Page 17 - College Planning & Management, October 2017

PHOTOS © UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
all eight of their colleges. Sustainability- related research is conducted in more than 90 percent of the academic depart- ments. Students in any major — think English, math, statistics or art — can get a minor in sustainability and work on it through an interdisciplinary lens. “We want to stress that sustainability has a place in whatever field or career a student is attracted to,” Miyamoto says.
CSU Fort Collins is even experimenting with getting students involved before their first term begins. Their eight-week Bridge Scholars Program provides residential college-life experiences to first-generation or underrepresented incoming freshmen. Students work on a real-world project
that benefits the city of Fort Collins while sharpening their researching, writing and presentation skills.
“I think of it as a cosmic Venn diagram,” says instructor Paul Hellmund. “In one circle are the very real resiliency issues faced by the Fort Collins community, the other
is made up of students who want to make a difference now, not after graduation in four
years. In the middle is this workshop.” The summer of 2017 included four dif- ferent sustainability projects. One started
tackling Fort Collins’ substantial food waste problem; another looked at the current
state of the city’s community health. A third project explored options to maximize health and wellness on a newly purchased, 20-acre lot that surrounds a local health clinic. The final project explores Fort Collins’ lower- income and underrepresented populations’ attitudes towards active transportation like walking, biking and bus use.
The students do every part of the project independently. They work with sponsors/clients to refine questions, conduct research, write proposals and give presentations. So far, the output has been well received. “I get emails from stakehold- ers that are amazed at the work’s sophis- tication, particularly when you consider that these students were just at their senior prom a month prior,” says Hellmund. “This is a great way to bring a small, private New England-college experience to a large, public university.”
“THE IDEA IS TO GIVE STUDENTS A GREEN VOCABULARY THAT HELPS THEM BRING INNOVATIVE IDEAS WITH THEM WHEREVER THEY LAND AFTER GRADUATION,” SAYS SUSTAINABILITY SPECIALIST SEAN SCHMIDT.
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Greening Up the Wall
Sustainability is “near and dear to our hearts,” according to the University of Washington’s (UW) sustainability director Claudia Frere-Anderson. More than just talk, parts of the school’s campuses func- tions as living laboratories, hosting a broad range of projects that address operational, education and research challenges and opportunities through a green lens. These projects provide innovative solutions for the school, the community and the state and may involve students, faculty, staff or a combination. The projects are funded through grants like the Campus Sustain- ability Fund and Green Seed Fund.
“The Campus Sustainability Fund is in its seventh year and has funded $2 million in projects,” reports Frere-Anderson. She sees the work as a win/win as “students come up with cool ideas and the university benefits from innovation and some cool new infrastructure.”
Living lab projects include field work in Alaska, wetlands development at UW Bothell and a prairie trail in UW Tacoma. The Seattle campus includes four different projects, including the Gould Hall Green Wall at the College of Built Environments.
Run by Nancy Rottle, associate profes- sor of Landscape Architecture, seven students from four different disciplines created a biodiversity green wall, edible
OCTOBER 2017 / COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT 17