It’s that time of year again - when thousands of high school seniors around the country are frantically trying to decide which university they’d like to attend as they start the long, daunting college application process.
And now, thanks to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, we’d like to recommend a few college campuses that recently caught our attention. For students looking for a greener education, AASHE just awarded Campus Sustainability Leadership Awards to six North America campuses.
In the community college category, Chandler-Gilbert Community College (Chandler, Arizona) demonstrated its ability to reuse water for irrigation as well as making sure all new buildings meet LEED standards.
In the category of four-year and graduate institutions with under 1,000 students, Green Mountain College (Poultney, Vermont) won for integrating environmental awareness into its curriculum. Students even installed a wind turbine to power the campus greenhouse. Other energy needs on campus are met by electricity generated from methane from local cow manure.
As for four-year and graduate institutions with 1,000-7,500 students, Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont) won for its pledge to be climate-neutral by 2016, as well as for its Step It Up 2007 program launched by alumni.
Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan), a four-year institution with over 7,500 students, has committed to a two percent annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the campus’s Office of Campus Sustainability has an intricate recycling program and funds student sustainability projects.
Evergreen State College (Olympia, Washington) and the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, California; Stanley Hall pictured right) both received honorable mentions.
AASHE also keeps profiles of other green campus. Be sure to check out the Worldwatch Institute’s Campus Greening Initiatives or Kiwi Magazine’s Green College Report for more North American colleges that are changing their school colors to green.
Photo: Robert Canfield, www.berkeley.edu
Tying green travel into college visitation planning is a great idea. I love that this blog took it the next step, which is to propose that high schoolers visit "green" colleges! Thanks for thinking ahead like usual, National Geographic.
If any readers are interested in checking what other prospective schools may be doing on the sustainability side of things, I would encourage you to ASK! Ask about sustainability while on your campus tour. If you want to do a little advance research, search the AASHE website for the school's name. Our website isn't a definitive catalog of campus sustainability programs, but it is a good start.
And, if you like reading blogs, AASHE's staff keeps a running commentary on campus-sustainability related topics over at Campus Sustainability Perspectives.
Posted by: Sam Hummel | October 19, 2007 at 07:00 PM
Thank you for all your help and time. Keep up the great work as well as the great blog!! :)
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Posted by: suzzane donald | August 01, 2008 at 04:33 AM