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.

4175 resources

Undergraduates in a Sustainability Semester: Models of social change for sustainability

  • Michigan State University (MI)

This was a qualitative case study aimed to understand the impact of sustainability education on undergraduate students after one term of course enrollment. It was found that while students’ models ...


Farming on the Campus Quad

  • Duke University (NC)
  • Green Mountain College (VT)
  • University of Colorado Boulder (CO)
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)

This article covers how universities have promoted local and organic farming by giving their students land to grow their own gardens on campus.


Motivators of Attendance at Eco-Friendly Events

  • Iowa State University (IA)

This study identifies the factors that attract U.S. residents to eco-friendly events. To achieve our research objective, we obtained data (N = 1,115) from a cross-national, web-based survey distributed ...


Zero-Waste Planning at Higher Education Institutions: A Case Study of Western Kentucky University

  • Western Kentucky University (KY)

Over the past two decades, the number of universities that pursue zero-waste strategies has steadily increased. However, more study is required on several interrelated factors, policy barriers, and infrastructural fundamentals ...


The Living Building at Nuthatch Hollow | Binghamton University

  • Binghamton University (NY)

Binghamton University's Nuthatch Hollow is a hidden oasis just a short distance from campus. Professors Pam Mischen and Carl Lipo explain how this 75-acre property is ideal for the ...

  • Posted May 26, 2021
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Climate Action at Lehigh: An Interview with Dave Pryor

  • Lehigh University (PA)

The Office of Sustainability of Office of Communications and Public Affairs come together to discuss how to bring more students and staff into the conversation of sustainability and spread awareness ...

  • Posted May 26, 2021
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sustainability on campus

  • University of Twente

Climate change is an omnipresent topic nowadays, and for very good reason. So, what's the University of Twente doing about it within its premises? To find out, we talk ...

  • Posted May 26, 2021
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Earthfest 2020: Getting Involved with Sustainability on Campus

  • University of Michigan (MI)

The Student Sustainability Coalition (SSC), a student organization from the University of Michigan, created a fun guide for students on how to get involved in sustainability on campus. Take a ...

  • Posted May 26, 2021
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Managing Organizational Change For Transformational, Deep Decarbonization Initiatives On Campus

  • Second Nature (MA)

From website: "This webinar examined the importance of managing cultural and process change to support the implementation of deep decarbonization initiatives on campus - focusing on the critical roles of stakeholder ...

  • Posted May 26, 2021
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SCECon 21: Our World, Our Time, Our Voices

  • University of California, Berkeley (CA)

SCECon 2021: Our World, Our Time, Our Voices aims to recenter the environmental narrative around environmental justice by giving intentional space for students to learn about unique and intersectional environmental ...


SDG Undergraduate Research Group

  • University of California, Berkeley (CA)

Launched Fall 2020, SURG (SDG Undergraduate Research Group) is an undergraduate research group affiliated with the UC Berkeley Office of Sustainability and guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We ...


Redefining Environmental Aesthetics at Emory University

  • Emory University (GA)
  • Re:wild Your Campus (TX)

Emory defines sustainability as relating to the quality of life, emphasizing the necessity of community health, wellbeing, and happiness. In approaching sustainability, Emory has created a comprehensive strategy to foster ...


Minnesota Student Sustainability Leadership Network

  • St. Catherine University (MN)
  • University of St. Thomas (MN)

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, students created theMinnesota Student Sustainability Leadership Network to bring together student leaders involved in sustainability from colleges and universities across the state of ...


The Inclusive Sustainability Initiative at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM)

  • California State University, San Marcos (CA)

The Inclusive Sustainability Initiative (ISI) at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) is an example of innovation and investment connecting inclusive excellence and sustainability. The term inclusive sustainability whether applied ...


Prairie Grass Restoration Project

  • Grinnell College (IA)
  • Re:wild Your Campus (TX)

Located in central Iowa, Grinnell College, once a prairie itself, is now indistinguishable from any other college, its land covered in swaths of fresh cut, herbicide-coated sprawling green lawns. In ...


CALPIRG Students Break Free From Plastics campaign

  • California Student Public Interest Research Group (CA)

The CALPIRG Students Break Free From Plastics campaign aimed to address the problem of plastic pollution at the source by phasing out single-use plastic items both at our university campuses ...


California State University System-wide Climate Justice and Intersectional Sustainability Speaker Series

  • San Diego State University (CA)
  • California State University, San Marcos (CA)
  • California State University, Channel Islands (CA)
  • California State University, East Bay (CA)
  • California State University, Chancellor's Office (CA)
  • California State University, Chico (CA)
  • California State University, Fullerton (CA)
  • California State University, Long Beach (CA)
  • California State University, Northridge (CA)
  • California State University, Sacramento (CA)
  • Cal Poly Humboldt (CA)
  • California State University, Los Angeles (CA)
  • California Polytechnic State University (CA)
  • California State University, Stanislaus (CA)

During the 2020-21 academic year, Sustainability Officers from across the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system, the largest public university system in the U.S., joined forces to coordinate a ...


Global Innovation Challenge (WMGIC)

  • College of William & Mary (VA)

WMGIC is the premier intercollegiate hack-a-thon style international and sustainable development case competition aimed at encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration to create innovative solutions to current global issues.


International Climate Engagement

  • Swarthmore College (PA)

Project Name: International Climate Engagement Name: Alfi Muhamad Project Mentor: Carr Everbach Faculty Advisor: Carol Nackenoff Project board members: Joy Charlton, Melissa Tier, Kyle Richmond-Crosset, Elizabeth Drake, Clare Hyre, Chris ...


Infusing Sustainability into the Curriculum

  • Swarthmore College (PA)

Name: Colin Donahue Project Mentors: Carr Everbach Project board Members: Carr Everbach, Aurora Winslade, Joy Charlton, Betsy Bolton, James Padilioni, Jason Martin

The climate crisis represents one of the greatest ...


Virtual Energy Treasure Hunt Event

  • Suffolk County Community College (NY)

In April 2021, Suffolk County Community College hosted our first US Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Treasure Hunt Event. The DOE describes the Treasure Hunt as “One of the best ...


MaryPIRG Student Climate Action Coalition (MSCAC)

  • University of Maryland, College Park (MD)

The FUTURE Act is a piece of legislation which aims to commit all of Maryland’s Public Universities to carbon neutrality by 2035 or sooner. The legislation was introduced by ...


President's Sustainability Research Fellowship 20-21: Climate Community

  • Swarthmore College (PA)

The 2020-2021 President's Sustainability Research Fellowship Climate Community project was conducted by Martin Tomlinson '23 and Maya Tipton '23 over the 2020-2021 Academic Year. The purpose of Climate Community ...


President's Sustainability Research Fellowship 20-21: ChesterSemesters

  • Swarthmore College (PA)

The 2020-2021 President's Sustainability Research Fellowship ChesterSemester project was conducted by Ananya Bhattacharya '21 over the 2020-2021 Academic Year. The purpose of the project was to support the the ...


Equity, Diversity, Justice, Inclusion Task Force, Catawba College

  • Catawba College (NC)

The Equity, Diversity, Justice, and Inclusion (EDJI) Task Force at Catawba College aims to build a campus community where all members thrive by working to cultivate critical conversations and practices ...


What makes an effective campus climate action plan?

  • Montana State University (MT)

Over the course of Spring Semester 2021, eight undergraduate students from a wide variety of majors and disciplines enrolled in a 3 credit directed independent study course in Human Geography ...


"Worry and Hope: What College Students Know, Think, Feel, and Do About Climate Change"

  • University of Hawaii System Office (HI)

There is an urgent need for a comprehensive assessment of climate literacy across higher education institutions in the United States. In addition, there is a need for both research and ...


Climate Action Plan Sustainability Ambassador Course

  • University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (IL)

The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) ambassador course was piloted in the spring 2021 semester as an opportunity for students to have a direct role in assessing and recommending building-level ...


University of St. Thomas Stewardship Garden

  • University of St. Thomas (MN)

The Stewardship Garden (SG) at the University of St. Thomas (MN) is an innovative urban agriculture project that combines undergraduate-driven research, teaching, and community engagement. Established in 2010, the SG ...


Student Sustainability Coalition (SSC) Common Agenda

  • University of Michigan (MI)

Establishing a Common Agenda as a significant first step under a Collective Impact Framework for rapidly improving social justice and environmental sustainability conditions on campus; using the drafting process not ...


Durham Tech Break Free From Plastics

  • Durham Technical Community College (NC)
  • The Student PIRGs (OR)

Student leaders at Durham Tech Community College, worked with the Student PIRGs in NC to run and win a campus campaign to Break Free From Plastics in order to protect ...


Addressing Food and Housing Security among NC State University Students

  • North Carolina State University (NC)

Since February 2018, when a report on student hunger and homelessness on NC State University's campus was released, the campus community has generated increased resources for students, conducted ongoing ...


Indigenous Interconnections

  • Swarthmore College (PA)

Project Name: Indigenous Interconnections Student Name: Daniel Torres Balauro Project Mentors: Aurora Winslade and Carr Everbach Project Board Members: Aurora Winslade, Director of Sustainability, Office of Sustainability Carr Everbach, Professor ...


How Brandeis reduced our food carbon footprint over 20% in its first sustainable dining program

  • Brandeis University (MA)

This case study reviews how Brandeis harnessed the RFP and contracting process for a new dining vendor in 2019-2021 to make huge and first-ever strides in sustainability in our dining ...


The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design – A Certified Living Building

  • Georgia Institute of Technology (GA)

In September 2015, the Georgia Tech Institute of Technology received a commitment for $30 million from The Kendeda Fund to building what the partners expected to become the most environmentally ...


Planting the Pond

  • Western Dakota Technical College (SD)

For this project, Western Dakota Tech formed an interdisciplinary team comprised of Environmental Engineering, Controlled Environment Agriculture, Electrical Trades, Computer-Aided Design, and Farm and Ranch Management students to design and ...


Uniting for Organizational Change - Merging the Sustainability Office and Office of Inclusive Excellence

  • California State University, Monterey Bay (CA)

In July, 2020 the Sustainability Office and the Office of Inclusive Excellence merged to form the Office of Inclusive Excellence and Sustainability.

The fields of sustainability, inclusion and social justice ...


Organic University Landcare Management with Sustainability Professionals

  • Seattle University (WA)
  • University of Tennessee System Office (TN)
  • University of California, Berkeley (CA)
  • AASHE (PA)
  • Re:wild Your Campus (TX)

As we look to the future of making universities a safe space for all–students, groundskeepers, community members and more–we discuss the ways university staff and students are creating ...

  • Posted May 12, 2021
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The Futility and Fatality of Incremental Action: Motivations and Barriers among Undergraduates for Environmental Action that Matters

  • Ithaca College (NY)

Monty Hempel was deeply engaged with the impact of sustainability education on student values and behavior. An important question that he posed was How can sustainability education provide a sound ...


Campuses as living labs for sustainability problem-solving: trends, triumphs, and traps

  • Princeton University (NJ)

Colleges and universities around the world are increasingly using their campuses as living laboratories for sustainability problem-solving and engagement. “Campus-as-lab” (CAL) projects emphasize experiential learning and campus sustainability through the ...


A sustainability internship program: strategies for creating student stewards for sustainability

  • Western Michigan University (MI)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the strategies and an effective model for creating and implementing a sustainability internship program at a university campus.


First steps towards sustainability? University freshmen perceptions on nature versus environment

  • University of Bayreuth

The Global Earth Overshoot Day, the date when all annually available natural resources are consumed, is set for July this year. For densely populated European countries like Germany or Switzerland ...


Training the Sustainers: An Undergraduate Sustainability Intern Program

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison (WI)

In this article, the authors offer their reflections on the past 10 years of the student intern program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of Sustainability. They first outline the ...


Sustainability survey to assess student perspectives

  • Indiana State University (IN)

The purpose of this study is to assess environmental concern at a Midwest university, analyze trends in concern over time and determine the effect of the development of a campus ...


Leveraging sport as a venue and vehicle for transformative sustainability learning

  • State University of New York at Cortland (NY)
  • Texas A&M University (TX)
  • University of Tennessee at Knoxville (TN)

Given greater awareness of environmental issues and the acceleration of climate change, universities are increasingly requiring undergraduate students to complete coursework in environmental issues. Research has shown that environmental courses ...


Marketing and communicating sustainability through college athletics: the effects of pro-environmental initiatives on the belief-attitude-intention hierarchy

  • Elon University (NC)
  • Florida State University (FL)

This study examines the psychological mechanism of consumers’ environmentally responsible behaviors in college sport. The research is guided by a belief-attitude-intention (B-A-I) hierarchy model. The results revealed that consumers who ...


Responsible Management Education as Socialization: Business Students’ Values, Attitudes and Intentions

  • Nazareth College (NY)
  • Macquarie University (NSW)
  • University of Melbourne (Victoria)

The growing interest in sustainable development in all sectors of the economy has fostered a noteworthy shift toward responsible management education (RME). This emerging view underscores that business schools provide ...


Coping With Climate Change: Examining Emotional Effects and Searching for Solutions

  • University of Vermont (VT)

Inspired by experiences with college students and my own reckoning of the climate crisis, I sought to understand the indirect psychological impacts of climate change on UVM students and what ...


Co-learning for sustainable design: The case of a circular design collaborative project in Ireland

  • University of Limerick
  • Koç University

Incorporating concerns of sustainability and circularity into design practice is undoubtedly important for both design research and education. There is a need to equip novice designers with the skills to ...


Experimenting with sustainability education: the case of a student-driven campus initiative in Finland

  • Aalto University

Experiments are deemed not only useful, but necessary in sustainability transformation to enhance local decision-making. This is especially apparent in Finland where national government programmes and city administrations promote sustainability ...

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

EN 2: Student Orientation

EN 3: Student Life

EN 4: Student Life

EN 5: Student Life

EN 6: Assessing Sustainability Culture

EN 7: Employee Educators Program

EN 8: Employee Orientation

EN 9: Staff Professional Development & Training

Additional analysis on scores and quantitative fields can be conducted using the STARS Benchmarking Tool.

Campus Engagement Partners