Green Team Opportunities

SUMMER 2016

Application Deadlines: Monday February 15, 2016, 5pm

Graduate Assistantships

The Opportunity: We need you and your expertise in training undergraduate students and in developing and delivering sustainability solutions to help supervise Green Teams of undergraduates. The PSEG Institute for Sustainability Studies is offering a unique internship opportunity for undergraduate students to participate as part of a Green Team to solve a sustainability problem posed by a corporation, local business, or government agency. Students will work and be supervised at MSU this summer. Each team will have regular interaction with a contact at a corporation or agency, including weekly 1-2 hour meetings at either location. Teams will be comprised of 6-7 students coming from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. Outputs and deliverables will vary by student and by team, dependent upon areas of expertise. Your tasks will be to coordinate Green Team activities, assist with planning, suggest appropriate sources of information and methodologies, help the teams to create timelines, and motivate and support students to ensure regular progress toward planned deliverables.

Examples of questions posed by corporations or organizations might be

• What is our carbon footprint? And how can we reduce it?
• Where can we gain savings in energy use?
• What can we do about hazards in our local community (e.g. microbeads, litter, antibiotics and hormones in water)?
• What is the environmental risk of our activities? How can we mediate this?
• What are the benefits and costs associated with implementing a change?

Examples of deliverables

• Energy audits and information
• Water usage audit and reduction plan
• Multi-faceted recycling plans
• Environmentally preferable purchasing plan
• Environmental policy statement written for the organization
• Assistance with steps to LEED certification
• Strategic plan to become a more sustainable business
• Marketing materials prepared for the green solutions developed
• Classroom or training modules on sustainability solutions

Graduate students will gain experience coordinating teams of students, assisting them with time management and developing comprehensive, transdisciplinary projects. The graduate students will assist the student teams in developing clear and readily understood deliverables. Teams will be constructed and assigned to corporations by a PSEG ISS award committee. Individuals and corporations will be notified on March 1, 2016.

• Eligibility: Candidates must be current Montclair State University graduate students who will not complete their degrees until after August 5, 2016. Graduate students must be available to work one or both of the sessions indicated below.
• Dates of Graduate Assistantship:
  (note – undergraduate internships are May 31, 2016 – August 5, 2016)
• Session I – May 1, 2016 – June 30, 2016
• Session I – May 1, 2016 – June 30, 2016
  (this is only available to students not on academic year assistantships)
• Session II – July 5, 2016 – August 12, 2016
• Pay:
  • Session I – $3600 (9 weeks x 20 hours per week; 180 hours)
  • Session II – $3000 (6 weeks x 25 hours per week; 150 hours)
• Location: CELS building, Montclair State University
• Contact: For questions, please contact Dr. Amy Tuininga at tuiningaa@montclair.edu or (973)655-3667.

Undergraduate Internships

The Opportunity: Take part in a unique internship opportunity. Have a chance to work as part of a transdisciplinary Green Team solving sustainability problems posed by a corporation, local business or government agency. All majors are desired, many skills are needed. As part of this team, you could do some or all of the following: gain business connections, interact with local community members, gain experience in applied science, improve your team-working skills, develop education tools, create marketing documents, and more.

The PSEG Institute for Sustainability Studies is seeking motivated students with strong interest in sustainability for a unique internship opportunity in which they will participate as part of a Green Team, working at MSU this summer together with students from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. Teams will be comprised of 6-7 students (some teams may be smaller, depending on needs). Each team will have regular interaction with a contact at a corporation or agency, including weekly 1-2 hour meetings at either location. Outputs and deliverables will vary by student composition of the team and the needs of the organization.

Examples of questions posed by organizations or corporations might be:

• What is our carbon footprint? And how can we reduce it?
• Where can we gain savings in energy use?
• What can we do about hazards in our local community (e.g. microbeads, litter, antibiotics and hormones in water)?
• What is the environmental risk of our activities? How can we mediate this?
• What are the benefits and costs associated with implementing a change?

Examples of team deliverables (individuals may be responsible for a subset):

• Energy audits and information
• Water usage audit and reduction plan
• Multi-faceted recycling plans
• Environmentally preferable purchasing plan
• Environmental policy statement written for the organization
• Assistance with steps to LEED certification
• Strategic plan to become a more sustainable business
• Marketing materials prepared for green the solutions developed
• Classroom or training modules on sustainability solutions

It is hoped that by working together across disciplines, you will begin incorporating information from other disciplines into your thinking to develop a more comprehensive and integrated solution. As a result of this work, we expect that corporations or agencies will be supplied with data and strategies for approaching sustainability problems and that, depending on the extent and complexity of the problem, teams may have some time to begin implementation, if desired. Teams will be constructed and assigned to corporations by a PSEG ISS award committee. Individuals and corporations will be notified on March 1, 2016.

• Eligibility: Applicants must be current Montclair State University students who will not graduate until after August 5, 2016. Applicants must be available to work full-time (40 hours per week), during the day, for the duration of the internship.
• Dates of Internship: May 31, 2016 – August 5, 2016 (10 weeks, no work on July 4)
• Pay: $4000
• Location: CELS building, Montclair State University
• Contact: For questions, please contact Dr. Amy Tuininga at tuiningaa@montclair.edu or (973)655-3667.