Campus Green Builder

By Marya McQuirter, PhD
chocolate & arugula

Students Researching the Headwaters
Photo Credit: University of the Incarnate Word

The 3rd and final Building Green Learning Institute, hosted by the United Negro College Fund's Institute for Capacity Building, in partnership with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, Hispanic Association of Colleges & Universities (HACU), Second Nature and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, takes place Thursday 10 June—12 June 2010 in San Antonio, Texas.

The conference is open to administrators and faculty at colleges and universities that primarily serve students of color. For more more information, contact Felicia Davis, Program Director, UNCF Facilities and Infrastructure Enhancement Program, via phone 404-302-8607, ext. 8531 or via email to 
Felicia.Davis@uncf.org.

San Antonio was selected as the site for the 3rd institute because of its proximity to a large number of institutions serving Hispanic students. There are about 270 institutions that serve Latino/a students in the U.S. and about 450 worldwide. This institute will be a wonderful opportunity to learn about the range of sustainability initiatives taking place at these institutions.

The Building Green Learning Institutes are funded by the Kresge Foundation and are part of a larger initiative titled, Building Green at Minority-Serving Institutions.

The main goals of the initiative are:

1. To increase the number of LEED®-registered and -certified buildings.
2. To increase the signatories for the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

When I first started guest blogging in February 2010, these were my goals for the initiative:

1. That all participating schools will return to their campuses and organize a Sustainability Committee, if one does not exist.
2. That all participating schools will dedicate space on their websites (preferably their home pages) to share their sustainability goals and practices.
3. That all participating schools will want to hire a Sustainability Director and determine ways to do so.

Now that we have reached the threshold of the last institute, I have 2 more goals:

1. A reassessment by all the partners about whether the 2 main goals need to be tweaked given all of the new information learned from all 3 institutes about what is actually happening on campuses. The main goals make sense, of course, because they are easily quantifiable. But is that enough?
2. To have the thought leaders at the campuses that have taken on sustainability head on be invited to be thought leaders at a range of sustainability forums where those in attendance are primarily white—not as “racial” or “ethnic” representatives but as administrators who have thoughtfully and successfully engaged sustainability.

I will not be attending the institute in San Antonio so will not do my usual play-by-play. However, Vanessa Santos, Van Du and Georges Dyer of Second Nature will attend and we can look forward to their takes on the institute.
 

Marya McQuirter, PhD is a sustainability consultant, scholar and blogger based in Washington, DC. She works with universities, businesses and non-profits on researching, writing and marketing their sustainability portfolios. She also lectures widely on sustainability and writes about sustainability on her blog, chocolate & arugula.