The university will raise all Ph.D. teaching assistant, research assistant and graduate assistant stipends to a baseline of $20,000 for the 2019-20 academic year. The stipend announcement came with the launch of a Ph.D. Excellence Initiative which will examine issues related to Ph.D. programs in order to enhance Ph.D. students’ educations. Some departments’ stipends were already close to, or above, $20,000, while others will see a 30-40 percent increase in their stipends.

Green Fee, developed by Susan Elswick, a professor in the social work department at the university, is a game-based app that allows users to track their green-living efforts, as well as green-living issues they encounter. Users can identify and geotag a green-living issue or problem they see, such as trash on the ground, then users may opt to address the issue and tag that activity.

A 172-kilowatt photovoltaic array funded by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment was recently connected, along with an interactive dashboard to track the performance. The array is part of a $8.9 million energy saving contract.

Beginning with the fall 2020 semester, all Arizona-resident, Pell-eligible freshmen attending the main campus will have the full cost of their tuition covered for four years.

After having launched its first Climate Action Plan progress report, the university also released new sustainability dashboards that track pertinent data in order to visualize its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2040 and other goals.

The No Food Left Behind initiative provides the campus community with two ways to help ensure there is no food waste for catered events on campus. Students, faculty and staff can sign up for text alerts when leftover food might be available after a catered event, and event attendees may bring food containers to take remaining food after the event is over.

After a number of sustainability-related concerns were expressed in a 2019 campus satisfaction survey, the university installed two new water-bottle filling stations with two more set to be operational in September.

The university added four new zero-emission electric box trucks to its fleet. Designed to travel 60 to 80 miles on a single charge, the light-duty trucks are used for campus moving and delivery services.

The two institutions recently committed to purchasing a combined 25,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy from an Oregon-based solar facility set to be operational in 2021.

The college has designated the 2019-20 academic year as the Year on Climate Change, a college-wide initiative to critically examine the complex and urgent issue of climate change. This program encourages the campus community to engage in deep and authentic critical thinking, collaboration, listening and action. The initiative opens in October with the Climate Equity and Justice: Solutions in Action conference that will bring more than a dozen speakers to campus.

The university recently announced it will eliminate all single-use plastic water and soda bottles in its operations throughout dining facilities, markets and vending machines. Starting this academic year, all undergraduate students will be given a reusable aluminum Vanderbilt tumbler for use at hydration stations throughout campus.

The new program blends fundamental and interdisciplinary engineering education in energy systems with elements of public policy, economics, management and entrepreneurship.

(Australia) The university recently installed a 2.1-megawatt photovoltaic system, the energy from which will be used to cool water in a three-story tank. The chilled water will then be used for air conditioning, which is currently the single biggest user of electricity at the campus.

In an effort to help those students and families affected by Hurricane Dorian, Hampton University is entering into an agreement with the University of the Bahamas-North to allow students who have been displaced by the hurricane to continue their education on HU’s campus. Students from the University of the Bahamas-North will be able to attend classes at Hampton for the fall 2019 semester, receive room and board for one semester, and will have the option to stay at Hampton once the semester is over at regular rates for tuition and fees.

Thanks to a $58,000 Solar for Schools grant, the college recently completed a 30-kilowatt solar-electric installation that will supply power to the main building.

The university was recently awarded an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Recycling Grant of nearly $130,000 that, combined with internal matching funds, will allocate more than $160,000 toward a 12-month project to improve the collection and processing of organic waste on campus. The grant money will be used for three main improvements, which include installing stationary co-located bins in the Convocation Center and using a portable conveyer to assist with sorting.

(India) The University Grants Commission of India has issued guidelines to higher education institutions across the country to impose a ban on single-use plastic, including in their canteens, hostels and shopping complexes. The higher education regulator, while issuing the guidelines, said that plastic waste has emerged as one of the biggest environmental concerns adversely impacting the soil, water, health and well-being of citizens at large and that time has come for a systematic campaign to reduce the usage of plastics.

Incoming new students participating in the college's community service pre-orientation program transformed hundreds of old t-shirts into tote bags that will be used by a local food pantry.

Thanks to a collaboration with the sustainability office and a $12,000 Greening IUPUI grant, grounds workers now have an arsenal of new electric equipment: two tillers, nine leaf blowers, nine weed trimmers, five chainsaws, two pole saws and two push mowers.

A new partnership was recently announced that will bring Ball Corporation's recyclable aluminum cup to the university's Folsom Field during the 2019 football season. The CU Athletic Department hopes to significantly reduce plastic use in the stadium during the 2019 season, with the university's goal of becoming plastic-free in sports venues by 2020.

Across five categories including the Lifetime Achievement Award, 11 winning submissions were selected as winners from nearly 350 total peer-reviewed applications and nominations in this year’s awards program. There were two honorable mentions. Some award recipients will be presenting their award-winning work at AASHE 2019, happening in Spokane, Washington, from Oct. 27 - 30.

Sierra's 13th annual Cool Schools ranking features 282 North American institutions, including community colleges for the second year. The annual ranking uses data from the AASHE STARS platform to assess colleges' environmental practices across a myriad of categories. Sierra's scoring system reflects the priorities of the Sierra Club.

The Commons is a new apartment-style complex featuring six residence halls. Outside of the buildings are light fixtures that are dark sky compliant, two underground cisterns to collect stormwater from the roofs that will be used to cool the buildings, and three bioswales to remove debris and pollution from surface water runoff. These areas will also be used as stormwater test sites for students and faculty in the College of Engineering. The buildings feature energy-efficient and motion sensor light fixtures and low-flow plumbing fixtures.

The new certificate in mental well-being and resilience is composed of three core courses and three electives designed to help students develop coping and resiliency skills so they may better face adversity.

In a trial collaboration with Stanford’s Residential & Dining Enterprises and the Graduate Student Council, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley will deliver food to Stanford’s campus on three pilot dates.

The program will begin fall 2019 and consist of multidisciplinary scientific approaches to understand the relationship between social and natural systems.

A new program was recently launched that partnered Appalachian’s Reich College of Education and Winston-Salem State's Department of Education to help future teachers develop social justice dispositions while exploring school and community diversity.

The building that houses the Miami Business School includes LED lighting, in-room air quality sensors, audio/visual and tele-presence technology, automatic window shading, and caters to occupants' ergonomics and comfort with furniture, indoor foliage and views to the outside in nearly every occupied space.

Hillcrest Hall, the university's newest student housing complex, features high-efficiency lighting, climate controls and window glazing to help reduce energy costs. The area around the building features bike racks, preferred parking for low-emission vehicles and native vegetation.

A newly connected 515-kilowatt ground-mounted photovoltaic array will supply 75 percent of the needed electricity for college's residence halls and classrooms. An additional 41 kilowatts will be installed at its retreat and conference center.

(Australia) The university will soon have over 40 percent of its energy needs met through a 1.2-megawatt solar-electric farm and battery storage system. The system is expected to be operational by May 2020.

The university's McCain Institute for International Leadership rolled out a new initiative, called We Hold These Truths, designed to engage the public on human rights and to teach liberties. The campaign specifically targets young people in the U.S. who are interested in progress, safety and freedom. The institute hopes to educate and galvanize the public to explore and engage — through the lens of the First Amendment — in human rights in a meaningful way that’s relevant and resonant to their own experiences, and then act to protect and preserve rights for others across the country and globe.

The university will participate in research with the city's water services department through a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The water conservation research will use the university's 12 acres of soccer fields to test the efficacy of hydrogels, which can potentially absorb up to 400 percent of their water weight and release nearly all of it back into the turf as needed.

The Washington Monthly ranking represents their second year for measuring how well colleges encourage their students to vote, boosting democratic participation and civic engagement. The ranking is based on data from the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE).

In a partnership with the Healthy Ride bike-share program, the university will provide all first-year undergraduate students and resident assistants with unlimited 30-minute rides during the academic year fall and spring terms of the 2019-20 academic year.

The pledge commits the university to reducing food-related greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2030. It is an initiative from the World Resources Institute to fight climate change and bring more sustainable food to dining halls, campus cafes and event catering.

The university recently acquired Level II accreditation from the Arboretum Accreditation Program for its 1,200-acre main campus landscape that features nearly 5,200 trees, including 155 species and 72 genera of plants. The arboretum has a strategic plan, a governing board, public programming and a complete inventory of every tree and woody plant.

The Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) recently announced the release of a new set of standards for sustainability programs, which delineate expectations for practitioners and educators in related functional areas and complement the recent release of the 10th edition of CAS Professional Standards for Higher Education.

Starting in September, 1,300 electric scooters will be available at university ride-share stations for check out. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute has partnered with the Ford-owned Spin company to conduct an 18-month pilot research initiative focused on micro-mobility. The research is intended to lead to recommendations for more effectively governing dockless programs on colleges and in cities.

Dr. Sean Garrick, formerly the associate vice provost in the Office for Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota, has become UIUC's first vice chancellor for diversity, equity and inclusion. At Minnesota, Dr. Garrick lead efforts to engage faculty whose scholarship focused on diverse, underrepresented or marginalized populations. He is also a professor of mechanical engineering.

(Australia) The university recently announced a $50.8 million ($75 million Australian dollars) project that will feature 7,000 photovoltaic panels across 27 buildings, 50,000 LED lights, a large-scale composter for 100 percent of the campus' organic waste, and an analytics platform for monitoring energy consumption.

College of Lake County, Stanford University Residential and Dining, University of California, Davis, University of Texas at Dallas, and Virginia Tech received the 2019 award on behalf of their programs and/or processes that enhance service delivery, lower costs, create a green and/or sustainable environment, or otherwise benefit the educational institution supporting student success and environmental stewardship. Additionally, Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh, Ph.D. at James Madison University, received the CFaR Research Award for the report, "Managing Trees on Campus: A Survey of North American College and University Tree Care Practices and Operations".

In an agreement with a local electric company, the university plans to purchase solar and wind power that will offset all of its scope two greenhouse gas emissions (emissions resulting from the generation of electricity, heat or steam purchased from a utility provider). The agreement provides the university with access to energy from a 247-megawatt wind farm and a 100-megawatt solar array system for 20 years.

The university aims to source electricity from a community solar project called PNM Community Solar Direct, which if approved, will site a 50-megawatt photovoltaic project on the Jicarilla Apache Nation land in northern New Mexico. The university’s purchase would meet 54 percent of its needs.

The Indiana University board of trustees recently approved 12 new degrees, two of which are a Master of Science degree in global health and sustainable development and an online Bachelor of Arts degree in sustainability studies.

AASHE recently released the 2019 Sustainable Campus Index, which recognizes top-performing colleges and universities in 17 sustainability impact areas and overall by institution type as measured by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). The report also includes innovative and high-impact initiatives. Top performers overall by institution type are Nova Scotia Community College (associate’s), Colby College (baccalaureate), Thompson Rivers University (master’s), and Stanford University (doctoral/research). The full list of top-performing institutions for each impact area can be found within the report.

The 400th anniversary of the forced arrival of enslaved Africans in the English colonies will be observed at the university through educational programming in the fall and spring semesters. Berkeley’s commemoration is in the spirit of “The 400 Years of African American History Commission Act,” federal legislation signed last year that called for a national commission to commemorate the anniversary of the forced arrival of Africans in the English colonies in 1619.

The university recently rolled out the “Re-use for Good” initiative, which is a multi-phase action plan to raise awareness and work towards eliminating the most common single-use plastics and products at the university. Phase one will be implemented this fall and includes adding reusable water bottles to campus vending machines, mapping the location of existing water bottle refill stations and deciding where to strategically locate additional stations, replacing plastic and compostable utensils and stir sticks with metal flatware, and removing plastic straws.

In addition to being certified through LEED standards, the college's new Margaret A. Cargill Natural Sciences and Health Building also received the Forest Stewardship Council’s Forest Stewardship Council’s Full Project Certification. The certification requires a full audit of all wood products used in construction to verify that they have been sourced responsibly.

(U.K.) The university recently committed to sell its remaining $3.4 million (2.8 million British pounds) holdings in fossil fuel companies by July 2022, which represents 1.2 percent of the university’s investment portfolio. The move to fully divest from fossil fuels builds on the university’s ethical investment policy introduced last year, which also excludes companies that derive more than 10 percent of their revenue from the manufacture or sale of armaments; companies engaged in testing of cosmetic and non-pharmaceutical products on animals except where it is mandatory; companies that derive more than 10 percent of their revenue from the sale of tobacco products; and companies that manufacture tobacco products.