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University of Vermont 2007 Campus Sustainability Leadership Award Application

Category

Four-year and graduate institutions over 7,500 student FTE

The University of Vermont's Davis Student Center, opening in summer 2007, celebrates and supports social justice, complements the academic mission with student-centered programming, and aims to be the nation's premier sustainably designed college union. Compared with a non-LEED building, the Davis Center will spend approximately 52% less for electricity and heating and cooling, and 41% less for water. Programming includes a Sustainability Gallery with a monitoring system showing real-time and historical energy and water use, and displays providing up-to-date information on student-run activities relating to sustainability.

Contact

Gioia Thompson
Environmental Coordinator
284 East Avenue Room 201,
Burlington, VT
802-656-3803
gioia.thompson@uvm.edu

Governance & Administration

The University of Vermont’s mission describes a commitment to the foundations of a sustainable future, including “an abiding concern for the environment…A strong commitment to diversity …A willingness to address difficult societal issues with honesty, civility, and practicality,” an emphasis on “ethical decision making,” and an “appreciation of our commitment to the State of Vermont and our land-grant heritage.”

The University’s stated academic focus on environment, along with liberal arts and health, has grown out of more than 30 years of course offerings in environmental studies and sciences. About 10 percent of undergraduates major in environmentally related areas, including natural resources, sustainable agriculture, environmental engineering, environmental science, and environmental studies.

The Environmental Council, created in 1996, works with the University’s full-time Environmental Coordinator, who is responsible for tracking environmental performance; recommending environmentally responsible practices; encouraging collaboration among students, faculty members, and staff members; and connecting with the local community.

During the past two years, under the leadership of President Daniel Mark Fogel, the University’s commitment to sustainability and environmental excellence in academics, operations, and outreach has been elevated from a medley of grassroots and departmental efforts to a consolidated, university-wide strategic initiative.

• A sustainability task force is leading a campus and community visioning discussion in 2007 in preparation for a major new program. In June 2007 the President and Provost convened the deans, senior leaders, and state officials in a two-day strategy session with Rocky Mountain Institute about creating sustainable enterprise in Vermont.
  
  
• The Strategic Plan for 2003-2008 emphasizes diversity and environmental excellence in academic programs and operations in two of its seven goals. In 2006 all University policies were reevaluated for their alignment with these strategic goals.
  
  
• The President states that “diversity and inclusion are inseparable from academic excellence,” and to that end has formed President’s Commissions on Racial Diversity, on the Status of Women, and on Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgender Equity.
  
  
• In 2004 Provost John Bramley released a white paper titled Becoming the Nation’s Leading Environmental University, outlining existing strengths and new directions for academics, operations, and outreach.
  
  
• President Fogel signed a pledge in 2004 in support of regional greenhouse gas reductions, and in May 2007 he signed the Presidents’ Climate Commitment.
  
  
• The University’s institutional commitment to tracking environmental performance was recognized in 2004 with a Vermont Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence for the Environmental Council’s environmental report card, Tracking UVM, developed in collaboration with local sustainability organizations.
  
  
• The 2006 Campus Master Plan declares the intention to become a “model for environmental sustainability,” with environmental principles to evaluate new proposals, commitment to LEED construction, and a vision of a pedestrian campus with less land used for parking and best practices in stormwater management.
  
  
• The University is a member of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology program, the Consortium for Environmental Excellence, NACUBO, APPA, and SCUP, as well as Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium and numerous local and regional associations relating to sustainability.

Operations

The Environmental Council (EC) has brought together student and middle managers in facilities and auxiliary services since 1996 through monthly meetings, events, and support of student academic projects. The Environmental Coordinator’s office location in the Physical Plant building facilitates communications between the middle managers of operations and student interested in internships, theses and other academic projects. Managers of recycling, energy, procurement, transportation, dining services, and residential life regularly work with students on demonstration projects, surveys, data analyses, and other activities intended to reduce the campus environmental footprint and increase awareness.

Recent activities include:

• During Convocation 2005 President Fogel signed a green building policy that required meeting the equivalent of LEEDTM standards, and aspired to LEED Silver. Since then, all new UVM buildings have aimed for LEED Silver as a standard, and all are being formally certified at Silver or higher. The Dudley H. Davis Student Center will include a sustainability gallery to highlight the center’s social justice mission and environmental design commitment.
  
  
• Two EC interns led the way to the University mandating the use of 100% recycled, chlorine-free copier paper in April 2006, in collaboration with the President’s office, Procurement, and Print & Mail Services.
  
  
• UVM's Environmental Safety program has been an active participant in the EPA's development of a 2006 performance based regulation for management of chemical wastes from laboratories. This effort has resulted in a 40% decrease in the normalized amount of chemical wastes produced by UVM's 500 teaching and research laboratories over five years.
  
  
• The Energy Management office’s projects with local utilities are estimated to have avoided $2.4 million in electric savings and $2 million in fuel savings between 2000-2005. The program won the Vermont Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence in 2006.
  
  
• The energy office replaced more than 2,000 incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lightbulbs through the EcoReps program (see below) in 2004-2007, most recently in close collaboration with student activists in the Campus Energy Group.
  
  
• The energy office participates in demonstration projects, most recently the fall 2006 installation of a 10kw wind turbine on central campus, with help from two students.
  
  
• Transportation & Parking Services worked with an ongoing Environmental Studies class and the local transportation demand management association to advertise that University students, faculty, and staff can ride local buses free—with tremendous success. The department bought the first two of six new CNG-fueled buses in 2007 as part of a collaborative project with the City of Burlington.
  
  
• With two EC Small Grants and the cooperation of the Grounds, Planning, and Transportation departments, graduate students in Civil and Environmental Engineering designed a rain garden and installed it in June 2006 next to a busy parking lot.
  
  
• The University’s long-established recycling program diverts 30-35% of the waste that would have been landfilled. The University participated in Recyclemania again in 2007, coming in fourth for waste minimization in the northeast. Student orientation in summer 2007 features a near-zero-waste dining experience for new students and their families.

Curriculum & Research

In addition to the Environmental Program, which offers a self-designed major in four colleges, the University of Vermont’s sustainability related academic programs include majors in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (Biological Science, Botany, Environmental Sciences, International Development, Plant & Soil Science, Urban Forestry); the College of Arts and Sciences (Biology, Botany, Geology, Geography, Zoology); the College of Engineering and Mathematics (Environmental Engineering); the Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources (Forestry, Natural Resources, Recreation Management, Wildlife & Fisheries Biology). Research centers span health research and promotion, rural economic vitality, community and place-based education, and environment and natural systems. Examples include the Gund Center for Ecological Economics, Center for Rural Studies, and the Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

Recent high level statements and initiatives have helped provide the tools to foster service learning, residential learning communities, and interdisciplinary activity, blurring traditional lines between academics, research, operations, and outreach:

• In July 2006 UVM launched a $32 million National University Transportation Center with a focus on sustainability and rural transportation. The university will receive federal money from the U.S. Department of Transportation over a five-year period to build core faculty, programs, and technologies to create multi-disciplinary research in the transportation sector. UVM and several public and private partners will match the grant funds for a total $32 million investment.
• Programmed housing at UVM includes Residential Learning Communities (RLC) for international studies, honors students, and people interested in healthy lifestyles. A new RLC for 180 students called the GreenHouse opened in the fall of 2006 in a new LEED Gold building, providing place-based and environmentally themed programming involving faculty, staff and students across all academic units.
• In 2005 a new Green Forestry Education Initiative was launched to transform the Jericho Research Forest, near the UVM campus, into the hub of UVM’s sustainable forestry program. In addition to research and hands-on service academic activities, the program encourages community involvement through monthly events and student projects.
• An interdisciplinary program in Environmental Sciences was recently integrated into the University curriculum, with leadership from the Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources and the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences.
• A summer intensive in Sustainable Business was created in 2005 in collaboration with Continuing Education, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, School of Business Administration, and the Vermont Business Center.
• In 2004 a federal appropriation helped create the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies. VCET is a key component of a UVM-based umbrella organization called the Vermont Innovation Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. This group is designed to serve as a portal to UVM, accelerating technology commercialization, promoting entrepreneurship, and enhancing research effectiveness by breaking down institutional barriers and improving communications and collaboration.
• The Office of Community-University Partnerships and Service Learning, created in September of 2003, supports active, collaborative UVM-community partnerships, high quality service-learning, and community-based scholarship. A recent example involved students helping to recycle mobile homes.
  

Campus Culture

The University of Vermont is blessed to be located in a state and community with many well-established and diverse sustainability projects, programs, and organizations. In addition to traditional activities of the Extension Service, the University fosters sustainability outreach through service learning (described above), collaboration on land use and transportation, and many other activities.

The Environmental Council, composed of faculty, staff, students, and community members, encourages internal outreach and collaboration through the Small Grants program, monthly open meetings, listservs, and an annual Eco-Fair to celebrate successful projects. The Council encourages and tracks external partnerships and collaborations related to campus greening, such as the Clean Cities program, the Vermont Campus Energy Group, the local Alliance for Climate Action, and the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium.

• The UVM Eco-Reps program, started in 2004 as a pilot, won a Vermont Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence in 2005 for its work educating students in the residence halls about environmentally responsible behaviors. In 2006 the program was moved to the new GreenHouse residential learning community, with a doctoral student coordinating the work of 20 or so undergraduate students who will work across campus.
• UVM’s Rubenstein School worked with others outside the University, including the Lieutenant Governor, to establish a Vermont Green Job & Internship Fair in 2005. In 2006 the fair’s professional presentations and student displays focused on renewable energy.
• The University actively supports strong town-gown relations, recently expanding the Office of Student & Community Relations, which in January 2006 released a video developed in cooperation with the Office of Student Conflict Resolution and the Mayor’s Office. The aim of the video is to improve relations between off-campus students and their neighbors. Sustainability outreach has been a long tradition through programs like the George D. Aiken Lectures, which the academic year explored the links between climate change and social justice.
• University Dining Services (contracted through Sodexho) has established a productive relationship with the student activist groups related to sustainability. UDS engaged a student intern to analyze current procurement of native and local food and encourage change; in 2006 the amount of locally grown food was calculated at 5%, up from 1% in 2005. Dining Services plays an active part in the Vermont Fresh Network’s events to celebrate local foods. Fair trade activists have helped bring fair trade coffee to campus, now representing almost half the coffee consumed. UDS’s social responsibility website catalogs current efforts.
• In February 2005 UVM hosted the third Annual Northeast Climate Conference, bringing together 400 college students from the northeastern United States to collaborate on effective ways of fighting climate change on their campuses and in their states. Common themes included grassroots movements, student organizing and networking, outreaching, future planning, and staying positive.
• In October 2006, UVM hosted the Society of Environmental Journalists’ national conference, bringing together policymakers and activists from every point of view with the world's most experienced environmental journalists.
  

Community Service & Outreach

The University of Vermont is blessed to be located in a state and community with many well-established and diverse sustainability projects, programs, and organizations. In addition to traditional activities of the Extension Service, the University fosters sustainability outreach through service learning (described above), collaboration on land use and transportation, and many other activities.

The Environmental Council, composed of faculty, staff, students, and community members, encourages internal outreach and collaboration through the Small Grants program, monthly open meetings, listservs, and an annual Eco-Fair to celebrate successful projects. The Council encourages and tracks external partnerships and collaborations related to campus greening, such as the Clean Cities program, the Vermont Campus Energy Group, the local Alliance for Climate Action, and the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium.

• The UVM Eco-Reps program, started in 2004 as a pilot, won a Vermont Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence in 2005 for its work educating students in the residence halls about environmentally responsible behaviors. In 2006 the program was moved to the new GreenHouse residential learning community, with a doctoral student coordinating the work of 20 or so undergraduate students who will work across campus.
• UVM’s Rubenstein School worked with others outside the University, including the Lieutenant Governor, to establish a Vermont Green Job & Internship Fair in 2005. In 2006 the fair’s professional presentations and student displays focused on renewable energy.
• The University actively supports strong town-gown relations, recently expanding the Office of Student & Community Relations, which in January 2006 released a video developed in cooperation with the Office of Student Conflict Resolution and the Mayor’s Office. The aim of the video is to improve relations between off-campus students and their neighbors. Sustainability outreach has been a long tradition through programs like the George D. Aiken Lectures, which the academic year explored the links between climate change and social justice.
• University Dining Services (contracted through Sodexho) has established a productive relationship with the student activist groups related to sustainability. UDS engaged a student intern to analyze current procurement of native and local food and encourage change; in 2006 the amount of locally grown food was calculated at 5%, up from 1% in 2005. Dining Services plays an active part in the Vermont Fresh Network’s events to celebrate local foods. Fair trade activists have helped bring fair trade coffee to campus, now representing almost half the coffee consumed. UDS’s social responsibility website catalogs current efforts.
• In February 2005 UVM hosted the third Annual Northeast Climate Conference, bringing together 400 college students from the northeastern United States to collaborate on effective ways of fighting climate change on their campuses and in their states. Common themes included grassroots movements, student organizing and networking, outreaching, future planning, and staying positive.
• In October 2006, UVM hosted the Society of Environmental Journalists National Conference, bringing together policymakers and activists from every point of view with the world's most experienced environmental journalists.
  

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