Public Engagement

Introduction

Engagement in community problem-solving is fundamental to sustainability. By engaging with community members and organizations in the governmental, non-profit and for-profit sectors, institutions can help solve sustainability challenges. Community engagement can help students develop leadership skills while deepening their understandings of practical, real-world problems and the process of creating solutions.

2945 resources

Electric bike collaboration between UMN Morris and Regional Fitness Center

  • University of Minnesota, Morris (MN)

UMN Morris student (August Bushy) and Regional Fitness Center staff member (Clare Sorensen) show the two electric bikes available for college students and community members to ride.


UMN Morris works with partners to launch county-wide composting program

  • University of Minnesota, Morris (MN)

UMN Morris helped launch the new countywide composing program. UMN Morris hit a milestone of diverting 1 million pounds of organic material from the landfill with its onsite cold-weather system ...


UMN Morris student explaining the electric bike program to community members

  • University of Minnesota, Morris (MN)

UMN Morris student, August Bushy, is explaining more about the UMN Morris and Regional Fitness Center electric bike program collaboration.


UMN Morris community members celebrate the two new electric school buses at Morris Area School District

  • University of Minnesota, Morris (MN)

A UMN Morris student worked with the Morris Area School District to write a grant to get two fully-electric schoolbuses. These community members (in the air) are from the Muenster ...


The 51 Percent Project

  • Boston University (MA)

The 51 Percent Project at Boston University is a data-driven communications initiative that identifies established peer-reviewed principles of climate change communication and makes them accessible to the general public. The ...


University of New Hampshire: B Impact Clinic

  • University of New Hampshire (NH)

B Impact Clinic - Launched in 2019 by the University of New Hampshire Sustainability Institute, the B Impact Clinic gathers teams of undergraduate students from different areas of study to serve ...


Mohawk College Native Seed Orchard

  • Mohawk College (ON)

This summer WWF-Canada, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, provided grant funding for Mohawk College to implement a Seed Orchard project to increase biodiversity on campus! By sharing the seeds ...


Mohawk College Birch Bark Canoe

  • Mohawk College (ON)

Master canoe-maker Chuck Commanda from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, a First Nations community in Quebec, has been teaching a group of Indigenous students at Mohawk College how to build a birch ...


OSU's Master Melittologists Program

  • Oregon State University (OR)

First Master Melittologist Program in the US - Oregon State University is the first institution in the United States to form a Master Melittologist program of trained community scientists dedicated to ...


Saint Joseph's College of Maine 2022 SCI

  • Saint Joseph's College - ME (ME)

Leadership for Sustainable Communities - In 2021, Saint Joseph's College - ME committed to institution-wide transformation and asked faculty to consider all courses through the lens of "sustainable communities” and a ...


Carnegie Mellon University students learn about the Sustainable Development Goals at an exhibit in the Cohon University Center

  • Carnegie Mellon University (PA)

Three students read up on global implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals at an exhibit organized by Carnegie Mellon University's Sustainability Initiative team in February 2020


JCCC Hosts Regional Climate Action Kansas City Summit

  • Johnson County Community College (KS)

As a pathway toward institutional accreditation through the US Higher Learning Commission, Johnson County Community College developed and completed an Academic Quality Improvement Project (AQIP) focused on institution-wide sustainability in ...


Leveraging Strategic Partnerships to Advance Sustainability Education

  • University of British Columbia (BC)
  • AASHE (PA)

What do we need to do to take sustainability education to the next level? How do we make sustainability learning ubiquitous in a university student’s learning journey while increasing ...

  • Posted July 18, 2022
  • Videos & Webinars
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Webinar: Cli Fi, Sci Fi, and the Culture of Sustainability

  • University of Hawaii Kapiolani Community College (HI)
  • AASHE (PA)

Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is a form of literature that features a changed/changing climate or global warming as a major plot device. Join this webinar for an overview of ...

  • Posted July 3, 2022
  • Videos & Webinars
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Integrated Studies BA

  • Florida Gulf Coast University (FL)

The B.A. in Integrated Studies combines courses across programs in order to produce deep learning and a better understanding of the interrelationships between academic subjects. Sustainability and civic engagement ...

  • Posted June 10, 2022
  • Academic Programs
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Trees on campus are rooted in history

  • California State University, Fullerton (CA)

Seven serve as a memorial to lives needlessly taken. One received the blessing of the Dalai Lama. Others pay homage to local history. But symbolism and aesthetics aside, each of ...


WMGIC: Expanding Student Involvement in Sustainable Development

  • College of William & Mary (VA)

The Global Innovation Challenge at William and Mary (WMGIC) encourages and facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and applied learning opportunities among students, policymakers, practitioners, and researchers by bringing innovative and sustainable perspectives ...


Arbor Day at Nova Southeastern University

  • Nova Southeastern University (FL)

In celebration of Earth Day and Arbor Day, students, staff, faculty, and the University's President came together to celebrate the environment with a tree planting ceremony and educational table ...


Common features of sustainable higher education sector according to an international sustainability ranking data

  • Häme University of Applied Sciences
  • Universidade Feevale
  • National Defence University (Finland)

This case study utilized data from an international university ranking (GreenMetric World University Rankings). The data show that in 2015–17, campus greening activities were dominated by sustainable development (SD ...


Sustainability based careers and graduate prospects

  • University of West London

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals aim to create a sustainable global future through seventeen inter-related objectives that encompass the environment, social justice, and good governance. Countries are deploying national ...


Mapping Concordia’s Sustainability Ecosystem, a system mapping experiment

  • Concordia University (QC)

Tristan Harris, the founder of the Center for humane Technology, once said: "Our ability to meet the world's challenges depends on us making sense & coordinating together." It means ...


Engaging with Indigenous Communities for Climate Action: The Bayano-McGill Reforestation Project

  • McGill University (QC)

The Bayano-McGill Reforestation Project is an initiative that is at the leading edge of carbon offsetting projects in higher education. The multi-faceted initiative, financed by the University, provides benefits to ...


EchoWorks: An Electronics Recycling College-Community Partnership

  • Western Dakota Technical College (SD)

There are more than a thousand toxic substances associated with electronic waste (e-waste), and improper disposal can lead to soil, water, food, and air contamination. E-waste is the fastest growing ...


Establishing and sustaining Indiana’s first higher education chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby at Purdue University

  • Purdue University (IN)
  • Citizens' Climate Lobby (CA)

In an effort to learn how to meaningfully engage with my community on the issue of climate change, I joined Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization which advances ...


Setting the Direction for a Sustainable Future? A Critical Review of University-Enterprise Partnership Evaluation

  • Lancaster University

University–enterprise partnerships foster great opportunities for sustainable development by enabling the translation of research into viable commercial solutions. However, how do we measure the relative “success” of such a ...


Mapping and Critical Synthesis of Current State-of-the-Art on Community Engagement in Higher Education

  • Global University Network for Innovation

This publication defines the concept of community engagement in higher education and its role in contemporary debates about the role of higher education in the 21st century and maps international ...


Contactless Food Box Deliveries: Driving Down Food Insecurity

  • University of California, Merced (CA)

The University of California, Merced (UC Merced) launched the Contactless Food Box Delivery Program in December 2020 which continues to this day. 5-10 boxes are delivered every week to those ...


The six dimensions of collective leadership that advance sustainability objectives: rethinking what it means to be an academic leader

  • Salisbury University (MD)
  • University of British Columbia Okanagan (BC)
  • Northeastern University (MA)
  • McGill University (QC)
  • Colorado State University (CO)
  • Stanford University (CA)
  • University of Maryland, College Park (MD)
  • TREE Foundation (FL)
  • National Geographic Society (DC)
  • Iowa State University (IA)
  • Northern Arizona University (AZ)

Solutions to our most pressing environmental problems demand the development and application of leadership skills that are not typically fostered in traditional academic programs: skills that advance new transdisciplinary approaches ...


Towards a European framework for community engagement in higher education – a case study analysis of European universities

  • University of Twente
  • Ghent University
  • Technological University Dublin (Dublin)
  • University of Rijeka
  • Institute for the Development of Education

This paper aims to examine the development and piloting of a novel European framework for community engagement (CE) in higher education, which has been purposefully designed to progress the CE ...


The engagement CUBE: a dialogical tool for designing, facilitating and monitoring engaged research and teaching strategies

  • Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Community engaged research and learning strategies are considered meaningful methods for universities to demonstrate their critical importance to today’s societies. At the same time, it is stressed that not ...


Pedagogies for peacebuilding in higher education: How and why should higher education institutions get involved in teaching for peace?

  • Universidad de los Andes
  • University of Sussex (Sussex)
  • University of Rwanda
  • Univerzitet u Sarajevu

This article makes the case for why higher education institutions should take the teaching of peacebuilding seriously. It is co-authored by a team from four countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda ...


Management research and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs): A bibliometric investigation and systematic review

  • University of Trento (Trentino)
  • University of Lincoln
  • Università di Foggia
  • Università del Salento

The comprehension of the businesses’ impact to sustainable development requires consideration of the different factors that affect firms’ behavior, such as corporate governance, non-financial regulation, and the external environment. The ...


Developing leadership qualities in environmental sustainability through university co-curricular activities

  • University of Calgary (AB)

This study aims to provide insight into the question of whether graduate students who deliver environmental education workshops/residencies to elementary school children will develop environmental sustainability leadership qualities in ...


Community-responsive scholar-activist research: conceptualizing capacity building and sustainability in a Northern California community-university partnership

  • Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick Campus (NJ)
  • University of California, Davis (CA)
  • University of California, Merced (CA)

We critically examine the ongoing development of a collaborative, responsive, activist research process between academics and farmworkers. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with community-based researchers and scholar-activists, we assess our team ...


From publications to public actions: the role of universities in facilitating academic advocacy and activism in the climate and ecological emergency

  • University of Kent
  • Cardiff University
  • University of Lausanne

Thousands of universities have made climate emergency declarations; however the higher education sector is not rising to the collective challenge with the urgency commensurate with scientific warnings. Universities are promoting ...


UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development Framework and the Reality of University–Community Cooperation in the Caucasus Mountain Region

  • University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
  • Armenian State Pedagogical University
  • Tbilisi State University

The project Transdisciplinarity for Sustainable Tourism Development in the Caucasus Region (CaucaSusT) initiated the integration of transdisciplinary approaches into partner universities in Armenia and Georgia. The aim was to develop ...


Investigating Web-Based Sustainability Reporting in Italian Public Universities in the Era of Covid-19

  • University of Salerno
  • Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"

Universities are increasingly called to demonstrate to stakeholders their active commitment to responding to social and environmental issues through comprehensive reporting practices. Such expectations were further enhanced by the recent ...


Corporate Social Responsibility Engagement through Social Media. Evidence from the University of Salerno

  • University of Salerno

Over the last few decades, stakeholders’ growing attention towards social and environmental issues has challenged universities’ traditional accountability boundaries, imposing the adoption of innovative reporting tools that facilitate stakeholders’ engagement ...


Social Media for Engaging and Educating: From Universities’ Sustainability Reporting to Dialogic Communication

  • Università degli Studi "Gabriele d'Annunzio"

Traditionally, universities are committed to the missions of conducting research and teaching. Recently, they were also called to contribute to supporting sustainable development in society. Many universities worldwide have experienced ...


The University at the Crossroads of Eco-Social Challenges: Pedagogy of Care and the Community of Life for a Transformative Learning

  • Universidad de Granada

What kind of responsibility do universities have with regard to the current emergency created by ecological and socio-economic collapse? This work begins by considering the colonization of universities by neoliberal ...


Can Higher Education Institutions’ Stakeholders Drive Regional Sustainable Development? Yes, They Can?!

  • University of Beira Interior

Although Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) develop and announce actions related to sustainable development (SD), these actions and the results achieved are often not perceived by their stakeholders. This article aims ...


Communicating Sustainability Through Social Media in the Italian Universities Context

  • Università degli Studi di Cagliari

The research purpose is to analyze how social media can be adopted to communicate sustainability by universities. More precisely it is to investigate whether the online platforms are used to ...


University contributions to co-creating sustainable tourism destinations

  • University of Queensland (QLD)
  • University of Gothenburg
  • Universita' di Macerata

A debate is emerging about the evolving functions and roles of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). New functions pivot on value-adding to the social, environmental and economic sustainability of communities – or ...


Investigating the environmental behavior of business and accounting university students

  • National Technical University of Athens
  • University of West Attica

The purpose of this study is to explore the underlying dimensions of environmental behavior (EB) and examine how environmental education (EE) and ecological sensitivity (ES) motivate the EB of Business ...


Praxis-Poiesis: University–Community Relationship in an Epoch of Uncertainty and Disruption

  • Brock University (ON)

This paper presents findings from a critical ethnographic study that spanned 3 years from 2018 to 2021 in a Canadian post-secondary context and engaged transdisciplinary quantum feminisms as a conceptual ...


A Positive Impact Rating for Business Schools: Case Study

  • University of St. Gallen
  • The Institute for Business Sustainability
  • LUISS Guido Carli

Business school rankings have been criticized, to blindly “follow the money” with their strong focus on salaries and economic performance, thereby reflecting the values and expectations of the times the ...


Sustainability behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge: comparing university students and the general public

  • Michigan State University (MI)

Sustainability science integrates many academic fields, requiring a broad understanding of diverse scientific concepts. Additionally, its focus on real-world issues means that researchers must also understand sustainability behaviors and attitudes ...


Accelerating the implementation of SDG 4: stakeholder perceptions towards initiation of sustainable community engagement projects by higher education institutions

  • University of Mpumalanga

This paper aims to present the results of an investigation on how a reciprocal relationship between the University of Mpumalanga (UMP) in South Africa and the surrounding communities can be ...


Investigating critical community engaged pedagogies for transformative environmental justice education

  • University of Utah (UT)

Effective environmental justice education poses unique challenges to both educators and students. For students, this pursuit is cognitively challenging at best and emotionally paralyzing at worst. It requires deconstruction of ...


Protected areas and environmental conservation in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: on HEIs, livelihoods and sustainable development

  • University of Zululand

The paper aims to advocate for innovative approaches in terms of the involvement of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the conservation of the environment, which fully considers and includes the ...

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 10: Community Partnerships

EN 11: Inter-campus Collaboration

EN 12: Continuing Education

EN 13: Community Service

EN 14: Participation in Public Policy

EN 15: Trademark Licensing

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

Public Engagement Partners