Beloit College
PA-1: Sustainability Coordination

The Sustainability Steering Committee was formed during the summer of 2013 to envision a concerted effort to embed sustainability into the College's curriculum, operations, and culture. It is composed of faculty, staff, and a student representative. The Steering Committee succeeded in securing an important grant to help fund incentives for including sustainability in curriculum and operations planning, and hiring a Sustainability Coordinator and a Hall Director focused on Sustainability, among other things. In 2014: The College wrote and passed a 3 year strategic plan for Sustainability including goals around curriculum, campus engagement, and operations. The Steering Committee released a call for proposals from faculty and staff for Sustainability Citizen Courses and Leader Teams, which are funded opportunities to engage research and study of sustainability in a wide variety of disciplines. The Sustainability Coordinator began work on a communications campaign, introducing new webpages and revamping old webpages around sustainability. Sustainability Assistants (hired work-study students) were tasked with educating their peers about sustainability concepts through the newly created Beloit College Sustainability Facebook page, and articles within the institution's online news forum, the Terrarium and student newspaper, the Round Table. The Sustainability Coordinator worked with students, staff, and faculty, to introduce, research, and eventually pass several new projects to the Revolving Loan Fund, doubling the amount of projects seen by the Revolving Loan Fund in previous years. The Sustainability Hall Director oversaw a first-ever Sustainability RA Group, who provided both passive and active programming around sustainability concepts for the student population.

The Sustainability Steering Committee will construct a three-tiered framework of increasingly sophisticated project-based student learning pathways that will simultaneously embed sustainability in its curriculum, operations, and culture. The aims of Pathways to Sustainability Leadership include: 1) embedding sustainability in the liberal learning of our students; 2) preparing our graduates to exercise environmental leadership in their careers through the development of expertise and individual capacity for action around sustainability; 3) linking learning opportunities—including those associated with campus operations, residential living, and the greater Beloit community—with the creation and implementation of solutions in pressing areas of sustainability; and 4) through this synergy, promoting an intentional long-term approach to sustainable living more broadly and deeply among our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the larger community.

Yaffa Grossman, Biology Faculty, Director of the Sustainability Fellows Program, Co-chair of the Sustainability Steering Committee; Sue Swanson, Geology Faculty, Co-chair of the Sustainability Steering Committee; Chris Fink, English Faculty; Jo Ortel, Art & Art History Faculty; Lindsay Chapman, Sustainability Coordinator; Lori Rhead, VP Operations & Human Resources; Matt Tedesco, Associate Dean of the College, Philosophy Faculty; Matthew McKay, Sustainability Hall Director; Sarah Coyer, Assistant Director of Residential Life; Student Representative

The Sustainability Office is run by the Sustainability Coordinator, who coordinates planning, catalyzes change, provides ongoing support for sustainability efforts, and fosters a vision of transformative change at Beloit College. The office will be a space for collaboration between students, faculty and staff.

Critical to the success of Pathways to Sustainability Leadership is a Sustainability Coordinator who will coordinate planning, catalyze change, provide ongoing support for sustainability efforts, and foster a vision of transformative change at Beloit College. This individual will collaborate with students, Faculty and Staff Mentors, a Steering Committee, the Hall Director, the Director of the Physical Plant, and senior staff to ensure that the college’s sustainability efforts align with the college mission. She/he will help set goals for and evaluate the outcomes of sustainability initiatives and will organize and manage data relating to sustainability initiatives, thereby effectively identifying needs, reducing redundancy, and maintaining quality standards. Additionally, the coordinator will mentor students, faculty, and staff, and organize activities across all facets of Pathways for Sustainability Leadership, including the stewardship of relationships with community and regional partners. The Sustainability Coordinator will be responsible for developing Beloit College’s Sustainability Plan in collaboration with students, faculty, and staff in her first year. This plan will set clear goals for a sustainable future at the college and long-term pathways for achieving those goals.