"Mean Green" indeed: The new stadium at the University of North Texas got a platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The New York Times carried a story this week about how the sports industry is embracing environmental sensibilities -- perhaps a surprising and encouraging development, given that big-time sports "represent the broadest cross-section of consumer culture and America’s wasteful ways," as the article put it. But it appears to be a trend, and not one found in the usual places. “You would expect it out of a California team, but not an Arizona team,” said Derrick Hall, the chief executive of the Arizona Diamondbacks, which had added solar panels to its baseball field. How about a Texas team? Unmentioned in the article was the honor unveiled this week for the new stadium at the University of North Texas. It appears to be the first newly constructed stadium to...

It's a pretty good news week for Western Michigan University: Just as the university announced that it had gotten a $100-million gift for its proposed medical school, news outlets were also buzzing about new electric-vehicle charging stations that had been set up on the campus. The announcement ceremony included a visit by a U.S. senator who would be one of the first people to use the stations. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who had sponsored legislation that offers rebates to people who buy electric vehicles, drove up to the ceremony in a Chevrolet Volt. (She had borrowed it from an alumnus who had just bought the car. Electric vehicles owned by professors were on display, and the university owns a couple of electric vehicles, too.) Use of the charging stations will be free to owners of a special card distributed by ChargePoint America, a division of Coulomb Technologies...

Students hired by the coal industry picket for "clean coal" at Purdue U. in September. The Board of Trustees decided that coal was not clean enough. (Flickr photo by americaspower) Purdue University's Board of Trustees has killed plans for a $53-million coal-fired power plant, according to local reports. The board was concerned about the regulatory burdens and environmental impact of such a facility. The university will probably switch to natural gas. "It came down the economics," Robert E. McMains, vice president for facilities, told The Chronicle. He said the university had looked at the possibility of burning natural gas in the early 2000's and concluded that the fuel was too expensive relative to coal. But with new regulations on coal burning and ash coming from the federal government, the return on investment for a coal plant got longer and longer. "We rechecked the assumptions ...

A news item this week caused a stir among people who pay attention to energy issues. But did any college administrators take notice?

Granted, the item on its surface had little to do with higher education: The U.S. military is increasingly nervous about its dependence on fossil fuels, reports The New York Times. That dependence presents some vulnerabilities in distant war zones, the Times reported:

Fossil fuel accounts for 30 to 80 percent of the load in convoys into Afghanistan, bringing costs as well as risk. While the military buys gas for just over $1 a gallon, getting that gallon to some forward operating bases costs $400.

“We had a couple of tenuous supply lines across Pakistan that are costing us a heck of a lot, and they’re very dangerous,” said Gen. James T. Conway, the commandant of the Marine Corps.

The impetus for the Times story was a report released last month by a...

You can say this about John A. Fry: The man has a formula for making a college successful, and he doesn't waste time putting it into action.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Mr. Fry has outlined a plan to revitalize the neighborhood around Drexel University, where he was recently appointed president. You'll recall that Mr. Fry made a name for himself in higher education in part by leading a plan to revitalize the neighborhood around the University of Pennsylvania when he was a vice president there.

He then moved to Franklin & Marshall College, where he oversaw a major redevelopment plan that included tearing down an old flooring plant near the college and then cleaning up the site. Redevelopment also helped make a strip of old commercial properties across from the campus along Harrisburg Pike more attractive. In addition, he set up a program to control off-campus student housing,...

The Chronicle has a new podcast featuring Harvey Kaiser and Eva Klein, two well-known consultants in the facilities and planning realm. Mr. Kaiser and Ms. Klein have published a new book that pushes colleges to adopt a more holistic and realistic approach to campus planning and maintenance.

"We can't go on acting like we can make a $2-billion list of wishes when we know we're only going to get roughly $50-million a year at best," Ms. Klein says in the podcast. "It doesn't work. We have to completely stop that behavior and get more realistic for the long run."

An article in the News & Observer says a $3-billion deferred-maintenance backlog troubles University of North Carolina System officials. "The problem is perpetuating itself," Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the university system's Board of Governors, tells the newspaper. "As the economy has slowed, the state's ability to give us the money we need has declined. We're in a mess."

Although the state approved some $2.5-billion in bonds for the system starting in 2000, with the intention of reversing the trend of disrepair at the institutions, the money "addressed less than half of the $7-billion in total needs cited in a 1999 consultant's report," the article says.

The News & Observer focuses on a plant-science building at North Carolina State University, where pervasive mold is merely one problem plaguing the structure. N.C. State has a $439-million backlog, the article says, while the...