SOU Student Wins Scholarship to Study Chemistry at U.C. Berkeley

Laura Armstrong, a 22-year-old Chemistry major, has been awarded the $5000 Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship scholarship. Armstrong, home-schooled through high school, plans on attending U.C. Berkeley. Her future plans include achieving her Ph.D. "Thank you! I want to do the research they do at U.C. Berkeley", she explains, specifically in the area of theoretical chemistry.

The prestigious scholarship is one of just 57 awarded in the nation, and the first of its kind at Southern Oregon University.

SOU Recognized for "Green Power"

Southern Oregon University announced today that it was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the 2009-2010 Individual Conference Champion for using more green power than any other school in the Cascade Collegiate Conference.

Since April 2006, EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power purchases in the nation. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has made the largest individual purchase of green power within a qualifying conference.

Southern Oregon University beat its conference rivals by purchasing more than 33 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 287 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. Southern Oregon University purchases renewable energy certificates (RECs) from Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which helps to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the campus’s electricity use.

EPA estimates that Southern Oregon University’s purchase of more than 33 million kilowatt-hours of green power is equivalent to the CO₂ emissions from the electricity use of nearly 3,000 average American homes each year or has the equivalent impact of reducing the CO₂ emissions of nearly 5,000 passenger cars annually. The Cascade Collegiate Conference’s collective green power purchase of nearly 50 million kWh of green power is equivalent to the CO₂ emissions from the electricity use of more than 4,000 average American homes or the annual CO₂ emissions of nearly 7,000 cars.

"This is a college playoff where everyone wins," said Gina McCarthy, EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation. "Renewable energy is a slam dunk not just for Southern Oregon University but for clean air, our health, and our climate."

Twenty-six collegiate conferences and 54 schools competed in the 2009-2010 challenge, collectively purchasing nearly 1.2 billion kWh of green power. EPA will extend the College & University Green Power Challenge for a fifth year, to conclude in spring of 2011. EPA’s Green Power Challenge is open to all U.S. colleges, universities, and conferences. In order to qualify, a collegiate athletic conference must include at least one school that qualifies as a Green Power Partner, and the conference must collectively meet EPA’s minimum conference purchase requirement. For more information, visit: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.

Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro. Green power is considered cleaner than conventional sources of electricity and has lower carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, a greenhouse gas linked to global climate change. Purchases of green power help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide.

-Southern Oregon University Press Release

Contact Jim Beaver at 541.552.6093 for more information