

April 1: Jacqueline Lipton, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center for Law, Technology and the Arts: Privacy and Online Social Networks.

April 8: Special Inamori Center Event.

April 15: Mark Naymik, Reporter, Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio's Budget Battle

April 22: Jon Groetzinger, Visiting Professor of Law and Director, China Legal Programs: Developing the Legal Profession in China.

The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of Crawford Hall. Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made. On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion. Overflow parking is also available in the Severance Hall parking garage on East Boulevard.

Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building. The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch. On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.

For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs, please see http://policy.case.edu.

February 21, 2011

Upcoming Events

China's Rise and Its Impact on Almost Everything

Author and journalist Orville Schell, February 24, 2011, 6:00-7:00 p.m., Wolstein Building Auditorium, 2103 Cornell Road, Cleveland, Ohio, Sponsored by the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities. Free and open to the public,  registration recommended.

This lecture provides the opportunity to hear one of the country's most well-informed observers on China and to gain a better understanding of the reasons behind China's economic rise, US response to this rise, and how China and the US will/can get closer in tackling critical problems in the twenty-first century.

In his articles, Schell emphasizes that it is the two countries' common interest to work together on "how to construct a new financial architecture and how to solve climate change." He contends that a possible, well-guided co-operation between China and the US will have a tremendous positive economic and environmental impact on the world.

In a Newsweek article, titled "Why China and the U.S. Will Only Get Closer," Schell writes that "What happens next will depend in large part on how Washington leads. China and the United States could easily become antagonistic. But things could unfold much more positively—if leaders on both sides recognize how many interests they share." In fact, China— previously conceiving itself as exploited by the West—is "fashioning a new sort of partnership with the West" as a result of its growing confidence. Such partnership, Schell argues, will demand a lot from both countries: China will have to "resist […] the temptations of hypernationalism" while "Americans must come to terms with the reality that their own vaunted democratic system has often failed them—by letting the economy run off a cliff, for example."

Democracy, Diplomacy, and U.S. Interests in Egypt: The Freedom Agenda of George W. Bush

Professor Jason Brownlee, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Texas, March 3, 2011, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Mandel Center Building, Room 115, 11402 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, OH. This program is made possible by the generosity of Ms. Eloise Briskin and is sponsored by the Case Western Reserve University Center for Policy Studies.

President George W. Bush's support for Arab democracy is conventionally regarded either as a noble departure from traditional US foreign policy or a cynical ploy to justify America's presence in Iraq after the WMD search came up dry. Examining US relations with Egypt during the Bush presidency, Brownlee explains the often incongruous mix of public rhetoric and official actions that constitute recent democracy promotion. Concerted White House support for political reform in Egypt ran aground amid bureaucratic skepticism, long-standing assumptions, and untended-to regional concerns.

Jason Brownlee's research concentrates on Middle East politics and US foreign policy. Prior to arriving at the University of Texas, he was a fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

Jason Brownlee's first book, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization, explains the varying fates of autocratic rulers who experimented with multi-party elections. The focus of his current research is US-Egyptian relations.