The solar carport on top of USF St. Petersburg’s parking garage is among the campus’s SGEF initiatives.
Photo courtesy of USF
By Alisha Durosier
Taking another step in its ongoing consolidation effort, the University of South Florida is merging its three campuses’ Student Green Energy Fund (SGEF).
Created in 2007 to help reduce USF’s carbon footprint through sustainable projects, SGEF is funded by a $1-per-credit-hour student fee known as the Student Green Fee, with each campus maintaining its own fund and council.
However, effective July 1, the isolated funds will be combined into a pool amounting to over $5 million. A new consolidated council consisting of two students, faculty members and alternates from each campus will manage the fund.
James Souza, assistant vice president of Student Success and chair of Tampa’s SGEF council, is overseeing the consolidation. He wants to ensure the council is both a manageable size and equally representative of each campus.
“There is no allegiance to one campus or another,” Souza said. “As the chair, I would not want that to occur, nor would I allow that because there has to be equal representation and [an] equal voice at the table… and [that] also means proper use of funds.”
Hailing from a campus where students have a complicated outlook on USF’s consolidation, equal representation and self-advocacy are among the biggest priorities for St. Petersburg’s SGEF council.
“… You almost have to play lawyer. And you want to make sure that there are no loopholes,” SGEF chair and environmental science and policy junior Julianna Parisi said. “You look around you, and there are all these instances of consolidation really negatively affecting organizations, and students losing power, and students losing their opportunities. And it’s like, how do you make sure that never happens here?”
It was through an abrupt mention at a meeting attended by two St. Petersburg SGEF members that the council learned of the merger.
This instance, coupled with worries of losing autonomy, has left St. Petersburg’s SGEF council, including proposal advisor and environmental science and policy junior Audrey Everett, wary of the consolidation.
“We previously had direct access to our own budget, could make our own decisions, and now we’ll have to report to a greater council,” she said. “And so, while we will have more resources… I am still wary of how projects might be slowed down by projects needing to wait to be approved at this general green fee council.”
Each campus’s SGEF council will have a hand in writing the new charter.
The St. Petersburg council wants to establish provisions to fund maintenance for SGEF-supported projects – a clause specific to the campus’s SGEF bylaws – and also fund university faculty positions focused on sustainability. The latter would help fill in the gap left by USF St. Petersburg’s Office of Sustainability, a department that has remained vacant since 2022.
“I feel like even though it’s a salary, funding an Office of Sustainability or sustainability planners would ultimately have an impact on the amount of carbon emissions that the university produces,” St. Petersburg SGEF vice chair and environmental science and policy senior Oliver Laczko said. “Because you’re hiring people to have that impact on examining what needs to be fixed and determining how we can better our practices within the university.”
St. Petersburg’s council also wants the new council to prioritize student participation, continuing the momentum of engagement SGEF gained throughout the past academic year.
“If… you want to engage the student body, make them learn what SGEF does — what their money is being spent on. Then you need to fund merchandise and you need to fund events that engage the student body, educate the student body and show, ‘listen, this is what your money is doing,’” Laczko said.
Taylor Yerbic, St. Petersburg SGEF’s director of events and freshman biology major, echoes this sentiment.
“I think having this consolidated fee and just being collaborative with the other campuses… it’s gonna be really great to make SGEF more visible to the student body across all of USF and get students engaged with these initiatives,” Yerbic said.
In 2026, students will vote in a referendum on their support or opposition of the Student Green Fee. Ahead of the referendum, which occurs every three years, Souza hopes the surplus of funds will boost SGEF’s exposure through bigger, more impactful projects.
“There’s no idea that’s too crazy or that’s… unrealistic. We have access to funds and the funds are quickly accessible, which is nice,” Souza said.
Developing a new climate action plan for USF, inter-campus transportation utilizing an electric bus and replacing all campus lighting with LEDs are just some of the projects that, for St. Petersburg’s council, suddenly feel within reach.
“We will get that money spent,” Parisi said. “It will be proportional, and it will be fair, and it will happen.”
Though the consolidated SGEF council will be formed on July 1, St. Petersburg’s SGEF will continue to operate on campus as a student organization. Campus proposals will first go through this group before being considered by the consolidated council.
Before the consolidation, the St. Petersburg council is working to spend the remainder of its fund.
Planned projects include installing LED lighting in the University Student Center (USC), Student Life Center, and Nelson Poynter Memorial Library, as well as adding a living roof to the bike corral outside the USC.
