University President Michael Adams addresses the campus Thursday. He discussed budgetary and academic plans for 2010.

Four rows of students representing members of the University’s various environmental groups cheered when they heard the news.

At his annual State of the University address, University President Michael Adams announced he would accept the recommendation to impose a $3 “green fee” to fund an Office of Sustainability on campus.

“We’d heard lots of rumors, but we weren’t ready to trust anything until we heard it from the man himself,” said Mark Milby, co-chair of the Go Green Alliance. “And he delivered.”

The “green fee” recommendation stems from a student referendum last March. The fee passed the University’s Mandatory Fees Committee last semester. It will support efforts to coordinate environmental programming, address energy efficiency and interlace sustainability efforts on campus with University academics.

Kevin Kirsche, now serving as assistant director of planning in the Office of University Architects, will head the Office of Sustainability. His new duties begin Feb. 1, and the fee would be implemented next semester.

Emily Karol, a junior from Marietta and the other co-chair for Go Green Alliance, said for her, the fee is exciting.

“It’s going to give us an outlet to explain what we want on campus, explain the initiatives that we keep coming up with,” she said. “Instead of having to go to 10 different people, we can go to this one person, this one office, this one committee, and they can help us bring those goals to fruition.”

Adams announced, however, that he would not be signing the Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which would require the University to develop a plan to achieve climate neutrality in the near future.

He cited the University’s coal-powered steam plant and major agricultural college as reasons for not signing the document.

“I want us to be known for doing what we say we will do and not for signing on to agreements with obligations we know we cannot meet,” Adams said.

But Karol and Milby were not upset.

“His concerns about us not being able to meet the goals are legitimate,” Milby said.

Adams also briefly addressed the University’s budget situation, but he said the budget would not be the main focus of his speech. He will present a budget update on Jan. 29.

But he did announce that the University would use $4 million in central budget savings to “address some critical needs” — $2 million for hiring faculty and $2 million for “one-time critical needs.”

“We simply must support the central missions of teaching and research, and to do so we must begin to replace the ranks of essential lost faculty,” he said. “This action will, I believe, also position us to take advantage of the opportunities to bring in new faculty talent that will present themselves as we come out of the recession.”

And though he addressed the challenges of the down economy, he said the recent earthquake in Haiti put the University’s problems into perspective.

“Our economic challenges, though very real and contributing to hard decisions that we have yet to make in regard to the future of this institution collectively, pale in comparison to what the real economic challenges are, in many ways, around the world,” he said.

Adams asked the campus community to show its support for Haiti next Tuesday by wearing the Dawgs for Haiti T-shirt. T-shirts are available in the Tate Plaza.