Home > News > UH Manoa graduate student and student sustainability coordinator Shanah Trevenna receives President's

"Making the Elephant Dance" Award

UH Manoa graduate student and student sustainability coordinator

Shanah Trevenna receives President's "Making the Elephant Dance"
Award
Trevenna honored for leadership in initiating UH Manoa campus sustainability efforts
University of Hawai!i
Contact: Carolyn Tanaka, (808) 956-8109
External Affairs & University Relations

Posted: Sep. 18, 2008

HONOLULU — University of Hawai!i President David McClain has selected UH M"noa graduate student and Student Sustainability
Coordinator Shanah Trevenna as the recipient of the President‘s "Making the Elephant Dance" Award for the third quarter of 2008. The
award was created this year by McClain to acknowledge individuals who successfully develop innovative ways to improve the university‘s
service to students and the community.

The award is named after the book "Who Says Elephants Can‘t Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise Through Dramatic Change," by the
former CEO of IBM, Lou Gerstner, who chronicles his efforts to make IBM‘s very large corporate bureaucracy more responsive to customers
and the marketplace.

"Shanah has demonstrated that, just as an elephant can be taught to dance, our university can be made more responsive to the issues
confronting the communities we serve," said McClain.

The Sustainable Saunders initiative is a project to evolve UH M"noa‘s Saunders Hall into a model of sustainability for the campus, Hawai!i
and beyond. Its goal is to pilot sustainable solutions at Saunders Hall, measure the results and roll out successful projects to the rest of the
M"noa campus. Trevenna coordinates nearly a dozen projects of the initiative, which include alternative energy, water catchment,
xeriscaping, recycling and worm composting.

The initiative has seen much success thanks to Trevenna and HUB (Help Us Bridge), an interdisciplinary student group, and is already
attracting the attention of many organizations that are pitching in to help out. Together with the UH M"noa Facilities Management Office, the
state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, HECO, the Board of Water Supply, and others, the students have
designed projects that will reduce the electricity use in Saunders Hall by 30 percent in the first year of the program, which is four years
ahead of campus goals.

"The Sustainable Saunders initiative at UH M"noa is an inspiring case study of how the passion of students can lead the way for
sustainability statewide," said Trevenna. "With their commitment to rigorous scientific assessments in the triple bottom line of economic,
social and environmental prosperity, students provide an unbiased perspective on potential solutions."

So impressive are the groundbreaking efforts being undertaken by the student-led group that Trevenna was invited to represent UH M"noa
and the Sustainable Saunders initiative at a gathering of sustainability coordinators at Harvard University earlier this year to share what is
being done in Hawai!i.

For more information about the Sustainable Saunders initiative and what has been accomplished so far, visit
http://sustainablesaunders.hawaii.edu.