Beloit College
IN-24: Innovation A

The Sustainability Coordinator for Beloit College, a liberal arts college of 1300 undergraduates, has historically hired 2-3 students each year due to limited supervision bandwidth, despite greater student interest. With an emphasis on student leadership development, the employment model was revamped to provide ~20 student employment positions. Two different types of positions were created: Leaders and Assistants. Each of the 4-5 Leaders manages a team of their peers on a specific subject: energy, waste, food, communications, and a limited duration topic that alternates depending on campus need. During the first week of the semester the Sustainability Coordinator provides training for the 4-5 leaders on project management, group meeting preparation and facilitation, and semester and year planning and goal setting. Additionally, the Sustainability Coordinator and the leaders meet once every week to review team progress, address hurdles, celebrate success, and read through and discuss a selected academic book or set of articles. Leaders work 10 hours per week and manage a small group of their peers while Assistants work 4 hours per week and get hands on experience with on-campus sustainability projects. This model provides student employees with valuable project-based learning opportunities and develops a pipeline of future student sustainability leaders as well as candidates for the summer sustainability research program. Lastly, this model enables a single coordinator to provide ~20 student employment opportunities, quadrupling employment and resulting events, initiatives and research, while maintaining the one-on-one mentorship model with a small number of students.