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Sustainability in Higher Education

• Oregon Universities & Colleges
• Oregon Community Colleges
• Outside of Oregon
• Collegiate Sustainability Assessments

There are now many opportunities to pursue a career in sustainability. Our state’s community colleges and universities are striving to make their own operations more sustainable as well as incorporating sustainability within their academic offerings, shown below:

 

Oregon Universities & Colleges

 

Lewis & Clark College

• Campus Sustainability Council: http://www.lclark.edu/dept/lcsc/
• Student Site for Environmental Issues: www.lclark.edu/~envag/
• Environmental Law and Natural Resources Law Program: http://law.lclark.edu/dept/elaw

 

Oregon Institute of Technology

• OIT's sustainable technologies emphasis: http://www.oit.edu/Default.aspx?DN=d4688e71-90b0-4c28-949d-90fd6db1513b

 

Oregon State University

• General: http://oregonstate.edu/sustainability/
• Business: http://www.bus.oregonstate.edu/programs/sustainability.htm

Pacific University

• Campus Sustainability: http://www.pacificu.edu/sustainability/

Portland State University

• Sustainability Office:http://www.sustain.pdx.edu/

University of Oregon

• General: http://sustainability.uoregon.edu/
• Environmental Issues Committee: www.uoregon.edu/~eic

University of Portland

• Campus Sustainability: http://www.up.edu/sustainability/

Willamette University

• General: http://www.willamette.edu/about/sustainability/

 

Oregon Community Colleges

 

Lane Community College

• http://www.lanecc.edu/sustainability/

Portland Community College

• http://www.pcc.edu/about/sustainability/

 

Outside Oregon

Sustainability is a big issue for colleges and universities across the country. For more information see:

• AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) Sustainability Tracking Assessment & Rating System (STARS)
  STARS is designed to:

  1. Provide a guide for advancing sustainability in all sectors of higher education.
  2. Enable meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions by establishing a common standard of measurement for sustainability in higher education.
  3. Create incentives for continual improvement toward sustainability.
  4. Facilitate information sharing about higher education sustainability practices and performance.
  5. Build a stronger, more diverse campus sustainability community.
  • http://www.aashe.org/stars/
  • http://www.aashe.net/blog//campus-operations/how-does-aashes-rating-system-compare-with-the-college-sustainability-report-card

• The American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC)
  Nearly 600 College and University Presidents and Chancellors have committed their institutions to becoming climate neutral. The nearly 600 institutions represent about 30% of all undergraduates. The ACUPCC is not a ranking system but has been a catalyst for the development of college and university sustainability programs and in some cases is a criteria for some of the other rankings on this list.
  http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/index.php
  
  
• Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education: http://www.aashe.org/
  • AASHE offers a resource on Academic Programs in Sustainability, which lists Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degree programs in Sustainability, minors and certificates in sustainability, and discipline specific sustainability related degrees in areas such as Agriculture, Architecture, and Business.

    AASHE Academic Programs in Sustainability

• Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future
  • General: http://www.ulsf.org/
• International List of College and University Sustainability Websites: http://www.ulsf.org/resources_campus_sites.htm

 

Collegiate Sustainability Assessments

Below are various comparative rankings of the sustainability efforts within higher education institutions.

 

Sustainable Endowments Institute's College Sustainability Report Card
Latest Report Card profiles 300 leading schools. GreenReportCard.org is the first website to provide in-depth sustainability profiles for hundreds of colleges in all 50 U.S. States and Canada.

http://www.greenreportcard.org/

 

The Princeton Review

The Green Rating scores appear in profiles of the 534 schools that will be posted on The Princeton Review's site (www.PrincetonReview.com) today.  They will also be in the print profiles of those schools in the 2009 editions of three Princeton Review books: The Best 368 Colleges (on sale tomorrow), The Best Northeastern Colleges (on sale August 5) and The Complete Book of Colleges (on sale August 5), all published by Random House.
http://www.princetonreview.com/green/press-release.aspx?uidbadg&uidbadge&uidbadge&uidbadge=

 

National Wildlife Federation's National Report Card on Environmental Performance and Sustainability in Higher Education

In this first-ever large-scale environmental performance survey, every college and university in the U.S. was asked to describe its environmental practices, from recycling, landscaping and transportation, to campus policies, curriculum and energy use.
http://www.nwf.org/campusEcology/resources/HTML/stateofthecampusenvironment.cfm

 

Newsweek's Current Magazine's 16 Schools That Care (pdf)

http://news.washcoll.edu/press_releases/2007/10/01_currentmagazine.pdf

 

Grist magazine's 15 Green Colleges and Universities
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/08/10/colleges/#here

Sierra Magazine's 10 That Get It

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200711/coolschools/

 

Kiwi magazine's Green College Report

http://www.kiwimagonline.com/green-college-report/

NAICU (National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities) Sustainability Web Page
http://www.naicu.edu/special_initiatives/Campus%20Green%20Initiatives/

 

 

 

 

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