Ball State U Class Installs Photovoltaic System
In fall 2017, a $2,000 grant allowed an immersive learning class to install a solar panel system that powers a display case where students can charge their phones and learn more about solar energy via a television screen.
U Wisconsin-Stevens Point Introduces Educational Sustainability Doctoral Program
The new doctoral program in Educational Sustainability is designed to challenge students to educate for sustainability, by understanding and responding to problems in economic, ecological and social justice contexts. Sustainability learning and leadership theories are used to enable graduates to transform educational systems and foster citizen engagement.
Northwestern U Alumnus Donates $3M to Support Social Justice Reporting
Northwestern University alumnus David F. Freedman ’81 has made a $3 million commitment to further the study of reporting on social justice issues. Freedman’s gift will establish the David F. Freedman Fund for Social Justice Reporting Initiatives to support research, students, curricula, conferences and other activities at the intersection of journalism and social justice.
Wake Forest U Appoints Former EPA Official as Director of Sustainability Grad Program
Stan Meiburg, alumnus and former Environmental Protection Agency official from 2014-2017, will lead the master of arts in sustainability program and associated dual degree and certificate programs. He is known for leading efforts to protect the nation’s air and water, clean up hazardous and toxic waste sites, build collaborative relationships with state and tribal environmental programs, and promote sound management in the EPA.
Pennsylvania State U to Offer Climate Change MOOC
The university will begin offering a massive open online course (MOOC) called Energy, the Environment and our Future through FutureLearn, the U.K.’s leading MOOC platform, as part of the organization’s launch in the U.S. Massive open online courses are free, self-paced courses available to anyone with internet access.
U Connecticut Students Support Sustainability Gen Ed Requirement
A subcommittee in the Undergraduate Student Government submitted a sustainability requirement currently under review by the University Senate’s General Education Oversight Committee. A student environmental group currently has a petition with 1,100 student signatures supporting a sustainability general education requirement.
U Alberta Launches Free MOOC on Indigenous Canadian Histories
The faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta recently announced Indigenous Canada, a massive open online course (MOOC) that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada. The non-credit version is available online for free on Coursera to anyone, anywhere in the world.
SUNY New Paltz Launches Sustainability Faculty Learning Community
Members of the new Sustainability Faculty Learning Community held a January retreat to explore ideas and partnerships that could expand experiential learning opportunities around sustainability. Some projects discussed included a math course that analyzes research on climate, weather and the environment, and collaborations between an environmental organization and students in engineering and marketing to develop, implement and promote new campaigns.
Red Deer College to Receive $4.75M to Boost Energy Infrastructure & Training
Under the a Canadian federal government investment fund, the college will receive more than $4.75 million for two projects, and it will match the funding, for a total investment of $9.5 million that it is allocating toward upgrades to the campus, and training and research opportunities focused on alternative energy production processes.
The New School & North Carolina State U Students Win Cradle to Cradle Competition
A pocket knife designed with Autodesk Fusion 360 by students of The New School won Best Use of Fusion 360 and a prescription medicine bottle that reduces medical waste designed by a student at North Carolina State University won Best Student Project in the fourth Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge, presented by Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. The design challenge encourages the design community to envision solutions for the circular economy, inspired by cradle to cradle product design principles.
Syracuse U Allocates Inaugural $50K Campus as Lab Funding
Six faculty and student projects will receive grants totaling $50,000 through the new Campus as a Laboratory for Sustainability (CALS) funding program. The call for proposals sought projects that address climate disruption and offer opportunities for communication and outreach to the campus and wider community. Some of the projects include a lab to research and test ways to connect electric vehicles to the Smart Grid and a climate disruption virtual reality simulator.
Royal Roads U Allocates $21.5M Toward Environmental & Cultural Center
With $21.5 million from private and public funding, the new Center for Environmental Science and International Partnership will be founded. As part of the project, a now century-old building will receive energy efficiency upgrades while a new building featuring an environmental science teaching lab and teaching spaces for on-campus undergraduate programs will be constructed. The new center will include a student commons to promote international and intercultural understanding.
Central CC Partners With Utility on 1.7 MW Wind Turbine
The college partnered with Bluestem Energy Solutions and the City of Hastings, Nebraska, to complete a 1.7 megawatt wind turbine on the college's Hastings campus. The wind turbine is owned and operated by Bluestem, although the college will claim a portion of the environmental attributes generated by the project. The turbine is slated to be part of the college's alternative energy program in fall 2017.
Husson U Students Receive Grant to Study Stormwater Runoff
The three students were awarded $1,500 from Maine Campus Compact to study stormwater runoff. Working on the project with the faculty member and chair of the campus sustainability committee, the students will be using the award to design a rain garden on Husson’s Bangor, Maine campus.
Michigan State U Receives $2M for Community Partnerships
The university's Office of K-12 Outreach will use a $2.1 million grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to work with the city of Flint, Michigan. The funding will be used in Flint Community Schools on four strategies that include training the district's managers on the effective use of data and strengthening community relations.
Niagara College Launches Commercial Beekeeing Program
The college has introduced a one-year hands-on Commercial Beekeeping graduate certificate program with its first cohort convening in spring 2017. The college maintains an on-campus apiary of 30 actively managed hives that will be used in the curriculum.
Kansas U Students Build Certified Green Home
Students from the university's Studio 804, a graduate level architecture studio, recently completed a solar-powered home that achieved both LEED Platinum and Passive House certification. The 1,941-square-foot house contains three bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths within an airtight and highly insulated envelope, wrapped in low-maintenance siding salvaged from dismantled railroad bridge trestles. Interior recycled materials include countertops made from reclaimed marble slabs sourced from a demolished office building.
U Iowa Students Create Platform for Public Engagement
A group of students created 30,000 Hands, a website capable of linking the more than 30,000 university students with local service opportunities, as an outcome to a class project that challenged the students make a difference in the community. The website attempts to respond to the needs of Iowa City’s nonprofit, charity and social-good organizations while providing real-life learning opportunities for students.
U Kentucky Announces New Faculty Sustainability Committee
The newly formed Faculty Sustainability Council is a technical advisory group to the President’s Sustainability Advisory Committee charged with evaluating the state of sustainability curriculum and establishing short, medium and long-term goals for integrating sustainability further into the curriculum.
Energy Department Announces 28 Universities to Lead Efficiency Program
The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy recently announced nearly $35 million for 28 higher education institutions from 25 states across the country to set up and operate regional Industrial Assessment Centers, which aim to provide site-specific recommendations to small manufacturers with opportunities to improve productivity, secure information, reduce waste and lower energy costs while providing training for undergraduate and graduate engineering students in manufacturing processes, energy assessment procedures and energy management systems.
AASHE Inaugurates 13 'Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum'
AASHE recently concluded an application and selection process that designated 13 higher education institutions as Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum. The goal of this newly established program is to accelerate the infusion of sustainability content into curriculum by increasing the availability and accessibility of faculty development opportunities related to sustainability.
Colby-Sawyer College Opens Center Devoted to Community-Based Sustainability
Complementing its new degree program in community-based sustainability, the college recently held a grand opening of its field studies office for the Sustainable Learning Initiative, an experiential learning opportunity for students to use the principles of permaculture and sustainability to explore, design and develop sustainable solutions to real and evolving community needs.
U Kentucky Students Plant Native Species as Monarch Habitat
Conceived and managed by a graduate student pursuing his doctorate in agricultural economics, the project entails two plots that each have 300 native plants upon which monarch butterflies can rely as they make their journey between Mexico and Canada.
Simon Fraser U to Construct Green Building to House Sustainable Programs
The expansion of the university's Surrey campus will include a 161,000-square-foot building to house the proposed Energy Systems and Environmental Engineering Program, an interdisciplinary engineering stream that will support the clean tech and sustainable energy sector. The building's design, targeted for LEED Gold, will include electric vehicle charging stations and shared heat from the city's district energy system.
Unity College Begins Online MS with Sustainability Concentrations
As part of a distance education initiative, the college now offers an online master's of Professional Science degree in two tracks: Sustainability Science and Sustainable Natural Resource Management. The programs give training in core environmental science, sustainability topics and management skills.
Energy Dept. Names Finalists in Student Design Competition
The U.S. Department of Energy Race to Zero Student Design Competition recently released the 50 teams competing in the next competition, which represent 44 collegiate institutions from four countries. The Race to Zero is an annual competition designed to advance and enhance building science curriculum in universities. Student teams are asked to design high-performance homes that are so energy-efficient that renewable power can offset most or all the annual energy consumption.
Dickinson College Installs Beehives
Roughly ten thousand bees were recently brought to campus by way of the campus' beekeeping cooperative, The Hive. The two beehives, which are behind a fence to prevent passers-by from walking too closely, will remain dormant through winter and come alive in the spring after the queen lays an estimated 50,000 eggs.
Pennsylvania State U Offers Degree in Energy & Sustainability Policy
The new bachelor of science degree in energy and sustainability policy is a 120-credit program offered online by university's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences through its World Campus. The program aims to prepare students to work with a variety of organizations in the field of energy policy.
Cleveland State U Partners to Conduct Energy Audits in Community
The university partnered with the State of Ohio to conduct free energy audits of area buildings that help identify simple fixes and low-cost recommendations that could conserve energy and reduce operating costs. The initiative was made possible through a grant that the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering received through the Ohio Lean Building Program, which is managed by the University of Dayton.
Southern Oregon U Class Explores Sustainability Through Art
A class on art as activism encourages students to learn about art, race, ethnicity and ability, while examining both the ecological and cultural components of sustainability. Their task is to listen for what’s needed from a community, for example, a domestic violence shelter, then respond with a creative action.
U Iowa to Launch Water Sustainability Graduate Program with $3M Grant
The university has received a five-year, $3 million National Science Foundation Research Traineeship grant that will be used to develop a Sustainable Water Development graduate program. With a planned launch of fall 2017, the program will train about 50 master's and doctoral students to address water, food and energy challenges facing resource-limited communities.
Yale U Audits Curriculum for Overlap with UN SDGs
The Yale Office of Sustainability started auditing faculty scholarship to see how teaching and research aligns with the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a goal of identifying pathways for collaboration between disciplines. Preliminary results show that every department has at least one faculty member whose scholarship relates to the SDGs.
U South Carolina & Clemson U Students Engage with Industry to Reduce Manufacturing Waste
A new partnership with Michelin North America will select up to 12 students from each school to take two courses that will prepare students to research sustainability and come up with a plan to reduce the amount of waste in tire manufacturing. Students will visit Michelin headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina, a few times throughout the semester to work alongside Michelin employees.
Champlain College Students Investigate Corporate Social Responsibility
During the spring 2016, the college held an event that allowed students to explore Ben & Jerry’s social responsibility policy by creating an ice cream that would benefit a charity, nonprofit or other sustainable organization that had a social mission. The challenge also served as a way for business faculty to collaborate while designing an activity to educate students on business practices.
U South Carolina Introduces Global Studies Degree
The new Bachelor of Arts degree program in Global Studies is an interdisciplinary degree that aims to familiarize students with the complex historical and contemporary relationships that link together people and places. By focusing on themes related to globalization, aim of the degree is to foster in students a critical, global outlook that will allow them to engage with pressing global questions and to thrive in an interconnected world.
U California Develops Climate Change Curriculum for Non-Science Majors
Through a series of curriculum workshops held across the university system, over 200 professors in fields ranging from music to Swahili have developed new materials for existing courses that incorporate climate change and sustainability into their subject areas. The new program is part of the university’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative.
Harvard U Funds Climate Solutions Course and Research Project
The multi-year Climate Solutions Living Lab course and research project is designed to bring together students from across the university in interdisciplinary teams to develop innovative approaches for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at Harvard and beyond. The strategies are intended to be scalable for potential adoption by other similarly situated institutions that want to reduce their emissions and improve public health in and around their buildings.
U Alabama Birmingham Installs Solar Electric System
The 100-panel system sits atop the UAB Campus Recreation Center and will be utilized for coursework and research by students and faculty, including by the university's U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon team.
U Montana Professor Receives Award for Civic Engagement
Robin Saha, associate professor of Environmental Studies, has been selected by Campus Compact as the recipient of the 2016 Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award, which recognizes faculty for exemplary leadership in advancing student civic learning, conducting community-based research, fostering reciprocal partnerships, building institutional commitments to engagement and enhancing higher education’s contributions to the public good. The focus of Saha's scholarship is environmental justice and health policy, emphasizing advocacy for marginalized communities. Four finalists were also named: David Berle (University of Georgia), Christopher Janson (University of North Florida), Ellen Percy Kraly (Colgate University) and Susan Needham (California State University, Dominguez Hills).
U Louisville Trustees Approve Sustainability Major
Announced in September 2016, a new Bachelor of Arts in Sustainability will be designed to prepare students for careers in sustainability-related areas such as the environment, energy, climate change, public policy, transportation and urban and regional planning.
Portland State U Authors Book on University-Community Engagement
Released August 2016 and written by more than 25 university faculty and staff, the book shares the university’s collective successes and challenges in building collaborative campus-community sustainability programs. It aims to help other schools develop programs that connect students and faculty with the needs of local communities.
Michigan State U Students Test Solar Hot Water on Campus
Located in a cold-weather climate with an average of 174 sunny days per year, students, in collaboration with the Sustainability Office, are involved in testing the efficacy of flat plate collectors versus evacuated tubes to determine the best renewable energy solution for campus' hot water.
