ACUPCC Implementer

By James Shelley, Assistant Director of Facilities, William Paterson University

(This article appears in the May, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

By Thomas Pelis, Assistant Vice President for Facilities and Planning, SUNY Upstate Medical University

(This article appears in the May, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

By Kelly Boulton, Sustainability Coordinator, Allegheny College

(This article appears in the May, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

Sustainability at Allegheny College is a community endeavor. In collaboration with the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, we’ve pledged to achieve climate neutrality by 2020. To meet this goal we’ve integrated sustainability principles into budgets, daily operations, job descriptions, purchasing and contract policies, and our Strategic Plan. Students explore and advance sustainability in interdisciplinary courses, innovative research such as aquaponics and wind feasibility studies, collaborations with the City of Meadville and local schools, and extracurricular activities such as the annual October Energy Challenge and theTrashion Show.  Creating a video to highlight our institution’s unique culture of sustainability as a finalist for Second Nature’s Climate Leadership Award was a rich and informative experience.  Conversations with our president, senior staff, faculty and students revealed a consistent yet multifaceted appreciation of our current sustainability initiatives as well as a deep-rooted commitment to the practical approaches needed to support future efforts and to meet our climate neutrality goal.

By Carra Beth Cheslin, MobilizeU Campaign Coordinator, Earth Day Network

(This article appears in the April, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

By Ulrike Klein, Director of Operations and Communications, Second Nature and John Salak, President, The Salak Group

(This article appears in the April, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

By Juliana Goodlaw-Morris, Campus Field Manager for Campus Ecology, National Wildlife Federation and Julian Keniry, Senior Director of Campus and Community Leadership, National Wildlife Federation

(This article appears in the March, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

Students are the epicenter of any college or university campus.  They are the heart and soul and the reason why colleges and universities exist, and it would be a disservice to any campus if students were not engaged throughout all aspects of campus sustainability.  A myriad of lessons have been learned from engaging an estimated 460,000 student leaders hailing from 2,000 campuses over Campus Ecology’s 23 years and counting of programming at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF).  During this time, the program has also awarded approximately 180 Campus Ecology Fellowships to current undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 500 internships to recent graduates.   Throughout the evolution of campus sustainability, there have been changes in approach and goals for greening one’s campus; however the one constant has always been student leadership.

By Jenny Jocks Stelzer, Sustainability Council Chair and English Faculty, College of Liberal Arts, Robert Morris University

(This article appears in the March, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

In the 2011-2012 academic year, faculty of the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) on Robert Morris University’s Assessment Committee determined that the university should assess our students for awareness of and engagement with sustainability in the same way that the university assesses all students for proficiencies in oral and written communication, quantitative analysis, leadership, and collaboration. Until that point, the university had assessed for cultural awareness, which incorporated diversity as a value prioritized by the university. The CLA decided that sustainability, as defined by environmental, economic, and social justice for this and future generations, should join diversity as an important part of Robert Morris University’s role in preparing students to not only be career holders in an economy, but to be participants in a democracy as sustainable citizens.

In making these changes, Robert Morris University displays its commitment to the responsibility of higher education to not only prepare students for the workforce, but prepare them as local and global citizens. Because of its commitment to the ACUPCC, RMU has enthusiastically driven curricular change that prepares students to understand the interconnectedness between the individual, society, and the world, and, thus, to become a class of citizens capable of driving sustainability transformation in the future.

By Ashka Naik, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Development, Second Nature

(This article appears in the February, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

This article is based on a chapter in the forthcoming publication, UNCF Sustainable Campuses: Building Green at Minority Serving Institutions. It will be available in April 2012 on the Kyoto Publishing website as well as at http://buildinggreennetwork.org/.

To level the playing field by bridging the resource gap between wealthy and under-resourced institutions, and to enable more institutions to commit to and implement the ACUPCC, Second Nature is proactively developing innovative programs that enhance the sustainability capacity of under-resourced institutions. Second Nature has also partnered with the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) on the “UNCF Building Green at Minority-Serving Institutions” initiative, and provided guidance on UNCF’s sustainability efforts for the past two years to actively engage minority-serving institutions in this sustainability movement.

By John W. Strybos, Associate Vice Chancellor of Facilities at Alamo Colleges

(This article appears in the February, 2012 issue of The ACUPCC Implementer)

In August 2008, the Chancellor of the Alamo Colleges Bruce H. Leslie Ph.D. signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, as an effort to promote and transform the colleges into a climate neutral organization.  Each of the five campus Presidents has embraced the Chancellor’s commitment and begun integrating sustainability processes into the academic curriculum.  In addition to promoting educational processes that impact the environment, the Colleges have invested in numerous capital improvement projects that focus on energy efficiency, energy reduction, and sustainability.

As each campus grows, additional and alternative energy programs for power generation sources are being installed.  For example, St. Philip’s College (SPC) Southwest Campus (SWC) and Palo Alto College (PAC) each have a 1kW wind turbine generator in operation. Instructors are using these devices in their course curricula.  To educate and train students in green jobs, Alamo Colleges created the Center for Excellence at the St Philip’s College Southwest Campus location with a 400kW solar panel constructed on the roof of the main facility.  This solar panel array, shown in Figures 1 and 2, is used to provide power to the facility and instruct students.  Additional test facilities have been added such as simulated roof tops that are placed low to the ground for safety during instructional periods.