Bryant University
EN-3: Student Life

The SustainUS group holds an annual farmers market at which they sell vegan products. SustainUS promoted the Farmer’s Market via Instagram. Essentially, the group spent a day promoting Rhode Island’s local, sustainable businesses. Some example businesses include Revive the Roots Farm, The Plant Nursery, and Impact Everything. Below is a brief statement regarding the fall 2021 SustainUS Farmer’s Market:
SustainUS planned and hosted a Farmer’s Market in the Rotunda of Bryant’s Unistructure. The goal of the Market was to give students a chance to engage with both local and sustainable small businesses, as well as, to promote the club and its mission to the student body. The event was catered by Piyata, a vegan restaurant located in Providence. Piyata provided vegan, gluten-free protein balls, chickpea salad bites and pizza bagels. This food was paid for by SustainUS and given out to students and faculty for free at the Farmer’s Market to introduce people to vegan food! Other local businesses, such as bakeries and fashion boutiques, came to sell and promote their products. The event lasted about three hours and entertained hundreds of Bryant students.”

SustainUS also sold items collected from students moving out after graduation. Proceeds from each of these events are used to fund initiatives for the group.

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 community projects around assisting Bryant's 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- and off-campus. More information about the Bryant Chapter of Enactus can be found at https://departments.bryant.edu/management/noteworthy.

The Archway Investment Fund, established in 2005, provides 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. Four additional cash infusions in 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2016 were provided to the Fund from the University for a total of $500,000. As of December 2021, the Equity Fund is valued at $1,939,000. The fixed income fund is values at $731,000. The program allows students to develop necessary skills and investment protocols to manage a portfolio of $1,939,000 (as of December 2021).

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, consisting 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 SustainUS student organization regularly creates art installations/sculptures to demonstrate the amount of plastic bottles consumed at Bryant University. In the past, 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.