The Commons is a publicity powerhouse. But it is more “show” than anything else.

University publicists would likely cringe at this statement, but sophomore Michelle Wijaya said it is not unfounded in her eyes.

She and many of her peers said they wonder at the legitimacy of the building’s green seal when gazing at the glossy plasma screen televisions in the building. And she finds herself asking, “How much of an impact do biodegradable potato spoons have, anyway?”

But, according to Commons officials like project manager Kenny Moore, the deepest impact a LEED certified building like The Commons has is in its ability to conserve energy in operation over long periods of time.

Many buildings in The Commons complex have additional coatings on the windows to limit heat gain, and floors are made of recycled materials.

These are features a student passing through Common Grounds at 3 a.m., looking for coffee, might not notice, though.

“We were alerted to the problem about three years ago,” said Judson Newbern, associate vice-chancellor of campus planning and environmental health and safety. To combat it, his team created a Web site to connect the “green” community last year — Sustain VU.

But students may not be totally aware of the site, Newbern said.

The fear, explained psychology graduate student Amanda Carrico, is that student’s negative perceptions on the university’s green impact will leave them uninspired and unwilling to change their energy consumption habits.

Availability of recycling bins is hugely important, but “a critical part is believing that your contribution makes a difference,” she said. Students have to know, “if I do this repeatedly over time, it can change things. It is useful to put that impact in meaningful terms.”

Carrico has worked to coordinate the recent development of the “Think One” campaign. She hopes it will unite green efforts on campus. She is also preparing a research project on recycling behavior on Vanderbilt’s campus.

Publicity within the campus is incredibly important in her eyes, she said. Without it, students will feel their efforts are useless. She appears to be right. Several students are simply exasperated by what they see as a veneer of environmentalism.

“The Commons is good at the publicity game,” senior Robert Tiedemann said. “The Commons appears to be ‘green,’ but I don’t think their attempts at environmental practices are really effective. The recycling bins are never sorted properly so I just stopped trying to use them.”

Sophomore Stephanie Fornabiao agreed. “The Commons really frustrates me; I care about the environment, and The Commons just pretends to care.”

Fornabiao said she sees students falling into a pattern of complacency. “I think part of the problem is that the students don’t help. I work at the Commons customer service desk, and I see students not attempt to recycle all the time even though they are close to the recycling bins.”

But students call for more recycling availability, nonetheless. Students said if there were more opportunities to recycle, the process would be easier. Tiedemann said, “I used to use the recycling bins, but I stopped when I realized using them wasn’t going to help because they were always full and unsorted.”

Carrico worries “there is a little bit of pessimism around campus. While we can do a lot more over time, we are doing a lot right now.” When students decide that nothing culturally is changing, they tend to stop trying.

Carrico’s study will hopefully better diagnose the problem, she said. The disconnect is an interesting one and an important one to acknowledge because students need to feel like they are part of a larger movement — a larger community.

In fact, in her eyes, the university could use a little more publicity. By doing it, they are also educating, she said.

“They have tried to put a lot of resources into educating — breaking it down, quantifying it then and then communicating it.”

Maybe the message should be directed at students in a different way, she admits, but the idea is that students understand “the work we have done and its impact. I think there is a commitment (to the environment), but we need to rethink the publicity.”

Newbern hopes that, with effort, students and faculty can begin to make change on campus. Though campus really is doing a great deal, and environmentalism “is part of a mindset, we are just at the point now of entering into that next stage that will be a campaign of cooperation.”

- Lakendra Scott contributed reporting to this article