Arizona State University
ER-1: Student Sustainability Educators Program

Candidates must be upper-class Arizona State University students living in residence halls. Candidates must submit a resume to the Housing Sustainability Coordinator. Paraprofessionals are selected based on their experience with student engagement, knowledge and enthusiasm about sustainability issues, and their interest in continuing personal growth.

Training and development for paraprofessionals this year included two weeks of summer orientation, team building, review of Arizona State University’s sustainability goals and by extension, University Housing’s sustainability goals. Once the school semester begins, the team has weekly meetings to discuss ongoing projects and assign tasks.

University Housing, in collaboration University Sustainability Practices, created a part time position called Housing Sustainability Coordinator. The responsibility of the Housing Sustainability Coordinator was to design and implement university-wide programming to educate, activate and energize all residential students about sustainability initiatives at ASU. To do this, the Housing Sustainability Coordinator managed a Sustainability Paraprofessional Program where the student Sustainability Paraprofessionals were compensated by receiving free housing and a semester stipend so that they would live within their residential community of students. The Sustainability Paraprofessionals worked on various programming for their individual residence halls as well as larger projects including special recycling collections in residence halls, recycling at residential life events, recycling signage in rooms and dining areas, and Energy Wars. Additionally, they did tabling, bulletin boards, and used social media to promote these and other campus-wide initiatives. To ensure that continuing or non-credit students were not included, the number of students was rounded to 10,000 students and purposely did not include any of the remaining number of students living in residence halls during the submittal year.

Potential University Sustainability Practices interns are asked to submit resumes and then undergo a thorough interview process. The best candidates are chosen based on matched interest levels, compatibility and needs of the department.

All University Sustainability Practices interns go through Arizona State University's orientation and take all pertinent safety classes such as “driving on the mall” for vehicle use as needed. The interns also undergo a mentoring process with the Director of University Sustainability Practices and other staff members of the department. They meet weekly to set goals and track progress with the Director of University Sustainability Practices and their supervisor.

The Director of University Sustainability Practices provides oversight to the student interns as needed. Each intern is awarded a stipend each semester in addition to receiving staff support from three full time employees in the University Sustainability Practices department.

Candidates are on a volunteer basis. Lead officers of various groups on campus may apply. Applicants are reviewed by the core Center for Student Sustainability Initiative's management team, mostly comprised of University Sustainability Practices interns, and vetted for relevance and overlapping campus sustainability missions.

Once approved, new group orientation is led by a Center for Student Sustainability Initiatives managing student and the club or organization gains access to the broader network of groups working on sustainability issues on campus. A prerequisite of joining is having a registered student organization (RSO)status. All RSOs must complete a four hour seminar on budgeting, fundraising, recruitment and risk management.

The Director of University Sustainability Practices provides oversight to the center as needed. Other financial support comes in the form of budget requests the RSOs make to student government in support of their work/projects.

Another volunteer based organization, Green team seeks out energetic, engaged students who are passionate about zero waste events.

Green team members must attend regular update meetings, pre-event briefings and on-site training. Training is fairly minimal as their task and mission are straight forward: to advocate for recycling at major events and reduce contamination levels in the recycling stream. Sometime transportation of recyclables is required and these logistics are covered in pre event briefings.

Green Team has a faculty/staff advisor who periodically consults on their activities. The advisor offers assistance where needed.