Shannon Davis, associate dean of Undergraduate Programs, has launched a solution to promote sustainability and mitigate cap and gown costs for students with her project, Hand-me-Gown. A gown-recycling program led by the Poole College of Management, Hand-me-Gown enables students in the Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity to collect graduation gowns worn by students to be used again at a later graduation.
“I am very committed to sustainability and minimizing costs for our students,” Davis said. “We have students throwing gowns away, and we have students buying gowns that they will wear only once.”
As part of the Poole College of Management Sustainability Initiative, the Hand-me-Gown program was established to advance sustainability and tackle financial, social and environmental challenges.
“Sustainability is a buzz word and it is a very important buzz word around the Poole College of Management,” said Christopher Pio, a junior studying business administration and vice president of faculty and alumni relations for Alpha Kappa Psi. “We really focus on sustainability in this project, and it is one of the main points we have.”
The graduation gowns that NC State currently uses are made out of recycled bottles. It takes approximately 23 bottles to make each graduation gown. Since the switch to gowns made out of recycled bottles in 2011, graduates have saved more than 193,338 bottles from landfills.
Although the gowns have their own merits in terms of sustainability, this is not enough, according to Davis.
“From one perspective we are reusing bottles, but on the other perspective they will take a lot of years to disintegrate in a landfill. We have gowns that our university brags about on their website being so sturdy and strong and because they are so strong, they may have five or six life cycles ahead of them,” Davis said. “If we can make it become a graduation gown for six or seven more of our students, then that is a tremendous impact on our planet. However, if every one of the gowns ends up in the landfills, it is just as bad as the bottles being there.”
Along with helping the university to achieve sustainability goals, another purpose for the launch of Hand-me-Gown was to aid students who had trouble affording a cap and gown for graduation.
A cap and gown set costs $47.95 for a basic package at the NC State bookstore.
“Students have communicated that they were not going to participate in commencement because they could not afford gowns,” Davis said. “Those students are just as deserving if not more because they accomplished their academic goals with limited resources, and they deserve to celebrate like every other student in our college.”
Currently, Hand-me-Gown is still in the phase of collecting gowns.
The first collection took place after the May 2014 graduation when students from Alpha Kappa Psi set up collections bins outside of the Poole College of Management commencement.
“We are still working on the collection of gowns and need to have a higher inventory before we are able to start with the resale,” said Kristy Brader, a junior studying business administration and president of Alpha Kappa Psi. “Since this project is still in its trial phase, we are focusing on working with the Poole College of Management so we can work out any kinks and make the best process to hopefully be able to open this up to the entire university.”
Hand-me-Gown will begin advertising for the program more after the fall break.
“We have a couple of articles out on the Poole College of Management site, we have flyers out, and we are going to send an email to graduating seniors,” Pio said. “We have a lot of different angles on it, and we’re trying to reach people and inform them.”
The Poole College of Management is encouraging graduating students from other colleges to participate in the program as well. Students can donate their caps and gowns by bringing them to 2150 Nelson Hall any time after their ceremony. Students in the Poole College of Management can simply drop off their gowns in the designated bins after their commencement.
Ideally, those involved with the program would like the entire school to participate in this project, Davis said.
“Once we do a pilot, I would certainly hope that this would be an opportunity for the entire college to work on this process,” Davis said. “We are not at all saying that this is our project and we want to run the whole thing, I would much rather prefer every student in every college has the opportunity to repurpose their graduation gown. My ideal goal is that no NC State cap and gown ends up in a landfill and that we will find another purpose for the gowns.”
