FAIRBANKS -- If Michael Golub isn't readying cars to run on electricity there's a chance he's spending his time on bigger conservation projects.

Golub is one of a handful of staff, faculty and students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks working on an emerging, student-initiated directive to make the campus greener.

Golub had been converting vehicles to run on batteries last year when students approved a fee to improve energy efficiency and conservation, and invest in renewable energy.

That money, matched by campus administrators, could mean close to a half million dollars per year during the next decade. The task of deciphering the 2009 student vote and putting that interpretation into motion has fallen to elected and administrative student leaders.

Golub, also a graduate student, has found himself in the middle of the issue.

Robert Holden, an associate services director helping to create a new sustainability office, credits Golub as a steady source of initiative in the process, from conservation projects to broader questions.

"He's looking at new opportunities, new ways to do things, which is really exciting," Holden said.

Golub's technical role on campus is sustainability director for student government. But he's also leading a new board of directors, dubbed RISE (Review of Infrastructure, Sustainability and Energy) formed to support "creative projects that would lead to a more sustainable campus with an emphasis on energy creation and consumption."

The government's director position and another post focused on recycling soon will dissolve. Student senators and administrative leaders plan to fold those responsibilities into the sustainability office, which will have room for a dozen undergraduate part-time jobs and a full-time director.

The change also follows a pledge by Chancellor Brian Rogers' administration to match the new $20 per semester student fee.

Green initiatives at UAF -- which last year collected another poor grade on the annual College Sustainability Report Card -- have been visible for awhile. And there are smaller efforts, like a RISE-supported, waste oil-powered kiln project by art students.

Golub is involved on that front as well. He's probably most recognizable as the guy who's taught a course since 2008 on converting vehicles to run on electricity. His first class converted a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit two years ago, and classes have since worked on five more cars and a Ford Ranger. He helped modify a 2002 ATV for the campus police this winter to run solely on electricity.

Golub, a former Army officer and guardsman, has been studying engineering at UAF for four years. He'd previously worked in video production and taught a journalism course shortly after arriving in Fairbanks in 2003, and his stint as a student employee has earned him praise. He received the campus' term award for "exceptional student employee" last fall and a similar award from the Western Association of Student Employment Administrators, one of four such regional agencies across the country.

Golub recognizes sustainability is a sort of flexible term.

He characterized his interest as focused on "energy conservation." On that front, Golub said, he took time last year to pester student leaders about what kind of concrete actions will come from the new student fee. The effort landed him at the administrative table as he became student government's part-time sustainability director, one of five such positions. It suited his interest in everything conservation related.

"Anything from light bulbs to electric cars," Golub said in an e-mail of his personal interest. "Earning the (mechanical engineering) degree exposed me to additional material that would help create products to save energy, and allow me to better test products to determine if they in fact do save energy."

Golub helped create a new seven-seat RISE board of directors to figure out how the campus' sustainability budget should be spent. It's a question that will be left to a sustainability office, as Golub's position and a similar recycling-focused post will dissolve, replaced by a 14-position team. The bulk will be part-time jobs for undergraduate students with each post focused on a specific task such as plastics recycling, bicycle access or composting.

But that setup could still leave tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars unspent, creating a big role for the RISE board, of which Golub serves as chairman. The board has met through the winter and posts its schedule online at www.uaf.edu/sustainability/rise.

Heather Currey, a freshman and colleague of Golub's on the sustainability board, said the campus' administration is still working with student leaders on the emerging green program's intent. Currey said UAF needs to start with pilot projects, such as converting of shuttle buses from gasoline to electric.

Long-range plans for the sustainability money, Holden said, could take a little time, and administrators are looking into the possibility of rolling part of the fee's early-year revenues forward to give the program time to find its legs.

The definition behind the sustainability measure, approved by students last year, was itself soft, with its two organizers, Mike Pawlowski and Jesse Logan, pitching the fee as a call for general investment in conservation and renewable energy on campus. They listed a number of potential projects while lobbying for the signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot. Among them was participating in a local utility program that encourages renewable energy projects across the Fairbanks area, but even that investment would have left tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for other projects.

Golub said new conservation efforts on campus will need some of the staples such as space and proper supplies. But they might rely most heavily on a corps of dedicated students to coax the campus' broadening green streak from the gate.