Campus Engagement
Introduction
Engaging in sustainability issues through co-curricular activities allows students to deepen and apply their understandings of sustainability principles. Institution-sponsored co-curricular sustainability offerings, often coordinated by student affairs offices, help integrate sustainability into the campus culture and set a positive tone for the institution. Faculty and staff members’ daily decisions impact an institution’s sustainability performance. Equipping faculty and staff with the tools, knowledge, and motivation to adopt behavior changes that promote sustainability is an essential activity of a sustainable campus.
Featured Resources
New Resources
All Projects are Personal: Making Change by Building Relationships
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)
- CoFED (NM)
Those of us inspired by campus sustainability have ideas for how to make change but often lack the knack for moving an initiative forward with others. People respond to ideas ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Students: The Face of Food Auditing
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)
- Real Food Challenge (MA)
Nation-wide, University dining services are actively seeking ways to assess the sustainability of their on-campus food system. The Real Food Challenge provides such a tool for sustainability assessment in dining ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Beyond the Classroom: Experiential Learning and Students as Agents of Change within Local Communities
- Hillsborough Community College (FL)
- University of South Florida (Tampa) (FL)
Through innovative partnerships, students at Hillsborough Community College (HCC) are extending their education beyond the classroom by providing community-wide leadership in the field of sustainability. In 2012-2013, examples of student-led ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Creating and Maintaining a Sustainability Student Network
- Macalester College (MN)
This session will focus on the successes and challenges faced by Macalester College in creating and supporting a Sustainability Student Worker Network. Macalester’s network is now in it’s ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Embedding Ecological Footprinting into Curriculum as a Tool to Engage Students
- Macquarie University (NSW)
The Department of Environment and Geography and the Sustainability Unit at Macquarie University, Sydney, collaborated to develop and investigate the effectiveness of environmental education pedagogy. A central sustainability goal in ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Film as a Medium to Engage a Broader Audience
- Northern Arizona University (AZ)
This session will showcase a collection of short films highlighting a variety of initiatives at Northern Arizona University using various cinematic styles. The films are aimed at a wide audience ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Building a Strategy for Changing Behavior at Your Institution
- Oberlin College (OH)
Academic institutions cannot achieve climate neutrality through technology alone; members of the institution must also be engaged in creating a culture of sustainability. Our research project employed a community-based social ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Environmental Justice: Inspiring Action Through Words
- University of Colorado Boulder (CO)
As the University of Colorado Assembly for Sustainability and Equity, we aim to spread awareness about environmental justice issues, as well as empower individuals with solutions to these issues. Ultimately ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Five Years of an Integrated Approach to Campus Sustainability: Linking Academics, Operations and Student Life
- Dalhousie University (NS)
At the 2008 AASHE Conference, [X] University presented two ambitious campus sustainability initiatives, one academic and one operational, and an overarching sustainability framework. The university has since put these initiatives ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Teaching Sustainability & Fostering Change at Vanderbilt University
- Vanderbilt University (TN)
Sustainability is the most pressing educational issue of the twenty-first century. In a crisis prone world of limited resources and rapid change, colleges and universities play a vital role in ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Drinking Sunlight: Maple Syrup from Your Dorm’s Backyard
- Calvin University (MI)
As students at a small liberal arts school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, opportunities to get involved in the world of sustainable living are endless. Western Michigan is known for producing ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustain U: Centralizing the University Community Around Sustainability
- Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
Sustainability has always had a presence on the Carnegie Mellon campus, but not one widely acknowledged. Students and staff often pass by the Solar Decathlon house or the recycling room ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sustainability, A Living Experience
- Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
At Carnegie Mellon University sustainability has been stripped to “green.” Despite the greater on-campus attention of recycling and composting initiatives, six green roofs, zero-waste events, a community garden, and student ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Creating Cross-Campus Collaborations: Transforming Curriculum, Empowering Students
- Central College (IA)
Cool things can happen when campus silos are breached and faculty members get to know and start collaborating with directors of facilities, grounds, and food service to empower students. This ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Imagining a Sustainable Future: Studying Sustainability through Interdisciplinary Lenses and Experiential Learning in the First-Year Seminar
- Chapman University (CA)
This presentation will focus on a freshman foundations course that introduces students to sustainability as an interdisciplinary concern, using various analytical perspectives to critically explore sustainability through the disciplinary lenses ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Pulp Up the Volume: Maximizing Waste Diversion and Student Empowerment
- College of Charleston (SC)
In the fall of 2012, the College of Charleston began composting with the use a pulper in the dining hall City Bistro. (This machine utilizes a recycled stream of water ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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A Comprehensive Framework for Driving Sustainability Collaboration Through Athletics
- Davidson College (NC)
Many athletic departments and teams have sustainability initiatives. However, few have comprehensive programs using sustainability in athletics to drive adaptation of practices and awareness building throughout campus, alumni and surrounding ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Educational Opportunities In Kennesaw State University’s Farm-To-Campus Initiatives
- Kennesaw State University (GA)
The multi-faceted farm-to-campus program at Kennesaw State University (KSU) includes 40+ acres of off-campus organic farmland and small on-campus plots, including an herbal garden, a student-run permaculture garden, and indoor ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Participatory Planning Processes for Sustainability
- McGill University (QC)
Sustainability is the process of a community working together towards a shared vision for a better future. Strategic planning should be participatory – for and from the community. At McGill, we ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Energy-Saving In Student Accommodation In The UK - The Student Switch Off
- National Union of Students
This session will provide a case study of the leading student energy-saving campaign in the UK, the Student Switch Off, run by the National Union of Students. The presentation will ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Growing the Sustainability Movement On Campus: How To Build Effective Student Groups and Learn Key Leadership Skills That Will Be Useful During and After College
- National Wildlife Federation (VA)
This workshop will provide hands-on tools and models for creating effective student groups on campus. The presenters will take students through essential building blocks of forming a new or redesigning ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Creating Awareness: A Student's Quest For Reducing Energy Consumption
- Paul Smith's College of Arts & Sciences (NY)
Our College has been dedicated to reducing and eventually eliminating its carbon emissions. In doing so, we hope to become a carbon neutral campus by 2029. Since the majority of ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Telling a Comprehensive Sustainability Story
- Portland State University (OR)
We all know that sustainability is more than just a campus-wide recycling plan. It’s imbued across departments and disciplines, leaks out of classrooms and into communities, it manifests in ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Teaching Student Resiliency Requires Faculty Adaptability: Two Case Study Comparisons
- Portland State University (OR)
This paper discusses the process and outcomes of two different approaches to incorporating community-based learning into undergraduate courses. Both courses are part of a year-long, interdisciplinary Freshman seminar, one course ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Institutionalizing Sustainability in University Residence Life
- Santa Clara University (CA)
This presentation will provide a model for how to institutionalize and build resilience for sustainability in residence life at your university by adapting to and utilizing existing structures and positions ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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The Butterfly Effect: Rethinking How We Build Partnerships for Sustainable Programs
- Seneca Polytechnic (ON)
What can the monarch butterfly teach us about the evolution of partnerships? How does being adaptive and resilient in a changing economic climate protect post-secondary programs and their delivery of ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Inclusion, Coalitions, Fun, and Parties: Adapting Approaches to Encourage Student Involvement and Awareness of Sustainability.
- Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (IL)
Student’s participation in community outreach and educational activities outside of those required by classes is decreasing. Sustainability has become an increasingly popular subject among university students in online blogs ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Using Life Cycle Analysis to Assess and Reduce the Footprint of "Mega-Events" at the University of Arizona
- University of Arizona (AZ)
Many universities have invested significant resources to reduce environmental impacts associated with their larger events, including “zero waste” strategies and offsets. This presentation presents methods, results, and discussion of our ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Accelerating the Journey From Ideas to Action, Facilitation Skills for Sustainability Planning and Engagement.
- University of Calgary (AB)
This session is aimed at sustainability practitioners seeking to hone their facilitation skills in sustainability planning, enhance internal stakeholder engagement and leadership capacities, and accelerate the process of moving from ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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How Low Can You Go? UF Sorority Water Challenge
- University of Florida (FL)
This spring, 13 sororities at the University of Florida competed to reduce water use in their houses. The competition aimed to raise awareness about the importance of water conservation for ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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PARK(ing) Day!
- University of Louisville (KY)
PARK(ing) Day is a annual open-source global event where citizens, artists, and activists collaborate to transform metered parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places for a day ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Innovation in Metering & Dashboards: A Key to Cracking the Behavioral Nut
- University of Wisconsin-River Falls (WI)
The urgency for resilience and adaptation grow stronger by the day. Obviously, central to achieving such are the behavioral changes necessary in human consumption that maximize and sustain reduction of ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Core Competencies in Learning for Sustainability: A Key to Building Campus Cultures of Sustainability
- Western Michigan University (MI)
As a gathering, the AASHE Conference has tremendous potential to foster rich campus cultures of sustainability. The goal of our session is to help realize this potential by engendering meaningful ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Emergent Beauty: A Tapestry of Student Engagement and Climate Change Interwoven Through Community Art
- Appalachian State University (NC)
What happens when a community of students, faculty, and local citizens weave their voices together through the arts? Grounded in the diversity of each individual’s gift, a vibrant, living ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Getting Involved on Your College Campus: The Power of Students and Sustainability Tools
- Clean Air-Cool Planet (NH)
The college campus is a living lab where students can learn about sustainability through projects, internships, and work study positions. There are many “sustainability tools” available to reveal how colleges ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Connecting People to Products and Services: Creating Active Citizenry Through Knowledge Systems
- College of Charleston (SC)
In 2005, The College of Charleston joined the Fair Labor Association in response to pressure from students, faculty, and staff, to be more cognizant of the impacts of their corporate ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Igniting Innovation through Sustainable Collaboration
- Denison University (OH)
Denison University, like many liberal arts institutions, seeks to educate students holistically so that they may become discerning moral agents and active citizens in a democratic society. To that end ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Networking for Leadership: Building an Undergraduate Sustainable Food Coalition
- Emory University (GA)
In the spring of 2013, a group of undergraduates at our university formed a pilot program designed to impart to students leadership and organizational skills; to network student activists with ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Energy Dashboards: Cross-Discplinary Opportunities for Coursework & Research
- Illinois State University (IL)
Illinois State University utilized an ESCO project to install a custom programmed energy monitoring system with the dual purpose of serving as a public classroom and research repository. Cross-collaborating with ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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You've Made Your Bed & You'll Have to Lie In It: Strategies to Embed Sustainability into the Residential College Experience
- Indiana University Bloomington (IN)
Being sustainable is something that must be taught in order to create individuals who possess competencies in order to maintain "healthy ecosystems and environments that provide vital goods and services ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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A Sustainable Spring Break
- Indiana University South Bend (IN)
For a typical college student, Spring Break is a week to get away and participate in activities that will help them get their minds off of the business that they ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Social Sustainability: Creating Virtual and Community Connections
- Indiana University South Bend (IN)
Public institutions of higher education serve the student body and the community. Finding ways to engage both communities in emerging fields such as sustainability can be challenging, especially given the ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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What Does Library And Technology Services (LTS) Have To Do With Sustainability? How LTS Is Adapting To The Campus Sustainability Plan.
- Lehigh University (PA)
In Fall 2012, Lehigh University adopted its first comprehensive Campus Sustainability Plan. In response to the plan, the Library and Technology Services stem created the LTS Green Team. The LTS ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Sprouting (Literally!) Engagement in Sustainability in the Undergraduate Curriculum: the “Heritage Garden Project” in Beginning German at Luther College
- Luther College (IA)
The students know that Diane is coming to tell a special story on cold February morning. To their surprise, as she appears, however, she opens a little package and empties ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Internships as a Tool for Sustainability Education and Outreach
- Luther College (IA)
Using Luther College’s successful sustainability internship program as a case study, this presentation will cover all aspects of developing and implementing a sustainability focused student internship program for undergraduates ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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People, Planet, Participation: An Approach to Holistically Embedding Sustainability in Curriculum
- Macquarie University (NSW)
Embedding sustainability across a broad curriculum is a difficult and daunting task. An holistic approach cannot simply focus on adding content into existing units, nor can it depend upon specifically ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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Making It Stick: Using Online Pledges to Sustain Behavior Change
- Metropolitan Community College (NE)
Pledges can be one of simplest and most cost-effective approaches to sustaining pro-environmental behavior change. However, to reap the full benefit of this strategy, it is crucial to integrate certain ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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The Elephant Not in the Room: Redefining the Student- Administration Relationship
- Missouri State University (MO)
Student- Administration relationships have been an ever evolving dynamic on campuses around the country. Today, there are varying opinions on where this relationship currently stands. Too often there is a ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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The Case of the Pesky Light Bulb: Using Social Marketing to Solve Sustainability Mysteries
- Pennsylvania State University (PA)
This interactive workshop tells the story of Audrey, a university employee puzzled by her coworkers unwillingness to shut off the lights. Using communication and behavior change strategies derived from community-based ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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The Invisibility of Sustainability: Student Projects that Render Visible Previously Hidden Environmental Impacts
- Rice University (TX)
As humans, we are inherently biased towards what we can see. Sustainability officers will often observe with frustration that others perceive sustainability as being all about recycling bins and solar ...
- Posted Feb. 26, 2016
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This tab provides access to data collected through AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System™ (STARS). STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. STARS enables meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions using a common set of measurements developed with broad participation from the campus sustainability community.
All responses reference content from reports under the latest version of STARS, version 2.2. AASHE membership and log-in is required.
EN 1: Student Educators Program
- Percent of students served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program
- Description of the student educators program (1st program)
- Description of the student educators program (2nd program)
- Brief description of the student educators program (3rd program)
- Hours worked annually by trained student sustainability educators per students served
- Website URL - Student sustainability educators programs
EN 2: Student Orientation
- Percent of entering students that have an opportunity to participate in sustainability-inclusive orientation activities and programming
- Description of how sustainability is included prominently in new student orientation
- Website URL - Information about sustainability in student orientation
EN 3: Student Life
- Description of the active student groups focused on sustainability
- Description of student gardens, farms, CSAs, fishery programs, and/or urban agriculture projects
- Description of the student-run enterprises
- Description of student sustainable investment funds, green revolving funds or sustainable microfinance initiatives
- Description of sustainability-focused conferences, speaker series, symposia, or similar events for students
- Description of sustainability-focused cultural arts events, installations, or performances
- Description of the wilderness or outdoors programs that follow Leave No Trace principles
- Description of sustainability-focused themes chosen for themed semesters, years, or first-year experiences
- Description of the programs through which students can learn sustainable life skills
- Description of sustainability-focused student employment opportunities offered by the institution
- Description of graduation pledge(s)
- Description of other co-curricular sustainability programs and initiatives
EN 4: Student Life
- Website URL - Central sustainability website
- Description of sustainability newsletter or social media platform(s)
- Description of the signage that highlights campus sustainability features
- Description of the sustainability walking map or tour
- Description of the guide for green living and/or incorporating sustainability into the residential experience
- Description of other comprehensive sustainability outreach materials and publications
EN 5: Student Life
- Description of the first sustainability outreach campaign
- Description of the second sustainability outreach campaign
- Description of other sustainability-related outreach campaigns
EN 6: Assessing Sustainability Culture
- Description of how and when the cultural assessment(s) were developed and/or adopted
- Copy or sample of the questions related to sustainability culture (upload)
- Copy or sample of the questions related to sustainability culture (description)
- Website URL - Assessment of sustainability culture
EN 7: Employee Educators Program
- Percent of employees served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program
- Description of the employee educators program (1st program)
- Description of the employee educators program (2nd program)
- Hours worked annually by trained employee sustainability educators per employees served
- Website URL - Employee sustainability educators programs
EN 8: Employee Orientation
- Percent of new employees that have an opportunity to participate in sustainability-inclusive orientation activities and programming
- Description of how sustainability is included prominently in new employee orientation
- Website URL - Information about sustainability in employee orientation
EN 9: Staff Professional Development & Training
- Estimated percentage of regular, non-academic staff that participates annually in sustainability professional development and training
- Description of any internal sustainability professional development and training opportunities
- Description of any external professional development and training opportunities in sustainability that are supported by the institution
- Estimated percentage of staff for which sustainability is included in performance reviews
- Description of how sustainability is included in staff performance reviews
- Website URL - Information about staff professional development and training in sustainability
Additional analysis on scores and quantitative fields can be conducted using the STARS Benchmarking Tool.