Brandeis U Purchases 'Conflict Free' Computers & Electronic Equipment
The Massachusetts-based university is the 19th institution worldwide to sign on to ensure that the computers and electronic equipment the university buys have no connection to the mining sector of conflict-ridden areas, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo courtesy of Tulane Public Relations
U Chichester to Install Renewable Energy to Meet Goals
(U.K.): In an effort to reduce overall carbon emissions by 43 percent by 2020, solar panels will be installed on the student union by a community energy cooperative, which encourages cost sharing in renewable technologies.
Duquesne U Increases Minimum Wage to $16 Per Hour
The university's new annual budget raises its minimum wage from $15 per hour and also includes an extra 0.5 percent increase to all employees making less than $34,000 annually and a $500 university contribution to employee dependent-care flexible spending accounts.
Georgia Tech Initiates Campus Energy Program
The new Smart Energy Campus Program allows university researchers to obtain and analyze energy systems data aided by modeling and simulation tools to evaluate and optimize different energy systems on the university's campus. The project is designed to save labor hours, resources and money by quickly identifying buildings that have unusually high energy usage.
Cambridge U Investigates Endowment Fund
(U.K.) The University Council has voted to support a wide-ranging investigation of the university’s 2.2 billion pounds ($3.4 billion) endowments fund. Aiming to make investment more environmentally and socially responsible, the review plans to last a year and involve collaboration from students, academics and staff.
Oxford U Seeks to Maintain No Direct Holdings in Coal & Tar Sands
(U.K.): The Oxford University Endowment Management, OUem, a university subsidiary established to manage the funds, does not have direct holdings in coal and oil sands companies and has been asked by the university's executive governing body to maintain this position.
U Hawai'i Board of Regents Votes to Divest From Fossil Fuels
The decision to divest the university's $66 million endowment from fossil fuels came after a task group comprised of university regents, students, faculty and staff investigated divestiture. The group worked closely with the board's investment firm to evaluate options and impacts, and affirmed to take action in investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and changing behaviors.
U Minnesota Students Turn Lawn Into Community Garden
Dozens of students and community members gathered with shovels, rakes and hoes to transform the vacant piece of land into a project that will increase community members' access to affordable, healthy food and to serve as a teaching tool for students and faculty members.
U California Berkeley, MIT & U Chicago Partner for Energy Study
The new alliance just received a $5 million research grant from the California Energy Commission to test an energy management system at 100 factories throughout the state. The goal is to provide reliable evidence on whether giving factories real-time data and analysis about their energy use spurs them to reduce waste and save power.
U Edinburgh Signals Intent to Divest from Fossil Fuels
(U.K.): After a recent meeting of the university's Investment Committee, it decided to write to three of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers to inform them that it intends to fully divest from their activities within the next six months. As part of its promised engagement process prior to divestment, the university will give the companies the opportunity to respond in the next four weeks.
The Atlantic Discusses the Cost of an Adjunct Instructor
A recent article in The Atlantic spotlights the potential impacts of unpaid, non-tenured professors on students. The article states, "odds are that students will be taught by professors with less job security and lower pay than those tenured employees, which research shows results in diminished services for students."
North Carolina State U Increases Research Capacity With Solar Panels
The latest investments in the university's research facilities are soaking up the sun. Nearly 100 solar panels generating approximately 29,000-kilowatt hours of electricity annually were installed in April and are expected to produce energy for at least 25 years. A time lapse video shows the installation.
NACUBO: "Pay it Onward"
In this recent article from the National Association of College and University Business Officers, University of La Verne, Western Michigan University, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Denison University, University of Vermont, and AASHE associate member, Efficiency Vermont, are highlighted for revolving loan funds that cycle savings from energy efficiency improvements into new projects.
RIT Professor Wins Excellence in Teaching Sustainability Award
Associate professor Brian Thorn will be presented the Sustainable Development Excellence in Teaching Sustainability Award by the Institute of Industrial Engineers. The award recognizes him for leadership, innovation and teaching sustainability principles within the university’s industrial and systems engineering program, and integrating ways to apply that learning in real world situations.
San Francisco State U Showcases Water-Efficient Irrigation System
The campus recently installed a centrally-controlled irrigation system that reduced water consumption on athletic fields by 30 percent by calculating the amount of moisture in the air and soil to determine water needs. The system will be expanded to help the campus meet the governor's 25 percent water-reduction mandate.
U Maryland Awarded $750,000 Energy Grant
The two grants from Maryland Energy Administration are aimed at reducing energy costs at the College Park campus. The grants will be administered by the university’s Department of Engineering & Energy for an energy management project and a parking lot photovoltaic array with electric vehicle chargers.
U Maryland Small Footprint Pledge Tallies Over 3,500 Pledges in First Year
In less than a year, the cumulative impact of the pledge, which asks university students, faculty, staff and visitors to change one aspect of their daily routine to lessen their environmental footprint, includes 23,367 pounds of diverted waste, over 5 million gallons of water saved, and 274,136 pounds of carbon dioxide saved.
U Manitoba Takes Action to Save Local Lake
The university formally joined the growing coalition to improve water quality in Lake Winnipeg, the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world, by signing the Lake Friendly Accord. The university's commitment in the agreement integrates research, education, planning and operations.
U Vermont Adds Sustainability Requirement
Starting with this fall’s freshman class, Class of 2019, sustainable approaches and practices will be built into the university’s curriculum across departments, and woven into co-curricular activities, so there will be several ways for students to fulfill the new requirement.
Champlain College Organizes Community Service Day
The college's faculty, staff and leadership team recently took an afternoon off from their regular duties to give back to the Burlington community with its second annual Dare to Contribute Day of Service that included social and equity initiatives.
Arizona State U Boosts Waste Diversion Rate With Blue Bags
Blue bags capture items including dry cell batteries, shiny plastic wrappers and bags, single-use coffee pods, and small e-waste not currently recyclable as part of the university's current blue bin commingled recycling program. Blue bags are available free of charge to offices and departments across the Tempe campus.
Michigan State U Celebrates Campus Sustainability
On April 22, university members celebrated the 45th anniversary of Earth Day at its 2015 Be Spartan Green Gala by dispensing Be Spartan Green Outstanding Awards to staff, students, faculty and campus partners who have demonstrated their support of sustainability on campus.
Aquinas and Bard College Join Summer MBA Sustainability Consortium
The two colleges recently joined the summer MBA Sustainability Consortium that allows member schools to offer their summer MBA courses to other members so students may use their home institution's financial aid. Membership in the consortium is free and open to accredited colleges and universities.
U South Carolina Integrates Hydroponics Into Community Farm
Completely assembled and operated by students, the soil-less growing system for their community farm and garden, based on permaculture practices, is expected to produce nearly $20,000 in annual revenue within 12 months. The farm produces sorghum, milkweed, mushrooms, heirloom seeds, and over 72 heads of lettuce per week.
U North Carolina Greensboro Tackles Local Food Access Issues
University students, staff, faculty and community members recently took part in FOODSTORM, a local brainstorm about Greensboro’s food needs. The purpose of the event was to host interdisciplinary conversations about local food needs and then to catalyze action to gear up for the local growing season.
Rice U Faculty Lead Guerilla Environmental Public Art Campaign
To raise awareness of climate change and its impact on the world’s species, two university faculty organized the Fossilized in Houston art campaign that hosts 15 local artists' represenations of species that are expected to go extinct as a result of climate change in the near future. With the help of dozens of concerned Houstonians, they’ve been placing these images around the city.
Schools Save $290,000 in Campus Conservation Nationals
345,000 students and staff at 125 schools competed in the fifth year of Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) to reduce energy and water use. Schools reduced by a total of 1.9 million-kilowatt hours and 394,000 gallons of water.
Calicut U Digs Rain Water Holding Pits
(India): In preparation for monsoon season and seeking ways to benefit from the massive rainfall period, the university recently began digging 8,000 pits and five large ponds in order to recharge the water table on the 540-acre campus.
Penn State U Students Select Sustainability Research Award Winners
Offered in the spring to undergraduates at all Penn State campuses, three students, Kelsey Czyzyk, Alexandra Sorce and Andrew Madl, received cash awards for their research last week as part of the university's annual Award for Undergraduate Research on Sustainability and the Environment.
Tufts U Adds Electric Motorcycle to Police Fleet
As part of the university's sustainability goals, the electric motorcycle is able to reach more areas than the previous cruiser and can be plugged into a standard electrical outlet giving the battery an eight-hour charge.
U Vermont Earns Recognition for U.N. Sustainability Education Program
Vermont’s Greater Burlington Region recently received official designation as a Regional Center of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development by the United Nations' University Institute for Advanced Studies of Sustainability, including the University of Vermont's service-learning partnerships with local schools and non-governmental organizations.
U Washington Installs Bicycle Safety Equipment on Trucks
In an effort to reduce fatalities among bicyclists and pedestrians in side-impact collisions with campus box trucks, the newly installed side guards cover the space between the front and rear wheels on trucks with high ground clearance, shielding bicyclists and pedestrians from being run over by a truck’s rear wheels.
Indiana U Bloomington Focuses on Reducing Paper Use
After quantifying the resource input for the university's paper consumption on campus, the university will be hosting a paperless challenge in the fall that awards points to departments, groups and buildings for specific actions and implementation of innovative ideas to reduce paper use.
U Washington Divests from Coal Companies
The university's Board of Regents recently voted to prohibit direct investment of endowment funds in publicly traded companies whose principal business is the mining of coal for use in energy generation.
Maharishi U Management Plans Sustainable Graduation
All graduation-related activities this year are being assessed to see how they can be made more environmentally friendly including online commencement programs and printed on paper from sustainable paper. Heading up the green graduation initiative are the five Green Iowa AmeriCorps volunteers who have been making the campus more sustainable the past eight months.
Roosevelt U Student Develops Phone App to Encourage Recycling
As part of a sustainability studies program course, honors student Dusan Koleno created the Google Play app, Recycle Tracker, to enable users at home and office to keep track of what and how much they are recycling with comparisons, including pie and bar charts, that can be viewed by weekly, monthly or annual usage.
Syracuse U Earns Recognition from EPA
The university was recently recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a 2014-15 Individual Conference Champion of the College & University Green Power Challenge for using the highest amount of clean energy and ranked in the top 30 of Green Power Partnership schools for using 23 percent clean energy, with 35 percent from wind power.
Johns Hopkins U Publishes Five Year Sustainability Review Report
As the Johns Hopkins community celebrated Earth Week, the university released a report showing a 35 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions over five years, among other strong results for its sustainability efforts. Those results represent a significant step toward the university's goal to reduce emissions by 51 percent between 2008 and 2025.
Morehead State U to Hold Charity Donation Event
In an effort to reduce end-of-year waste, Chuck it for Charity is a campus move out donation campaign where Goodwill of Kentucky provides donation bins in several locations on campus so that students can donate gently used clothing, shoes, small appliances, decor, books and school supplies, and miscellaneous household goods.
U St. Thomas Creates Sustainability Committee
Protection of creation and the poor have long been pillars of Catholic social teachings, leading the university to create its first sustainability committee. A task force working to develop and implement sustainable practices, its vision is to fulfill God’s call to be good stewards of creation by fostering a campus that exhibits sustainability through education, discussion and action.
Indiana State U Releases Master Sustainability Plan
In unveiling a five-year master action plan recently, university leaders showed what it called a commitment to being a sustainable campus that reduces waste and increases efficiency to improve the environment and quality of living.
Eastern Washington U Hosts Water & Energy Conservation Competition
The university's Housing and Residential Life Department recently completed its successful three-week Water and Energy Conservation Competition among all eight residence halls. Designed as an awareness and educational program for reducing water and energy use within the residence halls, its message was that conservation helps to make the world a better place.
Northwestern U Becomes EPA Green Power Purchaser
Through a partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the university substantially increased its commitment to renewables, now purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs) equivalent to 50 percent of total electricity usage totaling 122,000-megawatt hours.
MIT Announces Earth Day 2015 Grant Recipients
Eleven projects and events were chosen to receive Earth Day 2015 grants for promoting campus sustainability and they include furniture rehabilitation, water learning laboratory, waste initiatives, and an environmental film festival.
Rice U Earns Tree Campus USA Honor
Arbor Day Foundation recently granted the university Tree Campus USA designation for its commitment to managing campus trees, developing connectivity with the community beyond campus borders to foster healthy, urban forests, and striving to engage their students and community in forestry efforts.
U California Santa Cruz Hosts 14th Annual Earth Summit
The first woman of color to hold the Chancellor's Undergraduate Intern for the Student Environmental Movement prompted the annual summit to bring more focus on environmental justice by bringing awareness to the connection between climate change, exploitation, racism and anti-immigration.
Energy Department Announces 2015 Race to Zero Finalists
The 2015 Race to Zero Student Design Competition had 33 teams from 27 U.S. and Canadian universities competing to design cost-effective, zero energy homes for mainstream builders. The competition encourages students to work with builders, developers, and community leaders to meet stringent design requirements and create marketable, affordable concepts. The grand winner was University of Minnesota.
