Berea College 2006 Campus Sustainability Achievement Award Application
Category
Four-year and graduate institutions, 1,001 - 10,000 student FTE
Contact
Tammy Clemons
Sustainability Coordinator
Berea College
Berea, KY
(859) 985-3610
clemonst@berea.edu
Governance & Administration
Berea College's commitment to sustainability is integrated into its mission and stems from one of its eight "Great Commitments," which is "to encourage in all members of the community a way of life characterized by plain living, pride in labor well done, zest for learning, high personal standards, and concern for the welfare of others." This ideal is expanded in one of the College's Workplace Expectations for employees, which is to "encourage plain and sustainable living" by "promoting a sustainable way of life through policies, procedures and practices in the workplace."
Berea College has several governance committees engaged in some aspect of campus sustainability, including the Campus Environmental Policy Committee (CEPC), Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) Advisory Committee, Ecovillage Operations Committee, Residence Life Green Team, and Local Food Initiative (LFI). There are also a number of regular positions and student labor positions that are responsible for promoting/implementing sustainability in the curriculum and campus operations. The five regular positions include the Director of Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS), two additional SENS Professors, Ecovillage Coordinator, Recycling Coordinator, and Sustainability Coordinator, which was funded and hired within the past year. Student labor positions include student SENS House Directors (7), Ecovillage Community Assistants (8), Recycling (10), and College Farms, Gardens/Greenhouse & Composting (40-45).
Berea College's sustainability initiatives are articulated and guided by several comprehensive governance documents. First and foremost is Being and Becoming, the College's strategic plan. This document was originally published in 1996 and ultimately led to the creation of the academic SENS program and other formal institution-led sustainability initiatives. With the approval and implementation of Being and Becoming, Berea College made an institutional commitment to embodying sustainability in various aspects of its overall operation, and since then, the College has made substantial strides toward becoming a "sustainable campus" (see the section on "Operations"). The strategic plan was recently revised and approved by the faculty and trustees and includes an expanded initiative addressing the sustainability of its learning and workplace environments in terms of efficiency, reflection, and human resources. Other important guiding documents extending specific facets of the College's strategic mission include the Campus Master Plan, Energy Use Master Plan, and Land Use Master Plan.
Berea College belongs to a special sustainability consortium with Furman University and Warren Wilson College. This group has met annually for the past three years to share resources, successes, and lessons garnered from each institution's experience with integrating sustainability into the curriculum as well as implementing campus-wide initiatives. Other recent memberships include AASHE and Campus Ecology (application in progress).
Operations
This process began with a series of building renovations to maximize efficiency and incorporate ever-increasing "green design" components. For example, double-paned window retrofits became standard, and one early renovation (Frost Building) included a geothermal heating/cooling system. More recent renovations have incorporated even more stringent ecological design elements, such as Draper Hall, which includes comprehensive recycling stations on every floor, an atrium for daylighting/ventilation, occupancy sensors for lights, ceiling fans, low-flow toilets, and rainfall collection for flushing. The College's administrative building, Lincoln Hall, includes many of these same features as well as building materials with recycled and/or low-VOC content, reuse of 75% of the existing structure, and diversion of more than 50% of demolition/construction debris from the landfill. Lincoln Hall is also the first LEED-certified building in Kentucky with Silver Certification.
Another important and inspiring example of Berea's ecological renovations is the Ecovillage, which is an ecologically-sustainable residential and learning complex designed to meet housing needs for student families, childcare for campus children, and provide a living/labor opportunity for students interested in sustainability. The complex includes 50 apartments, a state-of-the-art Child Development Laboratory (CDL), a Commons House, and a Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) demonstration house. Key features of the Ecovillage apartments include solar tubes and compact fluorescent lighting, low-flow toilets and showerheads, low-VOC carpets and paints, ceiling fans, and outdoor clotheslines for drying clothes. In additional to individual garden plots for each apartment, the Ecovillage also includes several raised garden beds and a permaculture "food forest" for all residents' use. The SENS House includes additional features such as a timber frame from College-harvested wood, natural building techniques, a composting toilet, and a net-metering solar electric system. The community's sewage is converted to swimmable quality water by an "ecological machine," which is composed of a series of tanks filled with plants, fish, and other aquaculture. Much of this water is recycled to flush toilets in the Ecovillage. The sustainability goals of the Ecovillage include reducing energy use by 75%, reducing per capita water use by 75%, and reusing or composting at least 50% of waste.
Other important institution-wide sustainability initiatives include:
- A new heat plant that will go online in Fall 2006 and that is a key part of the College's master energy plan to reduce campus energy use by 45% by 2015;
- A Local Food Initiative that, in the past 2 years, has helped College Food Service incorporate produce (and soon meat) from the College Farms/Gardens (which also serve as a labor department and hands-on laboratory for the Agriculture and Natural Resources academic department);
- Bike racks and carpool parking, a campus shuttle system to surrounding communities, and a student-led community bike program;
- Comprehensive campus, energy, and land use plans, which include the management of an 8000-acre College forest and various cross-country/hiking trails open to campus and community use;
- Workers Rights Consortium membership and fair trade coffee in the College bookstore; and
- A campus-wide recycling program, Food Service composting, and a current consultation project to streamline comprehensive recycling/composting/waste management on campus to make more efficient use of resources and increase overall percentage of "waste" redirected from the landfill.
Curriculum & Research
The Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) program, which began in 1999, is the primary academic example of Berea's sustainability initiative. While the SENS program officially offers only a minor, the program has had 10 independent majors in addition to 12 minors. The Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) department also offers a major concentration in sustainable systems.
The SENS program faculty includes a Compton Chair in Ecological Design, which was endowed in 2000 through a gift from the Compton Foundation. This endowed chair is designed to provide expertise and leadership for teaching concepts of sustainability and for campus-wide progress toward sustainable practice. The Compton Chair is also responsible for administering the Compton Internships in Ecological Design, a Berea College-funded initiative supporting student ecological design projects. Up to four internships are available annually for the summer months and are occasionally offered at other times of the year. Berea College students are also eligible to apply for the Compton Mentor Fellowship, which is funded and administered by the Compton Foundation as part of a new initiative that included Berea College in the pilot year of the program. The Compton Mentor Fellowship supports innovative, student-initiated projects that "focus on environment and sustainable development, or connect environmental concerns with peace and conflict resolution, or population and family planning issues." Successful applicants work with a mentor that they choose based on their relevant expertise on the project topic. Student labor positions in the SENS House also contribute to the College's overall sustainability goals by researching, monitoring, and collecting data on various Ecovillage components such as the ecological machine and community recycling/composting.
Last year, the College also received funding for urban gardening sessions, green office and home workshops, and demonstration and research mini-grants with the ecological machine (for water analyses, equipment, workshops, etc.). Gardening workshops are open to Ecovillage residents and members of the broader community. This past spring, Berea offered its first "Greening the Office" and "Taking it Home" workshops for College employees. The mini-grants program is currently being designed and planned for implementation in the coming academic year. (See "Community Service and Outreach" for information about service-learning programs that have supported sustainability-related research and curriculum development.)
The Child Development Laboratory (CDL) provides childcare and pre-school education for not only Ecovillage residents but other students, faculty, staff, and some members of the broader community. The CDL curriculum and landscaping design integrate sustainability education, and the facility also serves as a student labor department, as the hands-on academic laboratory for Child and Family Studies majors, as well as a model for other childcare facilities through tours and other educational events.
Community Service and Outreach
The overall mission of Berea College is summarized in its three-pronged motto of "Learning, Labor, and Service," and is further articulated in its "Great Commitments" through its emphasis on "the motive of service to others" and, in particular, service to "the Appalachian region primarily through education but also by other appropriate services."
One of the most notable examples of Berea's commitment to service is the Center for Excellence in Learning Through Service (CELTS), which was created in 2000 to house all of the student-led service programs and community outreach offices, and to lead an initiative to integrate service into the academic curriculum. CELTS is the home of several student-led environmental initiatives such as HEAL (Helping Earth and Learning), the 10X10 Campaign (promoting 10% renewable energy use by 2010), and Berea Bikes (a community bike program). As a recipient of a three-year Learn and Serve America Consortium Grant program in 2003-2006, CELTS was able to offer a mini-grants program and a faculty fellowship in service-learning that facilitated community partnerships between Berea students/faculty and local non-profit organizations. Several faculty who participated in these programs implemented sustainability-related research projects and curriculum development.
The Ecological Sustainability Education (ESE) program at Berea College is a two-year program supported by one-time funds from foundations as well as contributions from individuals. As part of the ESE program, Berea College received funding in Fall 2005 from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund for a two-year, full-time Sustainability Coordinator position to provide the necessary level of institutional support for furthering the College's sustainability initiatives. The College has also committed to continuing the coordinator position beyond the two-year grant funded period. Some key features of the ESE program include: campus programs and community outreach (workshops, seminars, presentations to local schools, annual conferences, etc.), communications and publicity, as well as teaching and learning programs and resources. Part of the Sustainability Coordinator's work is also to consolidate information on Berea's sustainability initiatives and share it widely across the campus and beyond.
Community partnerships and collaborations are an integral part of many Berea programs, and the College maintains ongoing partnerships with local farmers' markets and various non-profit organizations focused on sustainability and grassroots community development. In April 2006, Berea College hosted the first Campus-Community Partnerships for Sustainability (CCPS) Conference as part of its "Year of the Ecovillage" celebration. More than 350 participants attended the three-day conference, which included presentations, poster sessions, discussions, hands-on workshops, and a local food dinner. The SENS program also offers regular seminars and presentations on sustainability as well as hands-on workshops (natural building, permaculture, etc.), all of which are free and open to anyone on campus and in the broader community. The Convocation program includes free weekly lectures, concerts, and other educational presentations, which include sustainability-related issues at least once or twice each year. The College also offers an annual Appalachian Tour for new employees to acquaint them with the unique culture/landscape of Appalachia and the social/environmental challenges facing the region.