Appalachian State U Holds Research Forum
The university's first Sustainability Research Forum, designed to encourage faculty to attend with their classes, highlighted graywater reclamation and remediation at a local haircare salon, coal challenges in Appalachia and Welch communities, and a case study on agroecotourism in Cuba.
Boston U Reaches 2020 Goal Six Years Early
In July 2014 the university reached its 2020 goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by three ways: a regional electrical grid fuel change from coal to natural gas, reducing heating oil use from 24 percent in 2006 to 3 percent, and energy efficiency improvements as indicated in the university's climate mitigation plan.
Cedar Valley College Commences Living Lab Initiative
Utilizing the sustainability learning opportunities available to students on campus, the new initiative, with four focus areas: buildings, energy, transportation and community, will give college students hands-on work skills complementing their academic and technical programs.
College of Charleston Launches New Diversity Major
The university's Office of Institutional Diversity helped manifest the new African American studies major, the goal of which is for students to gain not only understanding and knowledge of African American history and culture, but comprehend the African American experience in the context of American and Western history.
Georgia State U Strives to Minimize Food Waste
The university championed its first Hunger Awareness Month by educating students on excessive food waste associated with overloading plates with food. Volunteers in the dining hall weighed patrons food waste resulting in monthly posters declaring food waste totals.
Hampshire College to Open Living Building
Built to Living Building Challenge requirements, the college's new building, slated to open in November, will have a 100-kilowatt photovoltaic array, high-efficiency windows and a rainwater collection system. The Living Building Challenge, a program of the Living Future Institute, is a building certification program, advocacy tool and philosophy that defines advanced measures of sustainability in the built environment and acts to rapidly diminish the gap between current limits and end-game positive solutions.
Indiana State U Hosts Community Sustainability Poster Competition
In an effort to encourage sustainability within the community, the university recently announced the Terre Haute Sustainability Championship 2014 in which participating students from kindergarten through college will be given a question related to sustainability that they will have to answer using a poster.
McGill U Releases Sustainability Vision
Released in October, the university's Vision 2020 strategy focuses on a long-range vision and goals, with 14 concrete actions identified to push sustainability forward over the next two years, ranging in scope from a waste management plan to the creation of a network for collaborative sustainability research.
Occidental College Begins $3.5M Revolving Fund
In an effort to minimize its environmental impact, the college's board of trustees recently created a $3.5 million Green Revolving Fund, part of a permanent endowment, that will make loans available to energy and water efficiency upgrades, renewable energy and other projects that are capable of generating significant savings.
Onondaga CC Buildings Earn LEED Gold
The university's music hall was designed with natural daylighting, reduced energy consumption, water saving fixtures, and about 10 percent of the building materials came from less than 500 miles away. The second building, an arena and events center, features reduced water consumption, landscape design requiring zero irrigation, reduced energy consumption and 33 percent of the building materials are made from recycled content.
Six Schools Partner with Chevrolet for Carbon Reductions
Marking Campus Sustainability Day Portland State University, Spelman College, Boston University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point and University of Illinois at Chicago announced their partnership with the Chevrolet Carbon Reduction Initiative, a new carbon methodology for campuses that measures and sells their greenhouse gas reductions to fund even deeper campus efficiency measures. These campuses join Ball State University, Valencia College, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Grand Valley State University and Southern Oregon 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.
U Calgary Provides Resource Center
Besides serving as a central resource hub, the Sustainability Resource Center provides a space for the Office of Sustainability to run its engagement programs and for other campus sustainability leaders to use for running events or as a gathering place for collaborating on projects, with the overall goal of growing communities of practice in sustainability.
U Massachusetts Expands Edible Gardens Program
Hoping to improve the university's sustainability image, three new programs were added to the edible gardens initiative including a Edible Mushroom Cultivation Program, the installation of pollinator hotels to provide a nesting area for pollinator insects, and a solar charging station that provides a renewable energy source for cell phones and USB-powered electronics.
U North Carolina Chapel Hill Builds Food Pantry
The newly established Carolina Cupboard, a student organization sponsored by the departments of Housing & Residential Education, and Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, will collect and redistribute nutritious food to students in an attempt to alleviate food insecurity.
U Oklahoma Students Request Real Food
Building on university Housing and Food's commitment to create a better food system, Students Against a Factory-Farming Economy sought signatures for the Real Food Campus Commitment, which asks for a university pledge to make 20 percent of all food sold on campus Real Food-certified by 2020.
U Pennsylvania Releases New Climate Action Plan
A roadmap for environmental improvement and sustainability on campus to 2019, the university's new Climate Action Plan 2.0 calls for an overall carbon reduction of seven percent and a building energy reduction of 10 percent by 2019 (using fiscal year 2014 as a baseline), the creation of a Faculty Working Group on Sustainability to provide outreach and support to faculty interested in researching and teaching sustainability, and an increase in the campus-wide recycling rate to 30 percent by 2019.
U Saskatchewan Commits to New Education & Research Initiatives
In celebration of Campus Sustainability Day, the university announced three new education and research initiatives, including an undergraduate certificate of Proficiency in Sustainability, two governance initiatives, including a revolving fund, and two community engagement and operations initiatives.
U Washington Kicks Off Festival
The new weeklong festival focuses on university operations and academic sustainability with different events across campus.
U Wisconsin Madison Student Fights for Student Living Wage
Working with the three biggest university employers of students, the student's campaign is based on an estimate of how much students would need to earn per hour in a 15-hour workweek in order to pay back the cost of one year of tuition and fees.
Washington U St. Louis Opens Diversity Center
The university's new Center for Diversity and Inclusion is intended to enhance and strengthen its commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive community. The center’s staff supports and advocates for students from traditionally underrepresented or marginalized populations and creates collaborative partnerships with campus and community members to promote dialogue and social change.
Wesleyan U Expands Energy Saving Competition
The now campus-wide energy reduction competition encourages all residents to reduce their energy consumption and track it via JouleBug, a smartphone app. Two awards based on the app's data will be given to the resident with the highest energy reduction.
Western U Institutes Student Environmental Competition
In its inaugural year, Western's Ideas for Sustainability and the Environment (WISE) competition aims to generate ideas and initiatives by asking students to pitch innovative and high-impact ideas to reduce or eliminate today's most pressing environmental concerns.
Australian Catholic U Brisbane to Open Green Building
(Australia): Designed to improve the health and well-being of occupants and to support productivity and work performance, the building will feature energy and water efficiency elements, attention to waste management, and natural lighting.
California State U East Bay Crafts Sustainability Website
(U.S.): The university's new sustainability website and social media pages offer information to campus about sustainability in academics, student engagement, operations, and displays the institution's mission, shared strategic commitments and institutional learning outcomes.
Colorado Mountain College Installs 30KW Solar System
(U.S.): A university partnership with Garfield County Libraries yielding two other solar installations has led to the library's largest photovoltaic installation to date, 29.9-kilowatts, and was installed by five university students and their professor studying photovoltaics.
Colorado State U Plans Bicycle Friendly Campus
(U.S.): In conjunction with the City of Fort Collins, the university will complete a plan in November that expands current trails, creates new ones, and installs a permanent closure making a bike and pedestrian-friendly thoroughfare.
CUNY Brooklyn College Launches Major in Urban Sustainability
(U.S.): The college's new Bachelor of Arts program examines the dynamics between social and natural systems as well as the trade-offs among environmental, social and economic sustainability, and offers concentrations in economics, environmental science and sociology.
Five Colleges Receive Green Genome Awards
(U.S.): Recently awarded for exemplary support for sustainability practices, programs and training, the five colleges that received the recognition from the American Association of Community Colleges are Gateway Technical College, Greenfield Community College, Lane Community College, McHenry County College and Moraine Valley Community College. Each will receive $7,500 plus a set of tools and horticulture equipment.
George Washington U to Install Solar Thermal System
(U.S.): In step with the university's plan to reduce its carbon emissions 40 percent by 2025, the solar thermal system, to be completed on an upperclassmen residence hall in 2015, will save the university money by preheating water with the sun instead of using gas.
Glasgow U Divests from Fossil Fuels
(U.K.): After 12 months of campaigning led by the university's Climate Action Society, the university sets precedent in Europe as it becomes the first academic imstitution to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
INSIGHT into Diversity Magazine Recognizes 83 Honorees
(U.S.): INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine has announced the 83 recipients of its annual Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award. The national award, open to all colleges and universities throughout the U.S., was dispensed based on an institution’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, and include all aspects of diversity including gender, race, ethnicity, veterans, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBT community.
Michigan State U Launches New Website
(U.S.): The university's new virtual Sustainability Guidebook organizes the school's environmental efforts and illustrates to other communities how initiatives can be emulated.
Northwestern U Offers Green Office Certification
(U.S.): The university's new Green Office program helps decrease a department or office’s environmental impact by offering guidance on energy and water conservation, waste reduction, and increasing environmental awareness in the workplace. The certification requires that 75 percent of an office or department agree to participate in the program.
Pomona College Adopts Drought Action Plan
(U.S.): With the state of California in its fourth year of drought, the college's new plan reduces landscape irrigation by 20 percent, includes the use of pH controllers on water cooling towers, which reduce the number of water replacement cycles in a building's air conditioning systems, schedules for nighttime watering, and calls for the installation of 750 new low-flow plumbing fixtures.
Skidmore College Celebrates Completion of Solar Array
(U.S.): Aiding in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the new photovoltaic system, with $2.3 million from the NY-Sun Initiative, is predicted to generate approximately 12 percent of the college's electricity needs.
Truckee Meadows CC & Colorado School of Mines Win Challenge
(U.S.): The Energy Department's National Geothermal Student Competition announced Truckee Meadows Community College as top finisher and the Geothermal Case Study Challenge winner went to Colorado School of Mines. The two competitions challenged college and university students to develop professional business solutions for public outreach as well as case studies that could help industry more accurately pinpoint geothermal resources in subsurface areas across the United States.
U Bristol Partners for Year as Green Capital 2015
(U.K.): The city in which the university resides is set to become the European Green Capital 2015, and as such, the university has committed to ensuring the legacy of the year by aiming to become a net carbon neutral campus by 2030, decreasing the university’s transport footprint, and ensuring that its students have the opportunity to undertake education for sustainable development. The university will host or co-host over 100 public events across the city including major conferences, seminars, debates and art installations.
