Albion College
EN-3: Student Life

The College Center for Sustainability and the Environment includes both academic and co-curricular activities. It has a bi-weekly seminar in which includes student and external speakers and co-curricular events are planned. Activities such as our adopt-a-highway cleanup, river cleanups, recyclemania, Green Day fairs and swaling activities spring from these meetings. The seminar carries no academic credit, but is required of all students in the Center.

The Albion College Environmental Club is the largest student run environmental organization. This student club strives to educate and motivate the campus and the community of problems that affect our complex environment, including all the interactions between the natural ecosystem and the man-made world. Every trip and event put on by the Environmental Club is a step toward actively promoting students, staff, and community members to change their lifestyle and thinking habits to preserve, protect, and enjoy their connections with their surrounding environment.

The Farm Club works with Center for Sustainability and Environment and the Whitehouse Nature Center to introduce students to an environment where they can learn new, sustainable farming practices. Moreover it provides students with an experience of running a profitable agriculturally-based business.

Albion College Student Farm is a student organization governed by an elected group of students and advised by the Director of the College's Nature Center and College Faculty. The farm is located on approximately two acres in the Nature Center, and has a 30' by 50' hoop house, large shed and working well. It sells produce to the College cafeteria and provides gardening programs for children in the community.

As part of Earth Day 50, the Center for Sustainability and Environment had a series of events, speakers and film screenings in 2020. The list of events can be viewed in the link below.

As a part of the Albion College art department’s 2020 Artist-in-Residence Program, Christine Carr was invited to spend a few months with a gallery and studio space in Bobbitt Auditorium. While this time was abruptly brought to a halt due to COVID-19 concerns, Carr was still able to create some lasting memories and gain new inspiration from Albion. Carr's work focuses on air pollution and climate change.

The Environmental and Kayaking club organize hikes and trips to different parts of the US in Fall and Spring Break. Along with that, the Whitehouse Nature Center also leads nature and bird walks to outdoor education camps for children from the community.

Sustainability Theme Year, at present time once every three years:

"For the 2013-2014 academic-year, Albion College focuses its collective attention on sustainability as part of an interdisciplinary education that is designed for those who will be engaged in solving today’s and tomorrow’s social, environmental and economic challenges.

Each month of the 2013-2014 Sustainability Theme Year will feature events, speakers, films, service opportunities and a monthly discussion where interested students, faculty, staff and community members can reflect on a particular issue.

But sustainability at Albion College is more than a theme; it is an institutional priority. Throughout the year and beyond we'll learn together, reflect together and act together to make decisions in our daily lives, on our campus and in our community that ignite and sustain a passion for a healthy, diverse and sustainable world."

The College's E-House is a collaborative project between Residential Life and the Center for Sustainability and the Environment, guided by the philosophy that sustainable living includes both use of appropriate technology and making appropriate lifestyle choices. The program has both curricular and co-curicular elements. In their first semester of residence, all members of the house take a 1/2 unit seminar entitled "Sustainable Living" which involves reading and discussing relevant literature as well as undertaking a variety of projects. The project is student governed to the extent that students are asked to take responsibility for their own governance, and there is no College appointed RA/RC in the house.

The College's nature center employs student workers who assist with programming, staffing the interpretive center and trail maintenance and projects such as rain-garden installation.

Every summer, the Center for Sustainability and the Environment collaborates to support two Farm interns, who are paid to work half time at the Student Farm and half time at the Nature Center.

There also have been occasional paid internships in Facilities Grounds management helping with planning development and sustainability reporting. Also occasionally (but not presently) students in our freshman research partner program have been paid to assist college faculty in projects such as completing our greenhouse gas inventories.