Sustaining sustainability at OHIO and beyond

The Office of Sustainability assists students in understanding how to make change in a respectful, professional, and effective manner—and how to become a member of a new wave of activists who practice critical-thinking skills and propose creative solutions to difficult problems. Thus, the Office of Sustainability collaborated with the Environmental Studies program to develop a class-based approach to learning about activism for the 21^st century. The course was offered as a pilot for three consecutive semesters and approved as a permanent course beginning this fall.

Premise

Each semester, the Office of Sustainability identifies a) offices that may need support in finding sustainable solutions to problems and b) areas which it wants to address to reflect positively on the University’s overarching sustainability plan. Administrative and academic units also submit ideas. The Office of Sustainability compiles all of these projects and then asks professors teaching sustainability-focused classes about incorporating any into their syllabi. Students work with assigned faculty or staff mentors to learn about the projects and seek solutions. Near semester’s end, students present their findings via poster presentations at the Student Research and Creative Activity Expo and at Earth Day. In many cases, their work will be implemented or future groups will build upon it.

Uniqueness

Student activism regarding sustainability occurs at colleges and universities nationwide, often through internships and extracurriculars. OHIO is among those institutions. What sets OHIO apart is that it has layered in a for-credit component. The Office of Sustainability confers with academic and administrative units to provide real-world, hands-on experiences for students—who are entrusted with a great deal of responsibility while earning class credit for their efforts.

Success

In fact, numerous students affiliated with the Office of Sustainability, as employees for it or enrollees in the classes, now have full-time sustainability-related jobs. For instance: Jessica Bilecki, MS ’12, sustainability coordinator at Elon University; Tiffany Stelzer, BS ’16, marine science educator at Newfound Harbor Marine Institute; Austin Stahl, BSJ ’15, account manager at CivicSolar in Boston, Massachusetts; and Nick Kroncke, BS ’15, research and planning specialist at the Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission. —Annie Laurie Cadmus is the director of sustainability at OHIO. ohio.edu/sustainability.

Examples

Here are some recent and ongoing University sustainability projects available to students:

• Energy Dashboard: OHIO is installing meters to monitor utilities in Athens Campus buildings. Students assisted in providing design and usage recommendations of a utility dashboard by participating in a focus group with the Building Systems Integration Manager Claire Naisby.
• Sustainable Food Systems: Students help remove obstacles and improve community networks surrounding issues of sustainable food systems and food access.
• Alternative Energy Feasibility Studies: As OHIO looks to become carbon neutral, the Division of Finance and Administration is encouraging well-researched possibilities for alternative energy sources on the Athens Campus.
• Sustainability Fundraising Campaign: The Office of Sustainability is developing an alumni outreach and fundraising campaign and would like assistance—from students and alumni. It will identify and engage OHIO alums who want to increase attention on sustainability efforts on the Athens Campus.

FEATURED IMAGE: Students from the Sustainable Living Floor of Luchs Hall learn to plant culinary herbs and vegetables in recyclable containers during a bottle gardening workshop hosted by OHIO’s Office of Sustainability and the Office of Housing and Residential Life in September. Later in the semester, the Office of Sustainability hosted a dinner utilizing the same herbs and vegetables planted at the workshop. Photo by Vicky Kent