Late risers on Saturday, March 29, might have noticed our campus looking a little different — maybe greener, a bit cleaner, and all around shinier. The best way to describe it would be simply more beautiful. The campus makeover was the doing of the participants in Tech Beautification Day, a day dedicated to the bettering of the Institute’s campus.
The Technique sat down with Kriss Ascencio-Parvy, fourth-year ME and the SGA Joint Sustainability Committee Chair, to discuss the event.
“Tech beautification day is just a day where students and any member of the Georgia Tech community gets to give back to our beautiful campus and be a part of what makes it such a beautiful campus,” Ascencio-Parvy said.
Late risers may have also noticed groups of students clad in old T-shirts and shorts, clutching water bottles and bearing sunglasses, ready to get to work on campus. Students worked on different hands-on projects around campus suggested by different departments. This year’s projects came from the Landscaping Team, Georgia Tech Police Department, GT Athletics, and the Office of Solid Waste Management and Recycling, to name a few.
“Making sure that the department allowed us to communicate to the students the meaningfulness of their project and that the specific projects were hands-on and had an impact that was visible to the volunteers participating in it was important,” Ascencio-Parvy said.
Ascencio-Parvy wanted students to feel the impact they were having on -campus immediately to encourage future participation in Tech Beautification Day. Getting students to this project location on their day off took work.
“It took a lot of coordination just making sure that each department kind of was aware of the format of the event and knew what their role was,” Ascencio-Parvy said. “It was definitely a lot of work, dismissing the teams one by one, and then just making sure we have a giant map projtected on the screen so people know where to go”.
Tech Beautification Day has quite a history at the Institute. Founded over 25 years ago by Tony Augusti, the event started as being run by a small organization of students passionate about sustainability on campus. As the years went on, the event grew with Augusti seeing his small event grow to 250 participants last year when he came for Tech Beautification Day 2024. Augusti also attended this year’s Beautification Day and saw his small idea have a lasting impact on campus. After COVID-19, Tech Beautification Day was put in the hands of SGA to ensure it could continue year after year.
This year’s event started with President Cabrera providing opening remarks telling students about how the space they were standing on, the Kendeda Building and Eco-Commons, was a largely unused parking lot just a couple years ago. His speech emphasized the importance of green spaces on campus and how they make the Institute unique. The SGA Joint Sustainability Committee does so much more for campus than just Tech Beautification Day. As part of the executive branch of SGA, the committee focuses on connecting students, administration and campus organizations to promote efficiency and sustainability on campus. This year, they capitalized on the event’s coincidence with Greek Week to involve the Collegiate Panhellenic Council (CPC) with their philanthropies.
“We bridged communication between CPC and Campus Kitchens Project, so during the dinners that happen during the week, all the food that is left over gets packaged by the chefs of the house, and it is able to be picked up and donated,” Ascencio-Parvy said.
Tech Beautification Day dedicates a few hours to improving the campus, but Ascencio-Parvy emphasized the importance of students doing their part to keep campus beautiful all year round.
“What’s important is to stay informed about what Georgia Tech does in the sustainability scene. For example[it is important to know] how to dispose of your waste, whether you’re in your residence hall, or if you’re at the Student Center, or if you’re at a dining hall,” Ascencio-Parvy said.
Ascencio-Parvy wants to extend sustainability outreach beyond current students. She dreams of introducing sustainability to incoming freshmen before they even register for their first classes.
“We’re really trying to include sustainability efforts specifically into FASET, so that when freshmen arrive on campus for the first time and are exposed to the Georgia Tech community in the most general sense that they are already informed on what sustainability looks like at Georgia Tech,” Ascensio-Parvy said. “We want sustainability to start at day one and then stick with people throughout their journey at Tech.”