The below article excerpt was written by Daniel J. Sherman who is the Luce-funded Professor of Environmental Policy and Decision Making at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. The full article originally appeared in the Climate Neutral Campus Report, published by Kyoto Publishing and is available in full here. Special thanks to Kyoto Publishing and Dr. Sherman for allowing the below excerpt to be republished here. 

Faculty often speak of “coverage” when there is a movement afoot to add something to the curriculum. Champions of the movement demand more coverage of the favored topic, ideas, skills, or perspectives in the curriculum, while the unconverted emit exasperated sighs—arguing either that there is no room in their curriculum to cover anything else or that the proposed addition does not fit what they typically cover. The movement to better integrate sustainability into the higher education curriculum might move past this perennial conflict (while better serving our core teaching and learning mission) if faculty, instead, spoke in terms of “uncoverage.”
Rather than limiting sustainability by framing it as a topic requiring additional coverage in existing classes, or the creation of specialized classes and programs, faculty should be striving to uncover the full pedagogical power of the concept as a way of critically examining the world. Rather than merely adding sustainability coverage to the curriculum, sustainability could be a catalyst that actually strengthens and enriches the teaching and learning goals scholars already hold in their disciplines—all the while making powerful applications to environmental and social causes at the heart of sustainability on campus and in our communities.

In order to make this move, subtle but powerful shifts are needed in both the way faculty think about teaching and learning in higher education and the meanings ascribed to sustainability. Once we make these shifts, it will become clear that we are closer than we ever imagined to fully integrating sustainability into the higher education curriculum.

A Shift in the Way Faculty Think About Teaching and Learning

When we, as faculty, speak of covering something in a curriculum, we immediately limit our pedagogical imagination to what educational theorists Wiggins and McTighe describe as a “march through a body of material (often a textbook) within a specified time frame” (2005, 340). The “stuff” of learning becomes poorly differentiated information and there is an implied trade-off of breadth for depth. Sustainability, or any upstart area of focus striving to establish a place in the curriculum, stands little chance of cracking the armor of coverage in the curriculum. Teachers in every single higher education class are already forced to make impossible choices about coverage of information within their own disciplines—let alone an add-on topic. When we see teaching and learning as coverage there is simply never enough room.

More importantly, squeezing sustainability into coverage does a disservice to the teaching and learning enterprise because sustainability could be the catalyst for a much more powerful educational experience. In contrast to coverage, Wiggins and McTighe present uncoverage as an education based on inquiry, discovery, depth of understanding, and careful prioritization of learning material. To uncover learning material and attain those most powerful “aha!” learning moments, students must “consider, propose, test, question, criticize, and verify” big ideas such as principles, laws, theories, concepts, essential questions and perspectives to develop an understanding that is “not accepted on faith but is investigated and substantiated” (2005, 129).

When students engage in uncoverage they develop the core skills of inquiry required by the academic discipline in which they are operating, and they join in the prioritization of content that distinguishes the most important and transferable big ideas from the great mass of topics and information surrounding them.

An education of uncoverage meets the highest expressed goals of most higher education institutions: developing self-aware, critically thinking, technically skilled, problem solvers. An education of uncoverage also matches the highest goals of the academic disciplines around which most of these institutions are organized. Academic disciplines are not merely constructed around topics. They are designed to “cultivate powers of the mind” that can be applied to any number of topics (Levine, 2006, p. 233), and they coalesce around paradigms with commonly understood methods, concepts, themes or theories, and avenues of inquiry (Kuhn, 1970).

Similarly, the best teachers apply content and topics to develop transferable skills (Weimer, 2002, p. 51), and cultivate “habits of mind” that enable students to “understand, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate evidence and conclusions” (Bain, 2004, pp. 85 & 115). For sustainability to achieve broad integration with the higher education curriculum, it must come to be associated with “big ideas,” rich enough to fit with an education of uncoverage and complement the intellectual priorities within academic disciplines.

A Shift in the Meanings Ascribed to Sustainability

Unfortunately, the dominant meaning currently ascribed to sustainability by most people in higher education is not pedagogically rich enough to fit with an education of uncoverage across the disciplines. This is an issue of perception. Sustainability is a “should” on U.S. college campuses—the dominant association attached to the term is a list of prescribed practices for individuals, administration, and facilities staff to adopt or feel shame for failing to adopt. These prescribed practices are certainly worthy of encouragement, but they can also constitute an intellectual shortcut around the more complicated and pedagogically rich relationships between natural limits and value systems that underlie human impacts on the environment.

I have conducted word association exercises on sustainability with undergraduates and faculty over the past several years and the results indicate that nearly 90 percent of students and faculty identify sustainability first with recycling or some other prescribed practice. Less than 10 percent make an association with a bigger idea such as “conservation,” “systems thinking,” or “precautionary principle” (Sherman 2008, 189). These results align with those from survey research that indicate students most frequently articulate sustainability as “light green” actions such as purchasing habits and recycling (Kagawa, 2007). It is also revealing that the overwhelming majority of content shared in sustainability journals, on-line bulletins, and conferences, or measured in campus rating systems is focused on facilities changes rather than teaching and learning (Sherman 2008, 190). While our growing to-do list of institutional and individual sustainability behaviors is positive, it does not provide an entry to integration with the curriculum. It is difficult to see how prescriptive lists of behaviors can integrate into the educational mission of colleges and universities.

To continue reading please click here for page two from Kyoto Publishing. 

Fall is flying by! I find it hard to believe that it has already been over a month since the AASHE 2010 Conference in Denver. Thinking back on the many great presentations, keynotes, workshops and networking reminds me of the awesome energy of that week that has continued to carry me through November.

We now have some of the presentation materials online and more is being added. To access these please visit the AASHE 2010 Conference Materials webpage.

All of the conference photos taken by AASHE are now available on our Flickr account - if you happen to see yourself or a colleague in a photo, feel free to add a note and name. Video recordings of our keynote speakers are available on AASHE's YouTube channel - we will be adding the remaining keynotes soon.

Also, many folks (some I didn't know until after the conference had ended) provided excellent coverage of the weeks events. Of course, many AASHE staff were also providing coverage right here on the campus sustainability perspectives blog (using the AASHE 2010 tag).

Some articles from others who attended:
Scott Carlson from the Chronicle of Higher Ed provided coverage on the "Buildings & Grounds" blog:

• Higher-Ed Sustainability Conference Buckles Down 
• Community Colleges Start a Site to Collaborate on Green Jobs 
• Sustainability Directors Discuss Adapting to a Climate-Changed World 
• What’s the Role of Christian Colleges in Sustainability? 
• Report Outlines the Best Strategies for Meeting the Climate Commitment 
• At Sustainability Conference, a Campus Cruiser for Facilities Staffers - 
• Does Your College Have a Drought Plan? Better Make One 

Eric Wilson co-founder of 2ndgreenrevolution.com also provided great coverage of the conference in a series of posts:

• Morning Morning Recap
• Monday Afternoon Recap 
• Tuesday Morning Recap
• Tuesday Afternoon Recap 
• Final thoughts on the conference

We can't wait to see everyone in Pittsburgh (Oct. 9-12, 2011)! 

This installment of the AASHE Bulletin Sustainability Student Diary series features the writings of Mary Kohnstamm, a senior at St. Lawrence University who is president of the university's Environmental Action Organization. She details the student apathy experienced by the organization in response to its efforts to ban bottled water on campus. AASHE welcomes questions and invites feedback on each Sustainability Student Diary entry. Submit diary entries of your own for consideration to bulletin@aashe.org.

As a senior at St. Lawrence University, I have seen a multitude of environmental campaigns attempted by the student body. Some have been successful; however most have not. As president of the umbrella environmental organization at St. Lawrence, the Environmental Action Organization, for the past three semesters, I have been struck by the apathy of the student body.

Our current focus has been on banning bottled water on campus. Starting in January 2010, we created posters, collected water bottles, worked with staff to determine the amount of water bought per week from campus vendors, talked with the head of dining services and created a petition against all bottled water on campus that 300 students have signed. (Our student body is around 2,100.) We also hosted the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival this fall with the feature length film, "Tapped," which also gained student interest. In addition, we hung over 500 water bottles from the ceiling of our student center, half of which represented one week's worth of use. These were collected by the separation of the water bottles moving through the recycling center by the facilities crew, from students who had finished drinking the water, and by members of our organization who collected thrown out water bottles.

With the work of 60 active members of the organization, we were able to end the sale of Evian water in the spring of 2010. At the end of the semester, the head of dining services wrote me an email stating that the discontinued sale of bottled water like Desani and Aquafina would be possible this fall (2010), leaving the local bottled water the only type to be sold on campus. However, this did not happen as a result of students' outrage to the possibility of discontinued bottled water on campus. The head of dining services suggested that we further the push for recycling and education on the issue. One-fourth of the student body has agreed to ban bottled water while most students continue to buy it despite our education attempts. We continue to make information of bottled water available to all students, however, apathy is still prevalent.

Currently, our student government's environmental board is hoping to buy a water purification system. However, the Environmental Action Organization worries that this will not end the demand of bottled water, but will instead increase energy use, since those who currently use tap water will use this purified water, and those who buy water will just continue to do so.

The more we learn about bottled water, the more discouraged we are by the environmental, health and social justice effects due to the industry. Currently we are unsure of the next move. We hope to have a private showing of "Tapped" for the dining services staff, and our university president is aware of our work to ban bottled water. He has not pushed the issue in either way.

The reason for continued bottled water sales remains economic. We have lowered campus sales of bottled water, and continue to post information about the negative effects of the industry. Since we receive funding from Coke and Pepsi corporations, it is unlikely that such a ban will be successful. We have studied other colleges that are working to ban bottled water, and would appreciate any further advice.

Editors Note: Visit AASHE's list of Bottled Water Elimination and Reduction Campaigns (AASHE members only) for more information on those institutions that have banned bottled water from campus or have active campaigns to reduce their sale and consumption. 

Welcome to the inaugural AASHE Bulletin Sustainability Student Diary  post! This is the first of a series of diary entries from higher education students in the U.S. and Canada who will share what it’s like in the trenches of a campus sustainability initiative. This entry features the writings of Laura Williams, a geography senior at Southern Illinois University Carbondale who manages the student-led campus organic garden. The following are excerpts from her blog (in descending order with most recent first) that chronicles the weekly activities of the Local Organic Gardening Initiative of Carbondale (LOGIC). AASHE welcomes questions and invites feedback on each Sustainability Student Diary entry. Submit diary entries of your own for consideration to bulletin@aashe.org.

Here’s to the sun!
November 4, 2010

This week and last were good ones for LOGIC. We had 10 volunteers, our biggest number yet, out last Sunday to spread compost and get the beds in the hoop house ready to be planted. It was really nice to see enthusiasm about the project and watch everyone work together. Last night we were able to begin planting the first seeds in the hoop house. We also had an article written in the daily newspaper for our university about what we are doing and hope to do. This coming Monday we will be sitting in Lentz Dining Hall during dinner to try and spread the word as well. A couple of weeks ago there was a green fair in which many clubs, organizations, and departments around campus and the community came and set up booths to offer information about different things they were doing. We had a table, and it was really fun to be able to talk to a lot of people and to see the variety of organizations and their booths.

I think this is a very promising project and hope that many students will be able to use the space for socialization, stress relief and a general feeling of community. I think this garden can not only provide a resource like local, organic food but can also serve as a much needed resource for students to learn experientially about sustainability and connect with each other and the earth. I believe these are some of the biggest issues we need to address if we hope to make the changes necessary for a sustainable campus and world.

So I thought I would take this opportunity to say a few words about LOGIC’s beginning before we enter into a new realm with this project. The garden was a collaboration of thought from students in the geography department and other environmental organizations around campus. Worried about the state of agriculture in our state of Illinois, the students took it upon themselves to garner the support to get a plot of land and begin an organic garden with the aim of producing food for the dining halls. Situated at the Vermicomposting Building, the garden’s goal is to close the loop on the campus food supply by producing food that is nourished by the compost created by the waste products from the same dining halls the food goes to and water collected from a rainwater catchment system.

Although the production capacities of the garden are small, because of the initiative the pioneers of the project had, we now have a hoop house that is ready to be planted in. The students wrote a grant and a hoop house was installed that will allow us to extend our growing season and grow greens and herbs for the dining halls during the winter.

The effects of this project have stimulated a growing appreciation for organic practices and food production around campus. The Agriculture Department has tilled up an acre behind the hoop house to grow more vegetables for the dining halls and has the goal of getting the acre certified organic. Another class is in the works of creating a master plan for the sustainable landscaping of the surrounding area, incorporating food with landscaping plants and pathways. The site at the Vermicomposting Building has the goal of becoming a sustainability showcase, with many different aspects involving energy production, food and rainwater catchment.

In light of beginning down the path that the students before us so carefully crafted, I must give my utmost gratitude and respect for their vision and ability to pull it off. Thank you to them, and good luck to us.

Planting in the hoop house begins next week.

It’s here :)
September 29, 2010

Fall is here and the weather is finally something that can be enjoyed, in my opinion. The plants are coming up and loving the cooler weather I’m sure.

The hoop house has yet to be tilled, but next week I will get the ball rolling on that. It is going to be a project getting the plan together, the beds measured, compost spread, and then tilled up. It is going to be a great space in there and we are going to be able to grow a lot. I have been reading a lot about the crops we are going to grow, so I hope that with a little background knowledge and a keen eye for observation the plants will do well. We also now have a water hookup outside so we are going to be able to install drip irrigation, which will be a huge time saver and water saver as well. The rainwater catchment system is working well for our water uses, but it needs to rain to fill it back up. Send some good thoughts out for that one.

Planting
September 18, 2010

Today was a big day for LOGIC. We have seeds, row cover, tools, and the first fall plants have been planted. Chef Bill gave us our beets, carrots, lettuce and spinach seeds. Then he and I went to Rural King and bought shovels, hoes, potato forks, weeding tools, rakes and a couple other things. Then we had our first volunteers come out. There were four lovely people who showed up and we planted beets and carrots in the front beds. The hoop house is coming along. The poor guys working on it had to put it together piece by piece. They’re working hard to get it together. With any luck we’ll be able to put all their hard work to good use.

I have cleaned out a corner in the Vermicomposting Building so that we have a space. We have what we need to make this a great season. I am excited and very hopeful.

and the rain came
September 10, 2010

So, the seeds are coming in soon and the hoop house should be up soon as well. That is exciting. All of this planning will start to become a reality. I have been thinking about ideas of how to “market” the garden lately and thought that I would make a nice sign and print up some informational brochures so we can set up a table in Lentz dining hall in the future and talk to people about the garden. That is going to be a work in progress though because right now there is not that much to say nor write about. But that will be changing. Lots of stuff to do this week as far as getting things ready to plant and be organized. I’ll write more about it later.

We finally got some rain from the remnants of a hurricane. And the trees are beginning to make their change. I noticed the first red one today. Fall is so lovely.
 

Ever notice that Campus Sustainability Day and Halloween are eerily close to each other? Well, call it a quirky coincidence, but there is such a thing as "scary sustainability". It is the notion of large-scale environmental demise that, justifiably, keeps us aware and motivates us to reduce our environmental impact and carbon footprints - much like the stick that drives the horse. Sadly, the same prophesying of environmental (and social) gloom and doom has been a prime reason for negative perception of sustainability – due to falsely developed notion that sustainability is very harmful to the economy.

Nevertheless, it is time to face those demons if we are to get rid of them ever. The good news is that the higher education community is already taking action and developing new perspectives at campuses across the world. Colleges and universities are working with local communities to encourage healthy “locavore” populations with farmers markets, community gardens, and campus farms that nurture friendships, culture, and of course, soul-fillingly delicious food! University initiatives are helping weatherize homes, and supporting renewable energy purchases and energy efficiency in the surrounding community. The general public is beginning to realize that sustainability is not so so 'scary'; interest and investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency have increased in the last two years, and several colleges have begun to offer degrees and training programs to prepare students for the growing green jobs sector.

However, all these exciting new initiatives do not necessarily change the dire facts that serve as grim-but-useful reminders of the challenges our society faces. The ill effects of unsustainable behaviors continue to rear their ugly heads. In recent times, our species has successfully set outrageous records for pollution of land [Hungary, Oct. 2010], and water [Gulf of Mexico, cleanup still under progress], and the atmosphere [From Big Brown to Big Bend]. Even as uncomfortably erratic weather patterns seem to be the new norm, members of the sustainability camp are weathering the changes, and aiming to give more than hope to our current generations.

On 10 October 2010, thousands of people [most of them students and young professionals] participated in the Global Work Party hosted internationally by Bill McKibben’s www.350.org. As their collective voice made clear, it will take a lot of work to set things right. As active professionals, engaged students, and members of organizations pursuing sustainability we should recognize our involvement in the larger movement. If we choose to listen to these voices, and keep faith in our commitments, it might be easy to dispel the darkness, and say good morning to a sustainable tomorrow.

The energy and cohesion of thousands of individuals put together makes a case for confidence, a strong reason to believe that the tasks ahead are conquerable. This years’ Campus Sustainability Webcast sheds light on the road towards a sustainable tomorrow. David Gershon spoke of the possibilities for a greener future, sharing his experiences with engaging and empowering communities to help reduce their carbon footprint. The key lesson from his talk is that making sustainability a participatory process that is valuable and effective as a social tool paves the way to removing the veils of mystery and scariness around it. “Scary Sustainability” ends up being just a paper tiger when we realize that the perspectives that created it were faulty, and that it is ignorance, which causes this irrational fear. The act falls apart when we work together towards replacing ignorance with knowledge - like pulling off the scary Halloween costume to reveal the innocent prankster inside!

Emily Karol is a student at the University of Georgia where she serves as Co-chair of the Go Green Alliance and interns in the UGA Office of Sustainability.  Emily attended the AASHE 2010 conference in Colorado last week and over the course of the conference she live-blogged about the event and presentations she attended. There are over a dozen great blog posts from Emily on her blog (http://emkarol.wordpress.com/). This is a great way of seeing the conference through a student's eyes. I encourage you to check out her posts, many of which include nice photos. All of Emily's AASHE 2010 posts have been tagged and are available here.

The following article is a guest blog post from Cecil Scheib, Director of Energy and Sustainability at New York University.

As I travel home by train from the wonderful AASHE 2010 conference in Denver, I write this with my laptop on my lap aboard the eastbound California Zephyr, eventually to meet the Lake Shore Limited bound for New York City. It's the second half of a round trip I made from the East Coast to Colorado for the 3-day conference.

My total trip will have me spend about as much time on the train as at my destination - which may explain why, for most people, airline travel is the only reasonable way to expect attendees to arrive at a national conference in any numbers. And in a country that has no problem funding airports and superhighways, the sad state of support for a national rail system means I shy away from recommending Amtrak to friends. While unpleasant trips have been rare in my 15+ years of cross-country rail travel, one does encounter the occasional stopped-up toilet, rude conductor, or unpleasant seatmate, and I guess I've never wanted to feel responsible for the encouragement that puts someone I know in that position.

Despite all this, and while I personally enjoy flying, I love the train. I relish the stress-free connections on both ends - no airport shuttles, security lines, or arriving hours early at the airport. All it took was a simple subway trip in NYC and an easy walk from my Denver hotel, arriving at the station about 15 minutes before departure. I look forward to watching the scenery flow by with my favorite book in hand or podcast in ear, and arriving rested and relaxed, with my body already adapted to the time change, instead of jetlagged and dried out from pressurized cabin air. I make the most of my brief time during the lunch stopover in Chicago, taking in a meal at a favorite restaurant by Union Station and a walk along the Chicago River before reboarding.

This trip, thanks to the gracious understanding and support of New York University, I counted the full day I spent on the train in each direction as a work day. With the help of a laptop and a Verizon USB stick, I wrote proposals, answered emails, drafted contracts and presentations, reviewed building plans, and did data analysis the whole way. In fact, I think I got more accomplished on the train, free from distractions, than I often do in the hectic office environment.

It turns out Amtrak is an affordable way to travel. With discounts available for students, AAA card holders, NARP members (a one-year membership pays itself back after one trip!), and even through university purchasing portals (I got a free upgrade to sleeper class on the return trip thanks to our friendly sales rep at the NYU vendor fair), train fare prices track airlines pretty closely – I paid the same amount, to within a few dollars either way, of my colleagues who flew. Frequent rider miles mean regular free travel for those of us who use the rails on repeated basis.

I know I’m not the only person from the conference traveling home on this train, and it could be a good way to extend the networking opportunity. Maybe AASHE could ask people how they are arriving at conferences and help share this type of information to allow easier meetups for those who desire it. In fact, perhaps AASHE should encourage low-carbon rail travel for next year’s conference! After all, we got a drink ticket this year for showing up for a 7am session -- why shouldn’t we get one for reducing our travel emissions 90% on the way to a sustainability conference? And since most of the population of US and Canada lives within a one-day train ride of Pittsburgh, maybe it’s time to change the conventional wisdom that air travel is the only way to get farther than a car ride away from home. If anyone can change that kind of thinking, it just might be the folks who go to AASHE conferences.
 

“We all have a voice,” was the mantra of this year’s Student Summit at the 2010 AASHE Conference. Presented by AASHE and the National Wildlife Federation, this was the largest Student Summit in AASHE conference history with more than 500 registrants who filled the room with a rising hum of excited greetings and idea sharing.

Snowboarding Olympic Silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler kicked things off with her first environmental speech in front of a crowd. “I’m definitely not an expert on climate change,” she told the gathering of college and university students, faculty and sustainability staff from around the U.S. “What I am, is a professional snowboarder who has been chasing the snow around for many years and been able to see the effects of climate change firsthand.”
 

Bleiler energized the audience by pointing out that it doesn’t take an Olympic medal to encourage steps to mitigate climate change or other sustainability efforts. Instead of assuming that celebrities and professional athletes have the biggest voices, she encouraged students to speak out in any way they can: spreading facts and initiatives via Facebook and Twitter or voting for politicians in favor of renewable energy, for example. “Every single one of us has a unique opportunity to create awareness and inspire change.”
 

After witnessing the brilliant pinks and purples of a smog-intensified sunset in Santiago, Chile; the unlikely amount of snow in Tamarack, Idaho; and a haze-covered sky in Beijing, Bleiler began to get a sense of climate change havoc. When her summer snowboarding practice season in New Zealand was cancelled because of a lack of snow, “that’s when it really hit home,” she said. “For the first time in six years, I wasn’t able to go and do what I was supposed to do.”
 

After researching the carbon emissions brought on by the life cycle of a product: the production, transportation, harvesting and eventual waste of products, Bleiler set about becoming a sustainable products activist with the creation of an eco-friendly line of snowboarding wear and signature BPA-free stainless steel water bottles.

“Talk to retailers and demand sustainable products,” she urged. “We need to let retailers know we want these low impact products. Supporting green companies will help this become the norm instead of a boutique part of the retail industry.”
 

The Summit energy was infectious and the force of student voices evident. Students from both coasts and in between shared techniques, lessons learned and sustainability success stories during breakout sessions including “Waste Management on Campus” with Yale University, Swarthmore College and Bemidji State University; “Financing Sustainability Projects on Campus” with Northern Arizona University and University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; and “Changing Food and Waste Policies on Campus” with students from McGill University and DePauw University.
 

Representatives from the Sierra Student Coalition and the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology Program led a discussion about the youth-led Beyond Coal campaign to kick coal off campuses and communities. A major point made was the tremendous mobilization of voices needed to end our dependence on coal-generated electricity. Politicians, it was pointed out, have some of the biggest corporations in the world sitting on the other shoulder.
 

“What can we do better?” asked a session attendee.
 

“How many of you made phone calls to your senator?” asked moderator Lisa Madry, NWF’s campus field director. “That’s what we need to do better. The grassroots pressure has to be huge.” NWF is partnered with the Energy Action Coalition for Power Vote, an effort to combat the millions of dollars poured into elections by Big Oil and Big Coal with the collective voice of hundreds of campuses and communities across the country.
 

Madry urged attendees to take Power Vote postcards back their campuses to collect as many pledges for a clean energy economy as possible. She encouraged passing out the cards during a campus sustainability speaker or other sustainability campus event. “It’s more sexy when you can take 1,000 of these pledge cards [to your politicians]. Become a significant constituency with your congressman or senator. Say, ‘We really care about your vote on this and want to know your position on this,” she said. “But you need something like that rather than coming to them as an individual representing something that would please the four people in your environmental club.”
 

If the Summit was a microcosm of what we can expect from our sustainability leaders of tomorrow, the world can be full of hope for the restoration of healthy ecosystems, community engagement and a sustainable economy. During the Open Space session, where students discussed topics with each other that weren’t on the agenda, more than 25 student-initiated topics were covered that included eliminating bottled water on campus; college students as protectors for future generations; rural economics and climate change; and creating summer initiatives for community sustainability.
 

Conversation snippets overheard during the Open Space session:
 

“Talk to your dining services. Say, ‘hey, we want to lead a campaign to eliminate bottled water.’”
 

“Perform outreach with the wider community like nonprofits, elementary schools, internships. Think outside the box. Some places you wouldn’t think of being an environmental company may be interested in collaboration and education.”
 

“Most of us wear our seatbelts. Why? Because we’ll get a ticket. It’s the authority issue. It’s expected. How do we apply this way of thought to sustainability efforts to help these become the norm?”
 

We all have a voice indeed.

The full list of Open Space session topics:
 

• Ecovillages
• Psychological/Spiritual Sustainability
• Eliminating Bottled H2O on Campus
• Sustainable Greek Chapters
• Biodegradable Products
• Making your Campus Food Real (Just and Sustainable)
• College Students as Protectors for Future Generations
• Campus Swap Meet/Free Store
• Rural Economics and Climate Change
• Campus Education Campaigns
• Why Sustainability Should be a Priority
• How to Influence the “Bottom Line” Mentality when Referring to Spending from Universities or Companies
• Cutting Energy Use in Dorms
• Student Discussion on Sustainability Coordinators at Universities/Colleges
• Creating Summer Initiatives for Community Sustainability
• Getting Money to Hire Full-Time Sustainability Coordinators
• Getting Grassroots Support – how can you make students care?
• Moving Beyond Coal
• Smart Phone Apps for Sustainability
• Green Fee
• Lobbying for a sustainability Education Institute
• Creating a Campus Farmers Market
• Campus Composting

A new joint publication between Second Nature and the U.S. Green Building Council was recently released that readers of our campus sustainability perspectives blog may be interested in. The publication, “Advancing Education for Sustainability: Teaching the Concepts of Sustainable Building to All Students”  is intended to “explore the critical role of the built environment in educating all students about sustainability”. To that end, the document “provides a set of core sustainable building concepts, examples of institutions that are successfully teaching their students about sustainability, and recommends steps that higher education institutions could take to provide all students with the knowledge and skills to create a just and sustainable future”.

The publication comes at an important time. As Margo pointed out in her recent article, "A Look at the Growing Trend of Green Building in Higher Education" the interest in sustainable design and architecture continues to grow on college and university campuses. As this embrace of green building continues, students must be offered the opportunity to learn about sustainable buildings and design. Regardless of the discipline being studied, an understanding of sustainable building concepts can help solve a variety of complex problems and ensure that the students of today are prepared to meet the sustainability challenges they will be facing after they graduate.

Has your campus involved students in green building projects on campus? Do you know if your campus is offering any sustainable architecture/design courses open to students in any discipline? What are your thoughts on educating all students (regardless of major) on concepts of sustainable building?

As editor of the AASHE Bulletin, I am lucky to be able to highlight the positive steps toward sustainability that campuses make each week. The number of Bulletin submissions that detail higher education sustainability efforts is encouraging, in particular the steadily growing number of green building stories. In 2007, the Bulletin featured 60 green campus buildings that were planned or certified. In 2008, that number more than doubled with the planning, opening or green certification of 130 green campus buildings reported in the Bulletin. In 2009, another 165 eco-friendly campus structures were covered as opening or receiving green certification.

The green building social media community Green Building Pro dedicated the August issue of itsGreen Building Journalto sustainable schools. AASHE is featured in the issue with the article, A Look at the Growing Trend of Green Building in Higher Education. From student advocacy to the renovation of crumbling campus structures, the piece looks at emerging trends within campus green building. While green building often conjures up images of shiny new structures, campuses are also looking for ways to green without adding to campus square footage. The article features interviews with The Chronicle of Higher Education Senior Reporter Scott Carlson, U.S. Green Building Council Higher Education Sector Manager Jaime Van Mourik, and Emory University's Director of Sustainability Initiatives Ciannat Howard.