FARMINGTON – Winning a national contest gives bragging rights to the University of Maine at Farmington and more importantly, spurs awareness of energy conservation on the campus.

After Tom O’Donnell enrolled the campus into the first national Power Down for the Planet challenge, it took just a bit of nagging to encourage faculty and staff into joining the effort aimed at fighting global warming, he said. The university received notice Wednesday that it won the contest.

O’Donnell, UMF manager of network and server systems, and member of the Sustainable Campus Coalition increased the numbers of those participating to nearly three-quarters of the campus community, he said.

The contest winner was determined by which campus recruited the highest percentage of its people to set their computers in sleep mode when not in use and to purchase Energy Star qualified computers when they can.

Pledging to reduce the amount of energy used by computers on campus is predicted to save UMF 164,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, amounting to a yearly energy savings of $17,000.

If that wasn’t reason enough, the contest has continued an effort to make a difference in people’s behavior, President Theodora Kalikow said.

Now we remind each other to turn off the copier and power strips, she said.

“It’s all about education. The contest provided another opportunity to teach and change people’s behavior by changing the way people think about what they are doing,” she said.

A campus committed to energy conservation, Valerie Huebner will undertake the position of sustainable coordinator for the campus next fall, Kalikow said. Huebner is already planning a campus meeting for next week to brainstorm ideas, she added.