Seven Higher Education Institutions Earn Green Cleaning Accolades
The American School & University Magazine, in conjunction with the Green Cleaning Network and Healthy Schools Campaign, recently awarded Georgia Tech as grand winner, North Carolina State U as silver, and Montgomery College; Northwestern University; Texas Tech; University of California, Irvine; and University of Tennessee, Knoxville as honorable mentions. The award recognizes schools and universities for healthy and sustainable cleaning approaches, such as chemical and equipment choices, procedures and training, that protect human and environmental health, while still cleaning at a high level.
National Union of Students Calls for Large Investment in Renewable Energy
(U.K.): The National Union of Students (NUS), a U.K.-based membership organization, recently called for a divest-invest campaign that calls for universities and colleges to transfer 100 million pounds ($142.6 million) out of fossil fuels into renewable energy. This campaign launched after a freedom of information request revealed 180 million pounds is invested in fossil fuels. The NUS also conducted a survey that concluded both students and staff strongly support divestment. The NUS plans to support students' unions as they push their institutions to divest.
Grand Valley State U Reduces Food Waste by 30 Percent
A new initiative known as Wipe Out Waste implemented in the fall 2015 semester helped the campus reduce food waste 31.8 percent by increasing food ordering accuracy, analyzing food ordering behavior, increasing supplier accountability, recipe and proportioning compliance and using a waste-tracking tool.
Georgia Southern U Installs Solar-Powered Tables
Funded by student sustainability fees, four new SolGreen solar-powered patio tables with built-in charging stations provide the campus community with an outdoor location to work and socialize while charging their devices. The tables come with four power outlets and four USB outlets, shut down automatically during rainstorms, can last five to seven days on stored power during overcast weather and contain LED lights for nighttime use.
Millersville U Signs Climate Action Plan
A climate action plan signed by university President John Anderson last week outlines the concrete steps it will take to reduce carbon emissions and attain carbon neutrality by 2040. The plan calls for cutting greenhouse emissions by 65 percent compared with the university’s 2005 baseline. The remaining 35 percent will be dealt with by buying carbon offsets.
Terrapass Provides Offsets to College Football National Championship
The national football game playoff between top-ranked Clemson University and No. 2 University of Alabama was carbon neutral thanks to offsets provided by Terrapass for the competing teams' travel and accommodations and the College Football Playoff transportation fleet. Playoff Fan Central, a multi-day fan festival, was also carbon neutral.
The Atlantic: 'The Hidden Hunger on College Campuses'
Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of education policy and sociology at University of Wisconsin, last year surveyed 4,000 students at 10 community colleges across the country and found that more than half of all community-college students struggle with food insecurity. Related studies from Goldrick-Rab indicate that two types of students struggle with food insecurity, those that were in poverty before they began college and those that were forced to deal with it due to higher education expenses. While a sample of 10 colleges might seem low, the impacts are far reaching. "Hunger has a large impact on learning and college retention", reports The Atlantic.
Virginia Tech, RIT Win Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge
A student from Virginia Tech recently won the award for best student design with a computer backpack made from 60-70 recycled plastic bags and organic cotton capable of reducing the plastic waste and carbon emissions by taking advantage of embodied energy already in the processed plastic. Rochester Institute of Technology's Engineers for a Sustainable World Team won the best use of Autodesk Fusion 360 by developing a recycled broom with a bristle head made form biodegradable material that can be replaced independently of the broom's other components. Autodesk allowed the team to compare and conserve materials through the animation feature, promoting a Cradle to Cradle approach to design.
USA Today Says Colleges Respond to Student Interest in Combating Climate Change
"More and more, students want to know what universities are doing about climate change — from reducing their own carbon footprint to preparing students for the environmental challenges ahead," reports a recent USA Today article. With the sustainability challenges that lie ahead, colleges and universities, "from Ivy League universities Cornell and Yale to small private colleges like Luther and Unity," are incorporating solutions to climate change in the way they operate and in academic programs to meet industry demand for sustainability skills and knowledge.
North Carolina State U Takes First Step to Reduce Use of Plastic Bags
Plastic bags will no longer be available for students to use for carry-out meals from the Atrium, one of the university's largest dining facilities, starting mid-January. In their place, paper bags will be available, though students are encouraged to forgo single-use bags altogether. The removal of plastic bags is the result of more than two years of collaborative work between the NC State Stewards, a student organization, and the University Sustainability Office.
U Dayton Building Earns LEED Gold
The university's newly renovated 1869 chapel features building materials that were recycled or are low-emitting materials, a plumbing system designed to reduce water consumption by 40 percent, and LED lighting to reduce electric consumption. The university purchased renewable energy credits for two years to offset 70 percent of the building’s energy usage.
U California Davis Dedicates 16MW Photovoltaic Plant
In fall 2015, the university connected the 16.3-megawatt photovoltaic power plant that is estimated to generated 14 percent of campus' electricity needs. The installation, covering 62 acres, is the largest in the University of California system. Photo: Karin Higgins/UC Davis
State University New York Sets Employee Minimum Wage
Governor Cuomo recently announced a $15 per hour minimum wage for all SUNY employees, more than 28,000. As part of the governor's 2016 agenda, he hopes to restore economic justice by making New York the first state to enact a $15 minimum wage for all workers.
U Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Offers New Sustainability Minor
Six academic units at the university now collaborate to offer a new campus-wide sustainability minor through the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment. The purpose of the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Fellows Program (SEE FP) is to promote systems-level thinking about energy and sustainability, and foster the development of an integrated view of the economy, society and the environment. The fellows program will prepare students for pursuing careers in the corporate sector, nonprofit organizations, government agencies and environmental advocacy groups.
Michigan State U Releases Video on 2015 Sustainability Highights
The newly released video mentions the university's commitment to discontinue the use of coal on campus as a fuel source, the acquisition of $170,000 in sustainability research funding, and the on-campus green office certification program had 193 spaces reduce their environmental footprint.
AASHE Appoints 43 Community Members to Governance Bodies
After AASHE's first governance election, Jay Antle with Johnson County Community College and Ben Champion from University of Arizona now hold two member-elected seats on the AASHE Board of Directors. Four members were appointed to the STARS Steering Committee, 17 and 22 were appointed or reappointed to the STARS Technical Advisors group and Advisory Council, respectively.
Rochester IT Students Create Enviro-Friendly Product Packaging
As part of a design competition, students from the packaging science department partnered with industrial design and graphic design students to re-work packaging designs for two Wegmans products, orange juice and Greek yogurt, with more sustainable materials. The challenge resembled those that would be found in the workplace, and provided the students with hands-on skills in project management, marketing and incorporating sustainable designs in product development.
Smeal MBA Sustainability Case Competition Names Five Finalists
The University of Texas at Dallas won the $10,000 prize for first place. Duke University walked away with $5,000 for finishing second. Penn State was awarded $2,500 for third place. Teams from Dartmouth and Texas Christian University were the other finalists. These five teams were selected from a pool of 28 after pitching their presentation about corporate environmental affairs at IBM to judges from IBM, PepsiCo and SKF.
U Connecticut Constructs Wildlife Corridor
A new road that links the Storrs campus to a local route was engineered with a wildlife corridor that enables critters as small as salamanders to larger ones such as white-tailed deer to cross the road without danger from vehicular traffic. Further, the path of the road was designed to minimize destruction of surrounding wetlands.
U Arkansas Keeps 240 Pounds of Microfiche from Landfill
After weeding through the university libraries' collection of microfiche films, flat plastic sheets that hold very small copies of printed material, 240-pounds were found to contain copies of very old college catalogs no longer in use. In keeping with its commitment of a zero waste campus by 2021, the school's libraries collaborated to identify and contract with a recycler of the films.
Borders College Creates Heat From Sewage
(U.K.): Under a 20-year purchase agreement, a system uses a heat pump to amplify the natural warmth of waste water and the heat is sold to the college, allowing the school to benefit from reduced cost of energy and carbon emissions. The innovative system provides about 95 percent of the heat needed by one of its campuses.
Iowa State U Receives $3M for Energy Technology Research
Researchers at the university have teamed up with collaborators at University of Houston, University of Colorado at Boulder, Washington State University, and small battery company Solid Power to develop a battery solution for storing large amounts of energy, such as the energy produced from utility-scale renewable energy wind and solar farms.
U California Divests from Private Prisons Amid Pressure
After pressure from the Afrikan Black Coalition, the university sold approximately $25 million worth of indirect investments in private prison corporations after the black student union revealed in November that the university held shares in private prisons. University shares in the private prisons, which were part of a portfolio, were sold on Dec. 1, 2015.
Penn State Unveils New Online Undergraduate Sustainability Certificate
The new online undergraduate certificate in Earth sustainability is offered through the university's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. The four courses required to obtain the certificate allow students to work with large data sets about climate change, water and food supplies, and natural hazards and conduct lab activities.
Investing in Students' Mental Health Pays Off
A recent article from the American Association of Community Colleges points to a new study from the RAND Corporation that indicates there is a corollary between mental health and academic achievement. Researchers found that the proportion of California college students at the state's public universities and community colleges increased by more than 10 percent between 2013 and spring 2015. At just community colleges, the increase was 15 percent over the same period. During that time, county governments directed a combined average of $8.7 million a year to campuses for outreach campaigns to reduce the stigma around mental health issues and to train faculty and staff to recognize students who may need help.
U Illinois Urbana-Champaign Completes 5.87MW Solar Array
The university's first utility-scale photovoltaic project, a 5.87-megawatt capacity, is expected to produce approximately 7.86 million-kilowatt-hours of electricity (about 2 percent of the electrical demand of the Urbana campus), and is the largest solar array on any Big Ten university campus. Approved in 2012 by the university's board of trustees, the project was made possible by a 10-year power purchase agreement with Phoenix Solar South Farms, LLC. The university plans to own all renewable energy credits (RECs).
U Louisville Extends Living Wage Policy to Contract Workers
Following its 2013 move guaranteeing all employees a living wage, the university recently approved a requirement that companies entering contracts with the university must pay their full-time staff a minimum wage of at least $10.10 per hour. Companies currently doing business with the university will be required to meet the new guidelines when their agreements are renewed.
U Virginia Wins $3.56M Grant for Wind Turbine Design
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy awarded the three-year, $3.56 million grant to a university team to build a small-scale prototype of a new kind of wind turbine with blades that fold together like palm fonds in dangerous weather and spread out to catch the wind during good weather.
North Carolina State U Student Union Scores LEED Silver
The university's new 283,000-square-foot Talley Student Union features an open design that maximizes daylight, occupant health and productivity, low-emitting finishes and furniture, high-efficiency plumbing fixtures, a 50,000-gallon rainwater cistern, and energy-efficient HVAC systems.
11 SUNY Schools Receive $2.7M for Energy Efficiency
As part of the New York Power Authority's first ever Operation and Maintenance Acceleration Program grant competition, 11 State University of New York campuses and SUNY System Administration will share $2.7 million in funding to stimulate and accelerate operations, maintenance and minor rehabilitation projects at state facilities. SUNY's building portfolio represents 40 percent of all state-owned facilities.
Auburn U Professor Receives Innovation Fund Award
University professor Jeffrey Suhling has been awarded an Alabama Innovation Fund grant for $400,000 through the Alabama Department of Commerce for research involving efficient building energy systems. With matching funds from the university, funding will support an experimental laboratory for research in scalable energy conversion systems.
Michigan State U Awards Cash for Student Energy Innovations
The university recently announced the winners of its inaugural Energy Innovation Award and Student Solar Design Competition that dispensed $11,000 in total prize money. The competition tasked interdisciplinary student teams with designing cost-effective, energy-efficient and design-centric solar installations for a campus landscape. Each project was evaluated for creativity, design, application and entrepreneurship with the intent of challenging participants to push the boundaries of clean energy innovation.
U British Columbia Students Compete on Sustainability Solutions
Launched in October 2015, as part of the university’s centennial celebrations, the Sustainability Challenge has fifteen interdisciplinary teams actively developing solutions across four priority areas for campus sustainability: sustainable food, climate action planning, waste management, and well-being and physical activity. Student teams will present their solutions to a panel of judges who will evaluate the projects and award cash prizes to the top three teams.
U Nebraska Omaha Expands Bus Ridership Program
Beginning in early 2016, university students, staff and faculty will be able to use their university identification card as a Metro Transit bus pass. The expansion of university’s transportation program will provide bus access to more than 15,000 students and 3,000 faculty and staff. This expansion is jointly funded by the university's Student Government Association and Parking Services.
U Massachusetts Amherst to Divest from Coal Companies
The UMass Foundation recently announced that it will divest from direct investments in coal companies. The foundation also said that it will continue to evaluate ways to manage the endowment in a manner that promotes both environmental sustainability and socially responsible investing. The foundation oversees $770 million in endowment assets for the UMass System.
Montclair State U Earthship Initiative Receives USGBC Recognition
The university's Environmental Club received honorable mention in the innovative sustainability initiative category from the New Jersey chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council for its Earthship project proposal, an off-the-grid structure built from recycled tires that are pounded full of dirt. If completed, the Earthship would be the only one on a university campus.
Colleges and Universities Creatively Addressing Transportation Woes
New parking lots, bike and car-sharing, and subsidized or free public transportation are growing options at colleges and universities in the U.S. that seek to reduce transportation woes on campus says the Los Angeles Times. Solutions can be complicated by increased enrollment and building costs, however finding creative and new alternatives is paramount.
U Chicago Faculty Form Union
A vote of 96 to 22 in early December resulted in non-tenure-track faculty forming a union affiliated with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) reports Inside Higher Ed. The University of Chicago is one of several to form SEIU-affiliated unions for full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members.
Harvard U Pledges Chemical Flame-Retardant Free Campus
On Nov. 4, the university became the first in the nation to sign a pledge stating its preference for purchasing furniture that is manufactured without the use of toxic chemical flame retardants. Based on scientific research out of Harvard, it joins Kaiser Permanente, Facebook and Autodesk in pledging to create healthier environments on campus.
U Maryland to Jointly Host Climate Action 2016 Summit
The university recently announced Climate Action 2016: Catalyzing a Sustainable Future, a global summit to be held at the College Park campus and in downtown Washington, D.C., in May 2016. With global and multi-sector stakeholders, including World Bank and World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the summit's focus will be in developing methodologies for global climate implementation.
U Delaware Employs New Sustainability Manager
Michelle Bennett assumed her role as sustainability manager in August of 2015 for the Newark campus. Her appointment and the establishment of an office of sustainability are part of the university's strategic plan. She comes to the University of Delaware from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Three Northeast Institutions Receive Energy Efficiency Accolades
Dartmouth College, Stonehill College and Northeastern University were honored by the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships as this year's Northeast Business Leaders for Energy Efficiency. This program highlights the accomplishments of organizations that achieve energy savings through investment in cost-efficient measures and address comprehensive changes in major energy systems, such as HVAC.
Yale U Introduces Carbon Charge Program for Buildings
The university recently announced a first-of-its-kind pilot program to put a price tag on the use of carbon, with some of the most prominent campus buildings playing a role in the experiment. Originating as a student proposal, the program seeks to prompt behavior changes at the individual and organizational levels by putting a price, $40 per ton, on carbon dioxide.
U New Hampshire Appoints Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer
Miriam Nelson, a researcher and author on nutrition and physical activity, will become the deputy chief sustainability officer and director of the university's Sustainability Institute in March of 2016. Nelson arrives at the University of New Hampshire from Tufts University's Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and professor of its Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Johns Hopkins U Announces $25M Diversity Initiative
The new, $25 million Faculty Diversity Initiative recently announced by university leadership seeks to support more expansive and inclusive faculty searches, create a pipeline of diverse scholars, and broaden support for underrepresented members of the faculty. With five key programatic components, the initiative will measure progress and provide accountability through data and public reporting.
