Six Vermont Schools Participate in Food System Tour
(U.S.): As part of an effort to study local and global food systems, students from around the U.S. will visit Green Mountain College, Middlebury College, Sterling College, University of Vermont, Vermont Law School, and Vermont Technical College. The 21-day tour explores urban food systems, the local dairy industry and carbon economy, food system advocacy in the context of genetically-modified food, conservation, and climate change and its impacts on global food system.
Trent U Plows Student Operated Farm
(Canada): Spearheaded by the university's Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Society, the student-run, 3-acre plot will provide a variety of organic vegetables for use in cafeterias across campus.
U Alberta Bolsters Participation in Earth Hour
(Canada): The university is hosting an online platform that 13 schools participating in the 2015 Earth Hour will use to gauge the school with the highest percentage per capita of participation.
MIT Holds Campus Sustainability Brainstorm Event
The aim of the inaugural Sustainability Connect was to convene campus stakeholders to discuss a transition toward the university as a living laboratory for exploring, testing and quantifying ways to make more efficient use of energy, water, buildings and equipment, and then to disseminate information about the most successful practices to have a global impact.
Texas Tech U Hosts Regional Sustainability Summit
The recently held inaugural summit, convening stakeholders from over 20 schools, helped create a statewide network among higher education institutions to collaborate on ideas about how to create environmental preservation, economic development, and social equity.
U South Carolina Panhellenic Takes Green Living Strides
One of the university's EcoReps programs, the Green House Certification, was awarded to a Greek house for their implementation of sustainable living practices and is based off of the university's similar certification for dorm rooms. Greek life also initiated Green Greeks, a weekly meeting where attendees learn and discuss one topic within sustainability for representatives to take back to their chapter.
Stanford U to Begin Educational Farm
The new, six-acre farm, opening spring 2015, will be a working farm dedicated to teaching, researching and learning about small-scale agriculture.
Texas A&M U Kingsville Initiates EcoRep Program
The new learning experience developed by students for freshman students focuses on energy, water conservation and waste minimization as principal ways to promote improved campus sustainability.
Texas Christian U Students Increase Campus Sustainability Efforts
At a recent Student Government Association meeting, representatives passed a resolution to create an ad hoc committee to advance student sustainability efforts on campus that includes eliminating paper meeting agendas, offer a paper bag option at campus shopping locations, introduce biodegradable food containers, and create a sustainability education program.
U Arizona Publishes Student Sustainability Report
(U.S.): The recently released polling report illustrates important aspects of students and their engagement in sustainability through four main themes: sustainability issues of concern, preferred ways to learn about sustainability, student support for university sustainability initiatives, and students’ sustainability-focused behavior. The university polled a representative sample of the entire student body to gauge behaviors and perceptions as they relate to sustainability.
U California Santa Cruz Expands Campus Farm
(U.S.): The new site adds approximately three more acres of growing space to the campus' farm for growing food, offering students a place for hands-on farming experiences, and adds additional research acreage for those interested in studying organic production practices.
U Maryland Students Take Action for Clean Water
Protecting the Chesapeake Bay is a main priority of university students in the Maryland Public Interest Research Group as they raise awareness of the Clean Water Act to other students by holding a photo petition.
Colorado Mountain College Holds Art Exhibit
In an effort to raise awareness for sustainability, the inaugural college-wide art exhibit showcased work that was either created with sustainable materials or with content reflecting the theme of sustainability.
MacEwan U Students to Promote Carbon Footprint Awareness
Student members plan to launch the Carbon Cloud Initiative by walking around with eight balloons that visually represents the amount of carbon emissions an average Canadian generates per minute. Students will deliver a one-minute presentation to the students in their classes about the balloons.
Rice U Eco Rep Program Expands Sustainable Living Awareness
The university Eco Rep Green Dorm Initiative now includes education about environmentally sustainable living through a contest designed to increase interactivity. This year's focus on energy and water, well-being, and waste asks participates to engage with the theme through daily tasks.
California Schools Host Multicampus Food Summit
With a central theme of food justice the inaugural California Higher Education Food Summit convened roughly 150 students, faculty and staff from University of California, California State University and community college campuses to address environmental social and economic pressures that create barriers to food access, security and justice.
Five Universities Win Award for Social Entrepreneurship
Brown University, Duke University, University of British Columbia, University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Maryland recently won the 2015 Ashoka U-Cordes Innovation Award based on their ability to demonstrate how students, faculty and community members transform the ways in which colleges and universities prepare students as changemakers while positively impacting the community.
U Nebraska Passes Legislation for Eco-Representatives
The university's Residence Hall Association approved legislation that will place eco-representatives to live in each of the residence halls to encourage sustainability through both formal and informal communications with their peers.
U Saskatchewan Student Helps Deal With Costly Research Byproduct
A Sustainability Living Lab project, a biological engineering student is investigating a system to process manure from the campus' Dairy Research and Teaching Farm into a product that can be kept on campus or one that is cheaper to have discarded. Currently the university spends $65,000 annually for the manure to be hauled away.
Hartwick College Celebrates Health and Environment Theme
This year's campus theme, Health and the Environment: Personal Courage and Community Activism, invites students and faculty to participate in its month-long agenda featuring a film series, bus trip for political action, and education and awareness of fair trade products.
Boston U Partnership Investigates Net Zero Building
A research partnership between a mechanical engineering professor and two of his students, sustainability @BU and the university's Facilities Management & Planning department resulted in the conclusion that energy conservation measures could be applied to 74 campus buildings with the potential to reduce overall energy consumption 10 to 15 times more than converting the university's Earth House, a sustainability-focused, residential living learning community space, to net zero.
Emory U Joins United Nations Climate Talks
The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change approved the university as an accredited, official observer to the UN climate talks, which allows university faculty, staff and students to participate in annual negotiating sessions.
Yale U Course Assesses Sustainability Strategic Plan
After the president recently asked about the ambition of the university's sustainability plan, students of a professor in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies identified key areas for strengthening: improved networks and broader stakeholder engagement in regard to faculty research, student involvement and the City of New Haven; and increased knowledge creation and dissemination.
Central Carolina CC Expands Technology Program to Community
In 2012, the college's sustainable technologies program launched an academic assignment with the aim of eliminating the inefficiencies of typical suburban homes. The assignment concluded recently with a small house, designed and constructed by students, that was auctioned off and included environmentally-friendly building principles.
Ripon College Student Wins National Sodexo Service Award
Kaitlyn Welzen, environmental studies and Spanish major and a sustainability intern for Sodexo, led an effort to construct and implement a campus hoop house to grow herbs and greens that are served in the dining room during Local Greens Tuesdays.
U California Students Receive Food Fellowships
(U.S.): The university system recently announced 54 students have been awarded with the Global Food Initiative fellowships. The $2,500 fellowships to undergraduate and graduate students, selected by the system's 10 campuses, will fund student-generated research, related projects or internships that focus on food issues.
U Georgia Students Initiate Off Campus Recycling
(U.S.): After being challenged to find and solve a sustainability challenge in the local community, a team of students from the university communication class spoke with apartment tenants about finding solutions to overcome barriers to recycling and were successful in persuading the complexes to make collection sites available.
Five Schools Partner for Energy and Water Reduction [VIDEO]
Organized by students, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Toledo, Bowling Green University, University of Kansas and Pennsylvania State University will be competing together for the first time to measure the highest reduction of energy and water use on campus.
Cornell U Hosts Inaugural Energy Reduction Competition
The university's College of Human Ecology kicked off its first Energy Smackdown Competition in which buildings compete against each other in an effort to reduce their electrical consumption for a 45-day time period.
U South Carolina to Begin Greek Life Sustainability Program
A fourth-year international business student is spearheading an effort to educate the Greek community about sustainability and hopes integrate more environmentally friendly practices into every day life through the creation of an official Panhellenic Sustainability Committee.
California State U Fresno Holds Sustainability Summit
(U.S.): Attempting to educate the campus community about campus events and initiatives related to sustainability, the inaugural summit, spearheaded by the university's Sustainability Project, featured speakers and break-out sessions for participants to develop projects.
Grand Valley State U Serves Up Campus Grown Food
(U.S.): The university announced a new partnership between the Office of Sustainability Practices and Campus Dining to bring produce from its two-acre Sustainable Agriculture Project to the tables of a restaurant in its dining facility.
U California Santa Cruz Educates with Virtual Dorm Room
(U.S.): The new interactive page on the university's Housing website is an easy-to-use tool for students to become more educated about living sustainably by identifying methods for using less energy and water, using more environmentally friendly products and bicycling more.
Wake Forest U Students Add Greenhouse to Campus Garden
(U.S.): Two students recently erected the hoop house to extend the growing season of vegetables in the Campus Garden, which supports local farmers, decreases the carbon footprint, and supports the community with localized food through Campus Kitchen program.
Merced College Los Banos to Build Produce Forest
Two university professors received $50,000 from Wells Fargo to repurpose a biologically inactive one-acre plot adjacent to Los Banos Creek into a sustainable woodland ecosystem. The project will provide organic produce to students at the Los Banos campus and the surrounding community.
Triple Pundit Covers AASHE 2014 Conference & Expo
The article recaps Annie Leonard's recent remarks at the conference in October held in Portland. Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace and co-author of the Story of Stuff, reminds stakeholders in higher education campus sustainability to commit to renewable energy, divest from fossil fuel investment, leverage purchasing, encourage student engagement and stay inspired.
U Maryland Establishes Sustainability Pledge
The university's new Small Footprint Pledge is a way for all students, faculty and staff to make a commitment to minimize their environmental impact by adopting new green living habits from a suggest list of items from the pledge action list. Participants are invited to adopt that action for a week, a semester or a whole year.
U South Alabama Breaks Ground on Community Garden
Through a student initiative focused on recycling, the new community garden will help reduce the amount of food waste in the community, provide fresh, locally grown food, and raise community awareness about the values of sustainable living.
EPA Announces Winning Environmental Problem Solving Teams
In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced up to $15,000 for each of 42 student teams to pursue projects that deliver sustainable, alternative approaches to address environmental challenges as part of EPA’s People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) program.
Northern Kentucky U Student Creates Chemical Recycling Machine
After realizing that the university's chemical plan only covered a portion of the chemicals used in labs, the 2014 graduate student created a machine that separates the different liquids present in the leftover solution with high rates of purity allowing them to be reused again.
Syracuse U Contest Promotes Sustainable Practices
In order to continue momentum from Campus Sustainability Day, the Sustainability Club invited all students, faculty and staff to take and upload photos showing themselves engaged in sustainable activities across campus and the winner will be chosen during November at a campus lecture.
U Southern California Student Inaugurates Campus CSA
After purchasing produce from the campus farmers market and wondering about the growing method and it's environmental and health impacts, the student struck a new deal with a local farmer to start a community-supported agriculture (CSA) buyers club at the university.
Sonoma State U Launches Inaugural Expo
Aiming to demonstrate to the campus community and beyond the university's commitment to sustainability, the first Sustainability Expo brings exhibits, art, short films, panel discussions, tours and classes on global sustainability, including over 30 student and faculty projects.
