Bear hugs, laughter and elated phone calls filled the room in April when members of the Student Environmental Center learned the student body voted overwhelmingly in support of the "green" fee.
But now, for those students, the celebration is over.
It's time to get down to business.
Namely the business of working with administrators to implement the $10 student fee for environmental sustainability projects and research grants, as well as forming the sustainability council mentioned in the Project Eco-Dawgs proposal.
Megan Pulliam, a co-coordinator for Project Eco-Dawgs, said she participates in a committee of students and administrators organized by Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Larry Dietz.
Interim Chancellor Sam Goldman asked Dietz to organize the committee to hammer out the details of the proposal.
Pulliam said negotiations are going well, although it has become clear that students will not have total authority over money generated by the fee.
"You can't say officially students have complete control because obviously, the Board (of Trustees) does," said Pulliam, a former student member of the board.
But she said students - particularly student members of the sustainability council - would have a voice in how the money is spent.
SEC members wrote in a DAILY EGYPTIAN letter to the editor in April that students would make up two-thirds of the funding committee responsible for allocating the money.
Pulliam and others have pushed the proposal for months. When SEC members tried to get the fee included as a referendum on Undergraduate Student Government ballots in April, USG and its then-President Demetrous White shot them down.
So SEC members collected more than 1,600 signatures to get their fee on the ballot. After an extensive campaign, they were vindicated when students supported the fee, 996-372.
Interim Provost Don Rice said he has talked about the fee with Goldman and other administrators, but the discussion was a brief one.
Pulliam requested Rice attend the committee's next meeting, at which she hoped the sustainability coordinator position would be discussed in greater detail.
Discussion about the fee would most likely take place in Executive Session of the Board of Trustees' meetings, said White, who now serves as Student Trustee. During these sessions, which are not open to the press or public, board members discuss the philosophy behind decisions, debate and explore options.
White said he needed to be better informed before participating in these talks.
But he said he would support the fee and council as they are now proposed.
"The students voted for it so absolutely, I would push for it," White said.
Pulliam said she believed the administrators would not try to "hijack" the fee, as some of its opponents had feared.
"I definitely think the administrators aren't trying to be enemies in this," she said.
Pulliam said she hoped to see the council formed during the fall semester, but doubted the board would vote on the fee before April.
Allison Petty can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or allison.petty@siude.com.
