Bryant University
EN-3: Student Life

Enactus is an international non-profit organization of students, faculty and corporate leaders that focus on creating entrepreneurial sustainable solutions for community issues. Using business concepts, our group uses business solutions to develop community outreach projects to shape a better, more sustainable world. Bryant University's chapter of Enactus focuses our community projects to assist our local community of Rhode Island with social, economic and environmental issues. One of Enactus' projects is called 'Green Team' which focuses on green initiatives on campus and off campus Another student group on campus is the Student Sustainability Ambassadors. The mission of the Student Sustainability Ambassadors Program is to serve as a support and training program for students who have leadership characteristics and have a passion for creating positive change in the community through hands on experience. Ambassadors serve as the primary student educators and coordinators for campus and community related sustainability initiatives ranging from energy and water conservation and waste diversion to sustainability in the supply chain and food and dining. Ambassadors can take on various levels of involvement from project development and management, communications, marketing, research, and more! This year the Ambassadors conducted a Game Day Recycling Challenge, and in depth recycling audits of the residence halls on campus to enhance the recycling infrastructure and educate students on recycling.

The Archway Investment Fund was established in 2005 to provide Bryant University students with the opportunity to manage an investment portfolio following the principles used by financial professionals. The initial investment in The Equity Fund was $200,000. Additional cash infusions of $500,000 total in four installments in 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2016 were provided to the Fund from the University. The program allows students to develop necessary skills and investment protocols to manage a currently-valued portfolio of approximately $1,300,000 (as of December 2018). The Fixed Income Fund was launched in Fall 2017 and is currently valued at approximately $500,000. Within The Equity Fund there is a focus on ESG. ESG EMPHASIS (Environmental, Social, and Governance analysis) Sustainability has become an important consideration in how the Fund operates. The Fund is looking to include an ESG tilt on its investment strategy and start to focus on how ESG will affect the returns of companies. With the increasing popularity of socially responsible investing strategies, the AIF sees value and potential in evaluating a company’s corporate responsibility. The Fund is utilizing possible methods for implementing ways to evaluate companies on these criteria, such as ESG scores and ratings, and qualitative analysis of a company’s sustainability. For ESG metrics, students run reports from Sustainalytics on each company they present for potential investment to address issues surrounding ESG. Furthermore, AIF has an ESG committee which consists of 5 students each semester who do in-depth research on ESG and present to the class to advance expertise on ESG trends.

Bryant University North East Entrepreneurial Conference - regularly invites sustainability advocates as speakers. last year's speakers included: -Craig Dubitsky - founder and CEO of "Hello" personal care products which are thoughtful, responsibly sourced ingredients and materials, from sustainable bamboo and stevia to boxes made from 100% recycled paper printed with soy-based ink. - Dan MacCombie - a social entrepreneur with a passion for creating new pathways and models for connecting communities, livelihoods, food, and ecosystems in a way that re-imagines how we can connect with our planet.

The Sustain Us student organization regularly creates art installations/sculptures to demonstrate how the amount of plastic bottles used at Bryant University. This statue was prominently displayed in the student center.

The Bryant Outdoor Adventure Club promotes involvement in outdoor activities including kayaking, hiking, apple picking, scuba diving and caving. This organization regularly abides by a "Leave No Trace" set of principles.

Some Honors Capstone experiences have focused on exploration of sustainability goals. In the Science & Technology Department two recent examples featured studies of coastal resilience in Rhode Island, and on Sustainable Food Management on the Bryant campus. The Corporate Social Responsibility in Global Supply Chain Management course focuses on the strategic impact of corporate social responsibility on the global supply chain. The goals of this course are to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of the various types of supply chain events that are connected to corporate social responsibility and the strategic best practices to mitigate these events.

Each year some students who are majors or minors in the Department of Science & Technology work with professors to conduct research on a variety of topics related to pollution monitoring and abatement, climate change studies, coastal ecology, and studies of the Blackstone River. Additionally, there are summer research programs funded by NSF (EPSCoR), NIH (INBRE) and NASA, wherein, students receive fellowships for their studies (SURF – Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships). The laboratories of the following professors are involved in these and other studies: Professors Blais, Crowley-Parmentier, Langlois, Leng, McNally, Reid, and Yang. These projects often result in presentations at regional, national, and international conferences, and subsequently lead to jointly-authored publications in the scientific literature. When the grants provide stipends, the students are “employed”, whereas, when the research is structured as a course, the students receive academic credit.