Staff Host Campus Race to Zero Waste Events

A group of students pose with their upcycled artwork during the CRZW art competition
Students who participated in the Upcycled Art Competition pose with their creations.

Emerson College’s 2023 Campus Race to Zero Waste challenge wrapped up at the end of March with two events that staff hosted: a Clean Out Your Office (COYO) Day on March 21 and an Upcycled Art Competition on March 22.

COYO is an event hosted once per semester by Campus Services and Archives and Special Collections. Faculty and staff are invited to clean out their offices and donate unused office supplies. Katelyn Koenig is a first-year Creative Writing student who is working for Jen Lamy (Campus Services). She explained the purpose of the event: “COYO is essentially a donation drive encouraging people to clean out their office—hence the eponym—and donate things that still have use. It allows them to give their items a second life without resorting to the trash, and also reminds them that donating can be pretty easy to implement in your daily life!”

Koening helped execute the event, which entails keeping the donations organized during the event, weighing the items that are left, and preparing them for pick-up by donation centers. Over three hundred pounds of items were donated after this event.

The Upcycled Art Competition was held in the Iwasaki Library on March 22. It was a collaboration between Campus Services and the Iwasaki Library. The event aimed to reuse items around campus to create art and also give some old library chairs a new life. The Performing Arts Department contributed to the cause by donating fabric scraps for participants to use.

Cheryl McGrath (Iwasaki Library) said, “The library is in line for a space refresh, and I greatly appreciated the creativity the students showed in helping extend the life of some of our chairs. They made the chairs more inviting and interesting and have inspired me to think about the space refresh planning differently.”

Student sewing fabric scraps onto a chair
A student sews fabric scraps onto a chair.

Koenig also helped run this event and said it was a hit. “There were a decent number of people there, mostly students, and we all had a lot of fun getting creative with the materials and expressing ourselves in that way, even if we weren’t all masters of crafts or sewing,” she noted. Richelle Devereaux-Murray (Performing Arts) and Homa Sarabi (VMA) judged the creations, along with faculty Michael Tucker. The top three winners received a cash prize.

Both events highlighted the College’s commitment to sustainability, encouraging a more eco-conscious lifestyle. As Lamy explained, “Both of these events were great opportunities for students, faculty, and staff alike to get involved with sustainability on campus. Our sustainability efforts only succeed with the enthusiastic cooperation of the entire Emerson community.”

Vani Hanamirian ’26