The Princeton Review recently released its tenth annual Guide to Green Colleges, a free resource for environmentally aware college applicants that highlights sustainability initiatives and commitments at 413 universities and colleges. The edition also includes a Top 50 Green Colleges list.

A year-long historical audit uncovered that, while the seminary did not own slaves and its buildings were not constructed with slave labor, it benefited from the slave economy. Therefore, the religious college's board of trustees unanimously endorsed a series of new initiatives, ranging from increased student financial assistance to curriculum changes to added support for the Center for Black Church Studies. To support the more than 20 approved initiatives in perpetuity, $27.6 million will be reserved in the endowment.

Adjunct faculty members at the college recently voted, 269 to 187, to form a union affiliated with Service Employees International Union.

The university's Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability will begin mitigating the carbon emissions from the air travel of both its students and faculty. Working with the company Terrapass, the center will contribute to a portfolio that invests in renewable energy and methane recapture.

The university is installing a 10-megawatt photovoltaic system that is projected to generate approximately one-third of the electricity it consumes. Additionally, all convenience stores on the campus will stop using single-use plastic containers and will discontinue using plastic bags on January 1, 2020.

The Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS) recently awarded 19 colleges and universities with its Green Star Award, which recognizes grounds maintained with a high degree of excellence.

Dickinson recently installed three electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, each with two plugs, allowing for six EVs to charge at once.

The university’s major contractors, working in partnership with UVA, will raise the wages of their full-time employees to at least $15 per hour, effective Jan. 1. The move will increase the wages of more than 800 full-time contracted employees, which represents nearly 90 percent of full-time contracted employees who work regularly on the university grounds.

In mid-October, the college's board of trustees endorsed a $13-million package of renovations and upgrades to the college’s heating system and other energy-saving projects that altogether is expected to reduce Vassar's carbon footprint to less than 25 percent of its benchmark year emissions. The plan calls for retrofitting all lighting fixtures with LED bulbs; upgrading the central boiler to use renewable fuel oil; upgrading the HVAC in several buildings; and an energy awareness campaign.

The new campaign focuses on maintaining a smoke- and vape-free campus and encourages those who smoke and vape to quit.

Now certified as an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program, the university has minimized hazards to pollinators and created native pollinator habitats across campus.

After a successful, 10-week composting pilot at the beginning of 2019, the university recently launched the Student Composting Program for its South Campus residents.

In a year-long pilot program, the university is testing out the viability of electric bikes with a trailer for moving items such as tools and annual plants.

A new polystyrene densifier enables the university to recycle polystyrene products, such as to-go food containers, coffee cups and packing materials. The university is also inviting the general public to dropoff polystyrene for recycling.

The 2-megawatt solar parking canopy structure plus energy storage system will provide electricity to the campus over a 20-year term. The project is expected to meet 60 to 65 percent of the Rocklin campus' electricity consumption.

The college recently signed a 20-year power purchase agreement for a 4-megawatt, single axis tracker photovoltaic system. The project is expected to save around $3 million over the 20-year contract and to reduce the college's carbon footprint by 18 percent.

The new campaign launched by Ashoka U aims to shift the narrative around what it means to be a changemaker and who can be one, on campus and beyond. It seeks to accomplish this by publishing weekly stories of individuals who have navigated breakthroughs, overcome challenges, and embraced dynamic experiences during their time as student changemakers.

Among other targets, the university's new Sustainability Strategy 2019-2024 includes the following commitments: it will not to invest in companies involved in fossil fuel extraction or production and will make public its portfolio of investments; all buildings will be net zero carbon by 2024 and the whole institution will be net zero carbon by 2030; and it will have a single-use-plastic free campus by 2024.

Projects at the following universities and colleges were recently selected to receive a Ford College Community Challenge grant of $25,000: Centenary University, College for Creative Studies, Eastern Michigan University, Harvard University, Michigan State University, Salt Lake Community College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan-Dearborn and Wayne State University (two projects selected). Each project will be led by students who will work with a nonprofit to address one of these categories: social mobility, smart mobility or building a sustainable community.

The college's board of trustees voted recently to direct Smith's endowment management firm to exclude from the endowment all future investments with fossil fuel specific managers. The college will also begin an immediate phaseout of all current investments with fossil fuel specific managers in its endowment. This phaseout will be achieved through the sale, maturity or liquidation of investments held by fossil fuel specific managers over a projected period of 15 years.

Ten years after releasing its original Climate Action Plan, the university released the Climate & Sustainability Action Plan 3.0 (CSAP 3.0), outlining Penn’s goals for improved environmental performance from 2019 to 2024. CSAP 3.0 highlights ongoing efforts to improve the ecological health of the region, with expanded academic offerings and research, reduced waste, responsible purchasing and sustainable transit.

The university recently partnered with its food service provider, Chartwells, to bring a hydroponic, vertical growing system housed inside a repurposed shipping container to campus. It will produce greens and microgreens year-round and employ students.

A new clothing exchange program accepts new or gently-used casual, seasonal and business attire for students in need.

The UVA Equity Center will foster partnerships between Charlottesville-area community leaders and university faculty in an effort to tangibly redress racial and socioeconomic inequality. The center hopes to change the way UVA scholars interact with members of the surrounding community, replacing the current model with one that is respectful, collaborative and beneficial to the communities.

The Penn State Smeal College of Business will launch the Center for the Business of Sustainability (CBoS) in 2020 to support business in meeting the growing demand for resources in a socially just and environmentally sustainable manner. CBoS will be oriented toward the challenges of scaling up technological solutions, promoting and strategically deploying new products and services, and devising a regulatory framework that fosters sustainability.

(U.K.) Twenty universities in the U.K. have signed a joint power purchase agreement to buy electricity from wind farms across Scotland and Wales for $63 million (50 million British pounds). The 10-year deal ensures the cost stability of electricity while simultaneously reducing the universities' carbon footprint.

As a part of its zero-waste campus goal, the university's Office of Sustainability is piloting a reusable utensil kit opt-in for the Class of 2023. The reusable utensil kit, which is free to students who opt-in, consists of a fork, spoon, knife, and chopsticks, all made of bamboo. A total of 350 students have opted-in, 88 percent of who are from Class of 2023.

Minnich and Scott Halls, which reopened in fall 2018 after major renovations, were certified LEED Gold in September. Presidents and Withrow Halls, new residence halls that opened in fall 2018, were certified LEED Silver in June. Both the Minnich and Scott Halls achieved a 44 percent improvement on baseline building energy performance rating over a non-LEED building. Presidents and Withrow Halls achieved a 28 and 26 percent improvement, respectively, on baseline building energy performance rating over a non-LEED building.

The university's first sustainability coordinator, Wendy Olmsted, recently completed the Campus Sustainability Leadership Professional Certificate program via the University of Vermont and has a Master's in Ecology and Sustainability from California State University, Stanislaus.

Diya Abdo, an associate professor of English at Guilford College, won the Campus Compact 2019 Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award, which recognizes one senior faculty member each year for exemplary engaged scholarship. Abdo founded the Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR) initiative, which advocates for housing refugee families on campuses, based on the idea that colleges and universities have all the resources necessary–housing, food, care, skill-building–to take in refugees and support them as they begin their lives in their new homes.

A partnership between the University of Louisville's Urban Design Studio and Louisville Metro Council saved 120 seats from going to the landfill as the former Cardinal Stadium was demolished earlier this year. Instead, the seats are being installed at some of the city's bus stops.

To kick off Campus Sustainability Month, Environment America Research & Policy Center launched 30 campaigns in 11 states, pressing colleges and universities to generate 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources. The initiative aims to get 150 schools to commit by 2021 to exclusively use renewable energy.

The university recently signed onto the Cool Food Pledge, which commits signatories to collectively reducing food-related greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2030.

(Portugal) The university announced at the end of September that it would stop serving beef in an effort to combat the climate crisis. The university was consuming around 20 tons of beef per year.

Stanford was recently recognized in PR Daily’s Corporate Social Responsibility Awards in the Green and Environmental Stewardship category for significantly reducing the university's environmental footprint by targeting infrastructure and behavior.

After more than a decade of offsetting 100 percent of its electric power consumption with renewable energy certificates, the university recently entered a series of multi-year wind energy agreements. Under the agreements, the university will source all of its electricity from a wind farm in Illinois and will secure the renewable energy certificates from the project.

Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the university system chancellor directed each of the 11 universities and the directors of eight state agencies with the TAMU system to ban the use of e-cigarettes and vaping as soon as practical.

The U.S. district-court judge ruled at the beginning of October that Harvard's race-conscious admissions process is legal. The university's admissions practices were on trial after the plaintiffs accused Harvard of favoring black and Hispanic applicants at the expense of Asian American applicants.

A group of students through the university's Institute for Sustainability Studies Green Team program helped study and improve a local circular recycling system for polystyrene. In addition to calculating the savings from disposal charges and the return on investment, the team developed promotional strategies aimed at dispelling the myth that polystyrene cannot be recycled.

The university will no longer require Graduate Records Examination (GRE) test scores for admission to 24 of its Ph.D. programs, beginning with applications for the 2020-21 academic year. The university hopes this will remove barriers that can reduce applications from students who are historically underrepresented in higher education and from low-income backgrounds.

In an effort to diversify the faculty pipeline and enroll a diverse pool of graduate students, 14 Princeton University departments will no longer require the GRE test for graduate admission, making it optional for graduate applicants.

The university's new 117,000-square-foot, three-story student center features ground-source heating and cooling, a rooftop solar thermal system and LED lighting coupled with occupancy sensors.

This fall, the university rolled out a new minor in sustainable business. The program is designed for non-business majors and is open to any UO student who wants to apply business solutions to address a variety of social and environmental challenges.

The new Impact MBA through the university's College of Business offers two distinct tracks – the Corporate Sustainability Track and the Social Entrepreneurship Track. The Corporate Sustainability Track of the program aims to equip students with the analytical skills to lead change within an organization by presenting the business case for sustainability projects. The Social Entrepreneurship Track was previously offered as the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA.

The Cool Food Pledge is an initiative of the World Resources Institute. All signatories will work together to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2030. The university recently signed the pledge alongside the U.N. Climate Action Summit.

The new website is an interactive map that catalogs the full range of university living lab projects, with program descriptions, links to websites, and contact information for students and faculty to learn more and/or get involved. It is organized by six categories: agroecology; design and engineering; environmental education; environmental justice and sustainability; UCSC natural reserves; and stewardship and natural history.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation recently announced a $250,000 award to support ADVANCE and the Early Identification Program (EIP)—two programs designed to give educational access to diverse student populations. The ADVANCE program, the university's partnership with Northern Virginia Community College, will receive $150,000 in scholarships to help alleviate financial burdens for high-achieving students in financial need. EIP will receive $100,000, enabling more first generations students to attend the university's Honors College.

Philanthropists and entrepreneurs Stewart and Lynda Resnick have announced an unprecedented $750 million pledge to the California Institute of Technology to support research in solar science, climate science, energy, biofuels, decomposable plastics, water and environmental resources, and ecology and biosphere engineering. In recognition of the investment, Caltech will construct a new 75,000-square-foot building, to be named the Resnick Sustainability Resource Center. The center will serve as the hub for energy and sustainability research on campus as well as the home of undergraduate teaching laboratories.

The new campus-wide initiative seeks to strengthen the university’s commitment to sustainability; elevate Carnegie Mellon’s engagement with the SDGs; and improve coordination of our sustainability education, research and practices among CMU students, faculty, staff and local community members.

In 2021, the university will erect a memorial that honors more than 100 people enslaved by George Mason. When the memorial opens, it will contain several markers, including a bronze statue of George Mason and silhouettes of two specific enslaved people, as well as an inscription with the names of the men, women and children whom Mason enslaved.