AASHE Home > Resource Center > Campus Profiles > 2007

Furman University 2007 Campus Sustainability Leadership Award Application

Category

Four-year and graduate institutions 1,000 - 7,500 student FTE

Students workers in the organic garden.

Contact

James Wilkins
Environmental Sustainability Intern
3300 Poinsett Hwy,
Greenville, SC
864-294-2076
james.wilkins1203@furman.edu

Governance & Administration

Furman University President David Shi is among the first signatories of the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment Leadership Circle. In June, he served as one of three spokespeople for the ACUPCC in Washington, DC.

Formed in May 2007, a Sustainability Planning Group, composed of 18 faculty, staff, students and trustees, has the purpose of creating the institutional structures and plans needed to meet the goals of the Presidents Climate Commitment. The committee, co-chaired by the vice president and academic dean and the chair of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Dept. will also create a comprehensive sustainability master plan for the university. The committee is currently reading “Degrees That Matter” by Ann Rappaport and Sarah Hammond Creighton, and will meet weekly beginning in September.

An endowment investment specialist has recently been hired to better manage and make more transparent, from an environmental perspective, our $500 million endowment.

In February 2001, Furman’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved the goal to "Enhance Awareness of Environmental Sustainability" as part of the university's Strategic Plan called "Engaging the Future." www.furman.edu/planning/StrategicPlan/

In 2006-2007, Furman celebrated the Year of the Environment (YOE, budget $25k) whose theme was Awareness, Responsibility, and Action. Led by a committee of 25 faculty, staff, students, administrators and community members, Furman used the entire YOE to gather and focus the resources, policies and programs needed to further turn the university in a more sustainable direction. About 4000 students attended 35 formal environmental programs including talks by Senator John Glenn, James Howard Kunstler, climate critic Richard Lindzen, Paul Roberts (author of “The End of Oil”). Other informal environmental events and programs attracted thousands more to campus. View many of Furman’s sustainability activities at www.sustainfurman.com

Furman’s commitment to sustainability in 2006-07 brought an invitation to join eight other schools in competing for eight post-graduate $36k Compton Mentor Fellowships. Both of our nominees received the awards. http://www.furman.edu/?articleid=1951

Since 1997, Furman has been involved with the Associated Colleges of the South’s Environmental Initiative (ACSEI), with Faculty Fellows and Student Interns. Each year the fellow and interns support the ACSEI objectives and programming hosting and attending workshops and conferences and supporting ACSEI alliances (http://www.colleges.org/enviro/index.html).

The Furman Lake Restoration Project (budget >$50k), arising out of the YOE, is an effort to increase and naturalize the vegetation around a 28-acre lake on campus to improve water quality and wildlife habitat. One of our students received a 2007 National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology Fellow for her involvement in the project.

An Environmental Sustainability Committee, formed in 2005, explores and raises awareness of sustainability initiatives throughout the university. This committee continues to collaborate with students, faculty and staff to sponsor a number of events.

Furman’s Environmental Intern continues to strengthen and broaden the university’s conservation and recycling efforts and supports its sustainability programs and projects.

The Office of Admissions is committed to attracting more students with an interest in environmental issues and proposes strategies for raising awareness among both potential and current students.

Operations

Six new building have been constructed since 1998 using LEED standards and all new construction on campus will meet LEED Silver certification or higher. Energy Conservation Standards are employed whenever possible with new construction and renovations.

Furman’s Hipp Hall was the first LEED Certified building in South Carolina and is still the only Gold rated building in the state. In October the SC Green Building Council awarded Furman its green building award.

Furman’s James B. Duke Library was awarded the 2006 Sustainable Design Award from the Carolinas Chapter of the International Interior Designers Association. Furman completed the expansion and renovation of the library in 2004 and applied for LEED Silver certification.

Furman will serve as the location for a 2008 Southern Living Showcase Home that will be a model of green design, renewable energy and operating efficiency. The house will be among the first residential homes in America to receive LEED certification. It will also be the first environmentally sustainable Southern Living Showcase Home. The home will be open for public tours for one year, and is expected to draw as many as 30,000 visitors from across the country. At the end of the public phase, the home will revert to Furman and be retrofitted as the university's Center for Sustainability, which will provide office and meeting space for a growing array of sustainability initiatives. The home’s sustainability features include a geothermal ground source heat pump, photovoltaic and solar thermal systems, an organic vegetable garden, and rainwater collection for irrigation. The home will feature Energy Star-rated appliances, low VOC paints, sustainable flooring and other green products. Construction will be completed by June 2008.

A campus energy policy includes suggestions for conserving energy, such as shutting off lights and other equipment when not in use and replacing light bulbs with CFL's. Other improvements include: lighting retrofits, HVAC system replacements, use of Variable Frequency Drives (VFD’s), upgrades to HVAC Control systems, temperature set points, and the use of occupancy sensors.

For renovations, building systems and controls are replaced with direct digital control (DDC) systems that are connected to a central front-end computer. This computer controls building temperature set points and occupied/unoccupied space conditions.

Public Safety has replaced two of its cruisers with new Hybrid vehicles. Future vehicle replacements will include hybrids.

ARAMARK, Furman's dining services provider, has committed to local and organic food sources to the extent that it is able to obtain these products. Nationally, ARAMARK has instituted a new position, Vice President for Sustainability, and has designated Furman as a pilot program for this project.

Green Purchasing guidelines were adopted in 2006 for all university purchasing endeavors.

Furman's Janitorial Services department has switched its product line to Butcher's products, which are Green Seal Certified. Custodial staff completed training with the new products and Furman is now certified by Johnson Diverser through its Healthy High Performance Cleaning Program.

In 2006 the campus began recycling electronic waste. Collected E-waste is taken to a Greenville County recycling center that accepts electronics.

Curriculum & Research

The South Carolina Wildlife Federation has given Furman University its Organization Award in recognition of the university's commitment to sustainability and conservation education. In particular, the SCWF highlighted Furman's green building and environmental research efforts.

Nine departments in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities contribute to a Concentration in Environmental Studies. Students in the capstone course for the concentration are involved in service learning projects in the community.

The Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) department is taking a more systems-focused perspective and is participating in the "Engaged Living" program. In this program, 19 freshmen participated in a living-learning hall, took Environmental Science together, and engaged in environmentally oriented service-learning projects. Each student was part of the Environmental Community of Students (ECOS) and received a $1000 stipend. The program is continuing in 2007-08 and 20 students have been offered stipends. www.furman.edu/wip/engagedliving/ecos.html

The Chemistry department has added a certified track in Environmental Chemistry, as well as new courses to the curriculum such as Environmental Ethics.

Environmental research has grown dramatically. The River Basins Research Initiative is a project piloted by the EES Department and supported by nearly $2 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, the Associated Colleges of the South, the Saluda-Reedy Watershed consortium and South Carolina DHEC. The research program, which began in 1997, has involved as many as 11 faculty from seven departments (Biology, Chemistry, EES, Sociology, Economics, Political Science, and Philosophy). Over 140 students supported by these grants have conducted research on the effect of land use on water quality in major upstate river systems. This is the largest single research initiative in Furman's history, and it provides our undergraduates with an unparalleled interdisciplinary experience in engaged learning.

The faculty has approved a revised curriculum, which includes the following:
All undergraduates will be required to take two courses in "Global Awareness". One will focus on the relationship between "Humans and the Natural Environment", and one will focus on "World Cultures." Although Furman has long had a requirement that exposes students to cultural diversity, the "Humans and the Natural Environment" requirement marks an important step in the evolution of Furman's curriculum. By including this requirement, Furman recognizes that:

• Human cultures evolved within an environmental context, and remain dependent on the environment for resources and irreplaceable ecosystem services such as air purification, water purification, and soil fertility.
  
  
• Understanding how the world operates as an environmental system that supports life is fundamental, required knowledge for an educated person in our modern society
  
  
• Environmental issues are often moral issues that force us to consider how our behaviors - and patterns of resource use and waste production - directly and indirectly affect the lives of other people and organisms on this planet.
  

Campus Culture

Well over half of the graduating students this year signed a graduation pledge for environmental and social responsibility and wore green ribbons on their gowns during the ceremony. President Shi recognized signers during the ceremony.

On Campus Sustainability Day in October 2005, around 100 students participated in campus sustainability projects that included a Furman Lake and creek clean up and campus trail maintenance.

Furman planted its first organic garden in Spring 2007, using student and staff labor. We began composting pre-consumer waste from the dining hall in fall of 2006.

Home to eight students each year, Furman’s Eco-Cottage, an ongoing research project that began in 1999 with the goal of helping students “gain applied knowledge about alternative energy sources, recycling, sustainable practices such as efficient appliances, and monitoring resource usage.” It is a fully functioning total-immersion experiment in sustainable living. On their own initiative, this years residents insulated the water heater pipes, installed showerheads that used half as much water, put in rain barrels for use in irrigation of the landscape and adjacent organic garden. This year’s residents also provided the primary labor (volunteer) in the organic garden, and helped to increase overall student involvement in the garden.

Starting in 2005 the student environmental action group has been producing biodiesel from waste vegetable oil from the campus-dining hall. The biodiesel is sold to Facilities Services at a discount for use in their diesel vehicles and equipment. The sale of the biodiesel serves as a fundraiser for this student group.

The student environmental action group (EAG) co-sponsors with other campus groups speakers, panels and films that deal with sustainability. In addition, EAG organized and led a number of programs this year in support of sustainability:

Tire pressure check - during the fall and spring terms, students checked and corrected the tire pressure of close to 200 vehicles. They also put together and distributed brochures on proper car care and smart driving that lowers emissions, saves money, and increases safety.

"Furman Gets Trashed" – Second annual trash sort on the steps of the library provides a striking visual (and smell) of a part of the student waste stream. Sorted trash was displayed and labeled in front of the library for the following 24 hours.

NV Kill-A-Watt Challenge - An October to April energy competition in which 10 student apartment buildings compete to see who can reduce energy consumption the most as compared to a baseline from that buildings previous years usage. Overall, students saved over 160k kWh over 8 months.

Students also organized, set up, and participated in the eco-village component of the band Guster and Reverb Rock’s Campus Consciousness Tour. Prior to the concert, the group hosted Adam Gardener (from the band) and a faculty and staff panel in a Town Hall Forum to discuss campus and national sustainability issues.

The Internship Office has improved the visibility of sustainability-oriented internships and increased its efforts to find internships for students interested in the various aspects of sustainability.

Community Service & Outreach

The class of 2007 senior gift was the building of the first Earth Craft certified Habitat for Humanity home in South Carolina. The home was completed before graduation and is located in nearby Traveler’s Rest, SC (<4 miles from campus).

All student groups and athletic teams have community service components to their programs. This past year several groups chose to support sustainability on and off campus with their service work. Most notable among these groups in 2006-07 is the women’s soccer team.

Furman raised public awareness when Furman’s Riley Institute hosted a 3-day symposium on local, national, and global environmental issues in Sept 2006. Such events as well as ongoing media attention to Furman’s Sustainability efforts, is raising the public dialog and action in our conservative southeast state with regard to the various components of sustainability.

Furman works closely with Upstate Forever, a Greenville-based nonprofit that combats sprawl and encourages smart growth in a 7- county region in upstate South Carolina, one of the fastest growing regions in the country. Furman students have interned for UF for the past several years.

Furman is collaborating with community members and public and private groups in a grassroots effort to convert the abandoned "Swamp Rabbit" rail line into a trail for hikers, runners, and cyclists. The 13-mile railroad line, with nearly 2 miles through the Furman campus, extends from downtown Greenville to Traveler's Rest.

The SC Solar Council founded on the Furman Campus in 2004, continues to hold at least one of its quarterly meetings on campus.

Furman is a project partner in the Saluda-Reedy Watershed Consortium, a group of organizations and individuals concerned about the impacts of development and changing land use on waterways and lakes in the Saluda-Reedy River basin.

President David Shi is chair of Greenville's Vision 2025, a visioning process designed to create a sustainable Greenville by the year 2025, when the city's population is estimated to reach 1.3 million.

Spring term 2007, Furman hosted an environmental multimedia exhibition inviting works of art that “inform and inspire us about the natural world”. Over 100 pieces were submitted from the Furman community as well as from high school students and other artists. Fifty pieces are currently on display in the university library.

On April 14th, 2007, student Environmental Action Group hosted Step it Up 2007 on campus for community members and students on this national day of climate action.

All material copyright 2005-2008
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