Columbia College Chicago Receives Grant to Expand Compost Program
The college has received a grant by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to implement a more comprehensive composting program across campus. This $5,000 grant will allow the college to reach more of the campus with the goal of diverting 13 tons of food scrap waste from landfills in 2012-2013, almost double the 2011-2012 academic year’s achievement of seven tons.
Kennebec Valley CC Awarded Grant to Create Sustainable Ag Program
The college has received a $100,000 grant from Jane’s Trust to help launch a two-year sustainable agriculture degree program. The funding will be used to hire a farm manager and equipment. The program’s curriculum will include classes in soil, plant and animal science, crop production, integrated pest management, farm infrastructure and sustainable livestock management.
Middlebury College to Consider Fossil Fuel Divestment
The college has announced that it will initiate steps to address the feasibility of divesting its endowment from the fossil fuel industry. College President Ronald Liebowitz explained that the college would host a series of panels on divestment with representatives from the college’s endowment management firm, along with Scholar-in-Residence Bill McKibben, and veteran investors. President Liebowitz also disclosed the percentage of the institution’s $900 million endowment currently invested in fossil fuel companies: roughly 3.6 percent or $32 million.
Appalachian State U Students to Fund Renewable Energy Research
The student-run Renewable Energy Initiative has partnered with the University Research Council to support faculty research. Each entity will provide $5,000 per semester for faculty awards. The initiative launches this spring with four faculty awards: two at $5,000 and four at $2,500. The faculty recipients must pursue research that is related to renewable energy and is applicable to the Appalachian campus or its carbon footprint.
Olivet Nazarene U Sustainable Building Earns Incentives
The university’s new Student Life and Recreation Center has received $276,476 in financial incentives through Commonwealth Edison Company’s “Smart Ideas for Your Business” New Construction Service. The facility features a high performance building design and green features including an advanced geothermal system for efficient heating and cooling.
TIME Spotlights Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement
A recent TIME article profiles the rise of divestment campaigns as the next frontier for climate activism. In response to the lack of support from university and college administrators, the article reports ". . .for many college students today, there’s no cause greater than fighting climate change. University presidents who don’t fall in line should get used to hearing protests outside their offices. Just like their forerunners in the apartheid battles of the 1980s, these climate activists won’t stop until they win.”
U Wisconsin Receives Gift for Sustainable Technology Program
The university and Viessmann Group have announced a major gift to fund an endowment propelling the university’s new Sustainable Technology program. The “Viessmann Endowed Chair in Sustainable Technology” will allow the university to play an international academic leadership role in renewable energy technologies. The endowment will also fund exchanges for faculty, staff and students, including internships in Germany.
Vassar College Holds Idea Fair for Green Revolving Fund
The College Committee on Sustainability has hosted an Idea Expo that featured project nominations for the Resource Conservation Fund, a green revolving fund. The expo was created to serve as a better tool for community engagement, education and publicity. The 15 applications received represented the largest number in the fund’s three-year history.
Cornell U Receives DOE Grant for Biofuels Research
(U.S.): A research team has received a $910,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to create biofuels produced from algae. The team will design and build a new type of bioreactor that efficiently delivers light and collects fuel produced by algae inside the reactors. The reactor is also expected to use minimal water.
Emory U Awards Funding to Sustainability Projects
(U.S.): The Office of Sustainability Initiatives has funded 16 proposals submitted by students, faculty and staff that will support the university’s sustainability initiative. The funding ranges from $40 to $3,000, covers a wide range of expenses, and is made possible through the Sustainability Incentives Fund.
Kenyon College Launches Sustainability Action Program Grants
(U.S.): Intended to cultivate a culture of sustainability, the college established the Sustainability Action Program and awarded inaugural grants this fall for two student-directed projects. The first grant will fund the construction of a new hoop house on campus. The second grant was awarded to promote the use of eco-friendly cups among students.
New School Urges Disclosure of Political Spending by Corporations
The New School’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) has submitted a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) calling for disclosure of political spending by public corporations. The ACIR’s letter to the SEC is the first from a university body in support of Petition 4-637, which urges the SEC to use its rule-making authority to mandate disclosure of corporate campaign financing.
NY Times Covers Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaigns
“In recent weeks, college students on dozens of campuses have demanded that university endowment funds rid themselves of coal, oil and gas stocks,” reports a recent New York Times article. The article profiles divestment campaigns at Swarthmore College and Unity College.
U Missouri Creates Sustainable Agriculture Scholarship
Honoring the service of a professor emeritus, a $1,000 scholarship in the name of Fred and Donna Martz has been created to encourage students to study sustainable agriculture. The scholarship is on track to be awarded this summer to one recipient studying animal science, agronomy or soil science. Students must be enrolled in or set up to take a sustainable agriculture course to be eligible for the award.
Universities to Share $130M in Department of Energy Grants
The U.S. Energy Department has announced a new round of grants, totaling $130-million, for research into breakthrough energy technologies. Two dozen universities will receive funding for energy initiatives through the Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
City U New York to Launch Social Justice Social Media Project
The university’s Graduate Center has received a $550,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to expand the social-media reach of academics working on social-justice issues. The project, called JustPublics@365, will train professors and graduate students to use social media to make social-justice research more visible to a wider audience and to measure its impact. A number of events, including conferences, will be held to connect researchers, social-justice activists, and journalists.
Connecticut College Receives Grant for Conservation Efforts
The college was awarded a $40,000 grant from the Dominion Foundation to establish a student-led energy conservation and engagement program. The ‘Reduce Your Use’ program will monitor five buildings on campus and limit their energy consumption. A program coordinator will use a variety of community-based social marketing techniques to support adoption of more sustainable, low-energy behaviors.
Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaigns on the Rise
Fossil fuel divestment campaigns are active at about 50 U.S. campuses , and many more are expected to launch in coming weeks. Earlier this month, the Board of Trustees at Unity College voted to divest their endowment from fossil fuel industries. . (And last year Hampshire College (MA) passed a sustainable investment policy that effectively divested endowment funds from fossil fuels.) More recently, the Harvard College Undergraduate Council announced 72 percent of voting students want Harvard University to divest its $30.7 billion endowment from fossil fuels. The divestment movement has increasingly received national exposure due in part to Bill McKibben’s 21-city Do the Math tour. A recent Boston Globe op-ed by McKibben and Mark Orlowski, executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, calls on colleges to make no new investments in fossil fuels, “wind down” current investments in five years, and invest in increasing their own energy efficiency for a greater return.
St. Clair County CC Receives Greenforce Mini Grant
The college has used a $3,000 Greenforce Initiative Innovation Mini Grant to help produce three videos showcasing how it uses green technology to educate students. The videos include how students study bioswales, rain gardens, green roofs, solar hot water, heat and electrical systems, wind turbine technology, and a geothermal heating and cooling system.
Georgetown U Receives $20M Environmental Studies Gift
(U.S.): The university received a $20 million donation to support environmental study initiatives. The gift will endow three faculty chairs in the sciences, fund research grant proposals, and support the creation of an environment initiative program center.
Madurai Kamaraj U Seeks Funding for Energy Initiatives
(India): The university has submitted a proposal to the University Grants Commission and the state government to receive funding to implement energy-saving measures on its 700-acre campus. The university has proposed to install solar panels to generate power and to perform an energy audit.
U West Indies Partnership to Create Renewable Energy Studies
(Barbados): The university and Sol, a Caribbean oil company, have signed a three-year agreement that will provide funding for engineering, social sciences and technology students. The partnership will focus on promoting renewable energy studies, funding biofuels research, and growing leadership in the region.
Connecticut Colleges to Share Energy Efficiency Loan
Connecticut’s Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority has announced that it is lending $1 million for “Campus Efficiency Now”, a new program aimed at advancing energy efficiency and promoting cleaner energy for the state's independent colleges. The Campus Efficiency Now pilot program will enable the participating colleges to move forward with energy saving measures with no upfront funding by the college.
Unity College Board of Trustees Votes to Divest from Fossil Fuels
The Board of Trustees has voted to divest the college endowment from fossil fuels. President Mulkey said in a statement, “the Trustees have looked at the college’s finances in the context of our ethical obligation to our students, and they have chosen to make a stand.”
EPA Provides Support for Plastic Free Campuses Program
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded funding to Plastic Pollution Coalition and four other organizations to expand the Plastic Free Campuses program to the University of California campuses at Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco. A key objective of the program is to reduce plastic pollution at the source.
Pennsylvania State U Receives Grant for Biofuel Research
The university’s College of Agriculture Sciences has received a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to research biofuel-based economic development. The project will promote the use of marginal farmland and abandoned lands so that these crops will not compete with resources for food production.
Bristol CC Fall River Awarded Renewable Energy Grant
(U.S.): A $600,000 renewable energy grant has been awarded to help fund the institution’s wind turbine project that will meet 25 percent of the campus’s energy needs annually. The grant is one of three awarded to state community colleges through the Department of Energy Resources’ Leading by Example program.
Lord Fairfax CC Receives Grant for Sustainability Initiatives
(U.S.): The college has received a $25,000 Dominion Foundation Higher Education Partnership Grant to implement sustainability and green practices on campus. The grant will enable Student Environmental Sustainability Committees to implement features such as rain barrels, solar panels, motion detection lighting, recycling bins, and other projects identified by the students, faculty and staff. The students will also hold community events such as fluorescent bulb recycling, community shred events, and workshops.
UC Santa Barbara Receives $50 M Grant for Energy Research
(U.S.): The university has received a $50 million private donation to support energy efficiency research and engineering programs. About half the money will be used to construct a building to house the Institute for Energy Efficiency, an interdisciplinary research center.
Western Kentucky Receives Grant to Market Local Food
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded the university’s Office of Sustainability and the Community Farmers Market (CMU) more than $82,000 in grant funds to help promote the "Local Food for Everyone" program. The two organizations will collaborate on a project that serves as a tool for educating regional farmers and consumers about the variety of locally grown foods.
Syracuse U Receives EPA Grant to Support Environmental Education
The Syracuse Center of Excellence Center for Sustainable Community Solutions will use the $130,000 grant to award approximately 30 grants to schools and community organizations to support projects to reduce the run-off of polluted rainwater and promote municipal waste reduction, recycling and composting. The program is designed to improve connections between organizations and school districts, encourage development of community-based projects and provide career development for students.
U Arizona Introduces Mini Sustainability Grants
In an effort to promote small sustainability projects on campus, the Green Fund Committee has set up a new mini-grants program intended to fund small-scale projects led by students and faculty. Each project has a funding cap of $1,500. The Green Fund Committee has allocated a total of $20,000 per fiscal year to be used for these projects.
Humboldt State U Receives Grant to Expand Recycling Operations
The university is one of 13 recipients of the 2012/2013 Beverage Container Recycling grant, awarded by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. The $76,265 grant will be used to purchase new recycling bins and signs, and to fund an outreach and education campaign to increase recycling.
Green Mountain College Receives Grant for Renewable Energy Lab
(U.S.): The college has received a grant of $15,000 from the Duke Energy Foundation for the college’s renewable energy and ecological design (REED) program to develop a digital fabrication laboratory called FabLab. The lab will provide students, local high school students and adults with the infrastructure to acquire skills using digital fabrication technologies.
Marietta College Receives Grant to Add Sustainable Living Option
(U.S.): The $25,000 Higher Education Grant from the Dominion Foundation will be used to convert an existing dormitory into a more sustainable living environment. Initial plans call for solar panels and energy produced by a wind turbine. Students participating in the energy systems minor will be likely candidates to live in the dorm.
Michigan State U Launches Sustainability Project Funding
(U.S.): The Office of Sustainability has launched Be Spartan Green Student Project Fund, a program that will provide financial support for students to explore solutions to sustainability challenges at the university. Up to $5,000 will be awarded to each selected project.
RIT Creates Center for Sustainable Packaging
(U.S.): Gifts totaling $2.2 million will help to create the Center for Sustainable Packaging, an education and research center dedicated to the development and use of sustainable packaging. The center will be a testing ground for ideas and solutions for students, researchers, faculty and corporate partners that are interested in sustainable packaging.
U Minnesota Receives $13 M to Focus on Sustainable Research
(U.S.): The Department of Chemistry has received $13.1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund two centers that could potentially reduce carbon emissions and make solar energy more efficient. Both centers will focus on theoretical chemistry to sequester carbon dioxide and develop programs to find better ways to capture solar energy.
DOE Announces University-led Solar Power Projects
As part of its SunShot Initiative, which aims to drive solar energy to be cost-competitive with other energy sources by 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy has announced new investments totaling $10 million over five years for two university-led projects to advance solar power system technologies. The University of California, Los Angeles will lead a team of researchers from Yale University and the University of California, Berkley to investigate liquid metals as potential heat transfer fluids. The University of Arizona will partner with researchers from Arizona State University and Georgia Tech to develop and demonstrate new, molten salt-based fluids as possible alternatives to traditional heat transfer fluids.
Arizona State U to Receives $3 M for Alternative Energy Program
The National Science Foundation grant will go toward the development of a doctoral program in energy and establishing the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Solar Utilization Network (SUN) program. Focusing on biological conversion, photovoltaics, solar thermal and sustainable policy, the program will provide the groundwork for the Global Institute of Sustainability's planned doctoral program by 2016.
Bellevue College Awarded $815K for Campus Energy Makeover
The Washington State Department of Commerce grant will go toward campus-wide lighting retrofits, low-flow water fixtures and HVAC improvements. The project will also include a solar array and an energy-monitoring dashboard, both funded in partnership with the student environmental sustainability fund.
UC Santa Cruz Receives USDA Grant for Organic Farming Curriculum
A grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be used to teach organic farming techniques to students enrolled in the university’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems apprenticeship program. The grant will also allow the Ecological Farming Association, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, and the California Certified Organic Farmers to collaborate on the apprenticeship project.
Hartwick College Receives Watershed Education Grant
The Pine Lake Institute for Environmental and Sustainability Studies has received a three-year, $201,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to engage faculty and students in efforts to increase knowledge, understanding and action in order to protect and maintain the Upper Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay watersheds.
Southern Oregon U Receives Grant to Explore Biomass Generation
The $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allow the university to determine the feasibility of using wood pellets, slash and other byproducts from nearby forests to generate heat and electricity on its Ashland campus. The study will also determine whether the recommended 1.2 megawatt biomass co-generation system will meet Department of Environmental Quality and other regulatory agency requirements. If built, the power plant could generate 100 percent of the current campus electrical need.
Catawba College Creates Clean Energy Revolving Fund
Over the next four years, the college will set aside $400,000 to provide the principal for a new green revolving fund that will loan money to finance on-campus investments in clean energy and efficiency projects. The college has also joined the Sustainable Endowments Institute's (SEI) Billion Dollar Green Challenge, which promotes turning energy efficiency projects into long-term financial investments.
Higher Ed Endowments Lagging in Sustainable Investments
Once a leader in adopting environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria in their investments, higher education endowments in the U.S. are now lagging behind mainstream institutional investors, reports a recent GreenBiz.com article. Informed by a new, joint report from the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute and Tellus Institute, the article says one indicator of the failure of college and university endowments to keep up is the absence of these institutions as signatories to key institutional networks like the United Nations' Principles for Responsible Investment and the Council of Institutional Investors. U.S. college and university endowments control more than $400 billion in combined assets.
U Texas El Paso to Develop Green Energy Manufacturing Courses
A $2.5 million U.S. Department of Education grant will fund a five-year collaboration between the university's Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering and Drexel University that will integrate green energy manufacturing courses into the curriculum at both universities. The courses will incorporate technology-based and real-world problem solving.
Concordia U Receives $1.6 M for Renewable Energy Research
The university’s Institute in Energy, Water and Sustainability has received a $1,643,700 grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to train approximately 20 students a year in research areas including the production of renewable energy and the optimization of water usage in industry.
SUNY Canton Receives $6.6 M for Wind Turbine Project
Funded by the New York Power Authority, the university will design and, if approved, construct a 2.8-megawatt wind turbine. The project is expected to provide up to one-third of the electricity needed to power the campus and provide educational opportunities for students.
