This week’s good ideas in campus sustainability: 11/23/09
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
Let’s take a look at interesting ideas at the University of Tennessee, the Kresge Foundation, and the University of Notre Dame.
1. UT Launches Center for the Study of Social Justice
This is another example of what needs to happen in higher education—multiple programs coming together to help students learn how to tackle major social problems interdisciplinarily.
With the goal of shedding light on society’s most pressing social issues, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has formed the Center for the Study of Social Justice. One thing missing is an environmental frame of analysis.
Based in UT’s Department of Sociology, the center provides a framework for scholars of sociology, psychology, education, social work, law, geography, political science and philosophy, among others, to collaborate on research and share insights about the conflicts, complexities and contradictions related to social justice.
“The world is changing and evolving at such a rapid pace, and our society’s problems become increasingly complex. We must inquire from an academic perspective about the state of humanity, as it relates to inequalities and the societal changes affecting all aspects of social, political, cultural and political life in our world.
The media release emphasizes the benefits of funding MSIs with small endowments and budget constraints. But the benefit of this program goes beyond that—engaging groups not traditionally affiliated with sustainability.
UNCF–the United Negro College Fund–the nation’s largest and most effective minority education organization, announced today that it has received a $1.8 million grant from The Kresge Foundation in support of the Building Green at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) Initiative. This initiative is the inaugural project of the Facilities and Infrastructure Enhancement Program (FIEP) of the UNCF Institute for Capacity Building (ICB). The program will focus on facilitating the green transformation of UNCF member institutions and that of other minority-serving institutions.
The Building Green at MSIs Initiative will build knowledge and capacity through a series of Building Green Learning Institutes, Technical Assistance Workshops and $20,000 mini-grants to help MSIs incorporate principles of sustainable design and energy efficiency into their building projects and overcome barriers that often include small endowments and low in-house expertise in green building practices.
“Environmental sustainability and green building are two of the nation’s most important 21st century imperatives, and minority-serving institutions want and need to become as green as possible as fast as possible,” said Michael L. Lomax, Ph.D., UNCF president and CEO. “But MSIs work within strained budgets even in the best of economic times, and in tough economic times, it is difficult for MSIs to make the necessary investments. We believe that this Initiative will help them find the way toward affordable sustainability, and we are grateful to The Kresge Foundation for making it possible.” The Building Green at MSIs Initiative will impact more than 400 colleges and universities by highlighting the importance of building green and the measures under-resourced schools can take to reap the benefits of green building and adopt energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable practices. This funding paves the way for a future comprehensive green initiative for MSIs that includes components related to sustainable campus design and construction and curriculum enhancement.
3. Notre Dame green your dorm room
Most of the ideas in this project are not new to people, but seeing them all together in an interactive visual is useful for showing that, collectively, individual actions can help reduce energy.
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