This online workshop, happening from May 27 - June 30, is designed for higher education instructors wishing to infuse sustainability (ecological stability, social equity, and economic vitality) into their curriculum regardless of the discipline by identifying areas of sustainability intersection. Effective assessment of critical thinking skills, collaboration, creativity, and the ability to analyze, discuss and create solutions to real-world sustainability problems will be explored. Moraine Valley Community College is one of 13 regional AASHE Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum. Registration is open through May 1.

AASHE is seeking judges to help evaluate submissions for the 2019 AASHE Sustainability Awards. Judging will occur over an eight-week period between June and July. Sign up by May 17.

This workshop will introduce best practices for integrating sustainability across the curriculum, from designing a sustainability-focused assignment or course to strategizing curriculum-wide sustainability learning goals. This year’s event, taking place at Central College from May 23-24, will give specific focus to developing and maintaining community partnerships that connect classroom learning to real-world sustainability initiatives. Central College is one of 13 regional AASHE Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum. The deadline to register for this workshop is May 1.

The university recently earned the 2018 Tree Campus USA designation for stewarding campus trees in accordance with Tree Campus USA guidelines, which are based on five core standards for sustainable campus forest management.

The informational sessions will discuss the Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership program by providing an overview of the course frameworks, which center around organizational design to optimize and accelerate impact for sustainability and innovation. The Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership program is being offered Oct. 21 - 25, 2019. Information sessions are planned for April 17, May 16, and June 10.

A student hunger strike will now end after the university president concluded a two-hour meeting with a coalition of student protesters who laid out a series of demands to make life better for low-income and minority students. The president agreed to cover a controversial mural at one of the university's most iconic buildings on campus that portrays black men and women planting tobacco and a Native American man holding a tomahawk. In addition to the mural, the university now commits to including a representative from the Black Student Collective on all senior-level search committees; staffing a Basic Needs Center; and establishing a Basic Needs Fund to assist those who experience food and housing insecurity.

To mitigate remaining university emissions for air and automotive travel, and energy consumption related to buildings, the university invested in a New York State landfill gas-to-energy project, a grassland carbon sequestration and conservation project, a tropical forest conservation project and a solar cookstove project in China. Additionally, the university now purchases renewable energy credits to cover 100 percent of their electricity needs. The total cost of renewable energy credits and the four offset projects for 2019 is about $61,000.

The new Sustainability Hubs advance initiatives in 12 thematic areas to further progress the university’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plans. The three, faculty-led hubs are the Sustainable Infrastructure Hub, focusing on buildings, energy, water and waste; the Sustainable Living Hub Coordinator concentrating on food, transportation, grounds and student affairs; and a hub focusing on climate, procurement, investments and human resources.

The new Master of Science in Environmental Science and Sustainability will begin in the fall of 2019 and provide two tracks for students to choose from: Research or Professional.

A new partnership involving North Carolina State University, Makerere University, Gulu University and Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda, and Mount Kenya University in Kenya seeks to engage students at the institutions to find solutions to persistent global challenges such as food shortages, health challenges and the effects of climate change. The partnership is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with initial support of $14 million.

As part of UMN Morris's Sustainability Leaders for the Future program, which prepares students to solve environmental, social and economic challenges, the new minor aims to help students from any major develop the skills they need to grow as sustainability leaders in their personal and professional lives. The plan includes topics and activities in environmental problems and public policy; communication and the environment; political ethics; and indigenous sovereignty and federal policy.

The university's Center for Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Nursing is a 149,000-square-foot, four-floor building that features dynamic glazed windows that tint on-demand to lower energy usage and a computerized and automated ventilation system for laboratories. Sloped landscaping prevents rainwater from running off onto paved surfaces, and native deciduous shade trees in the building's plaza serve as a natural buffer from the sun's rays.

Yale Grounds Maintenance implemented sprinkler and irrigation systems that use weather-based automated technology, which is controlled using a smartphone app. The app, which is connected to local meteorology forecasts, will pause if rain is predicted, thus limiting waste by complementing what is naturally occurring. In addition, lawns in four residential colleges utilize flow-sensing smart technology in order to limit excessive water use. A flow-sensing valve in the main pipe will automatically close if unusually-high water output is found.

In partnership with and funded by Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation (MCHC), the Global KAITEKI Center will focus on research aimed at realizing the concept of KAITEKI, that is, the sustainable well-being of people, society and planet Earth. It is an original concept of the MCHC that proposes a way forward in the sustainable development of society and the planet, and serves as a guide for solving environmental and social issues. The first four research projects, announced in early April, will be: Visualizing and Quantifying the Social Value of Future Business; Developing a Shared Roadmap for the Circular Economy in the Chemical Industry; Design, Development and Testing of Innovative Materials for Urban Cooling; and Food Waste Reduction and Well-Being for a Sustainable Future.

Second Nature is working with partners to bring together advocacy opportunities that will accelerate science informed solutions, break down blockages for campus climate goals and clear the pathway for climate action success. This sign-up form provides the opportunity to receive periodic updates from Second Nature regarding policy issues.

The March/April issue of APPA's Facilities Manager magazine focuses on Sustainability Excellence and Collaboration. It includes articles about renewable energy aggregation in higher education, sustainability as an institutional priority, optimizing building sustainability, and APPA's student internship program.

Following a 19-month research and investigative process, the university's College Council unanimously passed a resolution at the beginning of March 2019 to assign new names to the Hasbrouck Complex buildings, named for the original Huguenot patentees of the Village of New Paltz who also owned enslaved Africans. The selected new names carry local meaning, a theme that drew strong support from campus-wide survey responses from more than 3,000 students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members, including Huguenot descendants.

The Post-Landfill Action Network is seeking speakers with an understanding of zero waste, environmental justice, and intersectionality to lead workshops and presentations at the Students for Zero Waste Conference, happening at the University of Pennsylvania from Oct. 11-13. The deadline to submit a workshop proposal is July 31.

This paper competition hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers invites students to submit papers that address how engineers have contributed to the SDGs. Papers that focus on multidisciplinary (engineering & non-engineering) approaches to addressing the SDGs are especially welcomed. Papers must be submitted by April 15.

Housed in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, the program will begin in August 2019. Students in the program will study topics such as sustainable energy and voluntary environmental commitments, cost-benefit analysis, utility regulation and policy, Earth systems, economics of environmental policy, big data and policy analytics, climate policy, and environmental management. They also will learn analytical techniques used to estimate and evaluate sustainability metrics, be able to assess the context of energy and environmental problems, and understand environmental ethics and its implications for sustainability practice.

Both dining halls at the university have been certified as 3 Star Certified Green Restaurants by the Green Restaurant Association. Highlights of the certification include being polystyrene-free, and composting food waste and recycling plastics, glass, aluminum, cardboard, and paper. Rather than providing bottled water, bottle-filling stations are available. Over 40 percent of the main dishes are vegetarian.

Recently joining Farm Forward’s Leadership Circle, Harvard Business School has committed to buying 100 percent of its eggs—including both liquid and shell—from certified higher welfare farms aligned with Farm Forward's sourcing requirements. An impact assessment found that switching to a higher welfare products did not increase costs to Harvard Business School. The change will impact more than 15,000 hens over the next 10 years.

The university's Sherrod Library now dons a 62.6-kilowatt photovoltaic array. The solar array project cost approximately $150,000 and was funded by the $7-per-semester Campus Sustainability Fee paid by ETSU students.

(U.K.) A new recycling scheme on campus collects snack packaging, such as chip and pretzel bags, and oral hygiene products, such as toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.

The part-time professors, who make up a majority of MDC’s total faculty, recently voted 587-to-573 in favor of forming a union with the Florida arm of the Service Employees International Union. The adjuncts hope to lobby for increased wages, health benefits and added transparency in course assignment. About 42 percent of the eligible voters casted ballots in the month-long election.

This field guide is intended to advance the growing field and practice of university-community partnerships. It seeks to provide the first survey of the field through a scan of 100 urban universities and colleges. It also seeks to offer a framework and methods by which individual universities and colleges can track the progress of the field, compare learning across institutions, and distill best practices for their own work in university-community partnerships. In this way, it seeks to complement a range of capacity-building resources that already exist by offering a stepwise opportunity for practitioners to locate themselves within the field of their peers, discern a best next step for their institutions and communities, and connect with the resources they need to be successful.

Santa Clara University invites faculty members from any discipline to apply to attend this curriculum workshop, which aims to help faculty include a module on sustainability in an existing course or to develop a new course focused entirely on sustainability. Participants will draw inspiration from multiple visions of sustainability, including the U.N. SDGs, academic associations in their field, and their school’s mission. There will also be a breakout session for faculty members from Jesuit institutions that will draw links to Ignatian pedagogy and Catholic social teaching on sustainability and justice. Santa Clara University is one of 13 regional AASHE Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum.

The Sustainability Professionals Retreat is designed to support and bolster attendees’ vision, energy, capabilities and support system as a sustainability change agent on campus. Happening in Boulder, Colorado, from June 19 - 22, on the beautiful CU Boulder campus, this workshop will will explore important trends in higher education and how to position sustainability as a solution driver. The deadline to apply is May 1.