Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 75.79
Liaison Mary Whitney
Submission Date Sept. 22, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

Chatham University
PA-1: Sustainability Coordination

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Mary Whitney
University Sustainability Coordinator
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have at least one sustainability committee, office, and/or officer that focuses on sustainability broadly and covers the entire institution?:
Yes

A brief description of the activities and substantive accomplishments of the committee(s), office(s), and/or officer(s) during the previous three years:

Chatham University's Office of Sustainability is the administrative home of all campus sustainability projects. The office works to initiate change on campus with the hope of moving Chatham to carbon neutrality. We coordinate with University departments, faculty, and student groups to take steps to a more sustainable living, learning, and working environment for the campus community.

The Office of Sustainability has achieved a variety of accomplishments, including:
-2013-2014: Princeton Review's list of 332 Green Colleges
-2014 Green Workplace Challenge awards banquet held on Chatham's campus
-April 2014: Rachel Carson Commemoration and Garden Dedication to start a perennial garden in Rachel Carson's honor on the Shadyside Campus
-2014-2015: Chatham selected as part of the Green Workplace Challenge Leader Board
-Spring 2014: Joined the Food Waste Recovery Network
-March 2014: Chatham hosts the "Women and Biking Forum" in partnership with Bike Pittsburgh
-Students, staff, faculty, and on-campus dorms and facilities pledge to participate in "Earth Hour," and in March 2015, the City of Pittsburgh and businesses and organizations around Pittsburgh join Chatham in a citywide "Earth Hour" celebration
-2014 RecycleMainia Competition: Chatham ranked Top 20 for Waste Minimization and Top 10 for Food Service Organics
-September 2014: Hosted "Time as Money: A Documentary Film about Timebanking" in conjunction with the Falk School of Sustainability and the Three Rivers Timebank
-October 2014: Faculty and staff participated in the NorthWest Earth Institute's EcoChallenge, coordinated by the Office of Sustainability
-Fall 2014: Chatham again joins the Green Workplace Challenge
-Fall 2014: The BikeWorks bike shop hosted workshops on basic bike maintenance
-October 2014: The Chatham University Green Fund is launched
-Fall 2014: E-Waste recycling bins are installed on all three of Chatham's campuses
-November 2014: Chatham partnered with the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP), UPMC, Allegheny Co. Health Department, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, Sota Construction, and PJ Dick on a new Clean Construction Vehicle program and hosted an industry panel at the Shadyside campus on clean construction trends
-Spring 2015: The RoundUp for Green Fund program was instituted at Cafe Rachel and in Anderson Dining Hall
-Chatham University was listed at #47 on The Princeton Review Green Schools Top 50 Schools list and #20 on The Sierra Club’s Cool Schools 2014 list
-RecycleMania 2015: 11th for Grand Champion, with a recycling rate of 66.821%, 4th for food waste organics/ compost with a rate of 24.738 pounds per person, and first place in sustainable actions student engagement as part of the 3R Actions Challenge competition
-Spring 2015: Project Green Sleeves, one of our RecycleMania initiatives, has also been extremely successful as a fundraiser for the Green Fund. Chatham crafters have been creating and donating coffee cup sleeves to be sold at Cafe Rachel for $1, which have been selling out almost immediately
-Summer 2015: Chatham hosted the "Shale Waste Disposal Forum" with the League of Women Voters


Does the institution have at least one sustainability committee?:
Yes

The charter or mission statement of the committee(s) or a brief description of each committee's purview and activities:

The mission of the Chatham University Campus Climate Commitment Committee is to reduce the university's carbon footprint and achieve sustainability in energy use as described in the Presidents' Climate Commitment with communication and involvement of the entire Chatham community.

The Climate Committee membership includes faculty, staff, and students of Chatham University who come together biweekly to discuss and plan initiatives to push Chatham towards becoming a carbon neutral campus. The committee includes four subcommittees that work on specialized programming for campus. These committees are as follows: Alternative Transportation, Waste Reduction, Energy, and Outreach.


Members of each committee, including affiliations and role (e.g. staff, student, or faculty):

-Walter Fowler-Vice-President of Finance and Administration
-Mary Whitney, Sustainability Coordinator
-Steven Karas, Assistant Professor of Health Sciences
-Deborah DeLong, Assistant Professor of Marketing
-Joellen Popma, Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology
-Tracy Bartel, Assistant Professor of Human Development
-Cynthia Magistro, Professor of Counseling Psychology
-Jeri Hale, Secretary to the Assistant Dean, College Graduate Studies, College of Continuing and Professional Studies.
-Patricia DeMarco, Director of the Rachel Carson Institute
-Jackie Filla, Assistant Professor of Political Science
-Michael Boyd, Assistant Professor of Music
-Jessica Mooney, Assistant to the Dean, School of Sustainability and the Environment
-Joan Kiel, Adjunct Professor of Buisiness
-Kevin Pilarski, Property Manager at Eastside
-Bob DuBray, Director of Facilities & Management and Public Safety
-Rachel Leftwich, Student
-Priyamvada Sharma, Student
-Catherine Giles, Student
-Kara Nelms, Student
-Ann Payne, Student
-Lyndy Palmer, Student
-BUS609: Business and Sustainability Class


The website URL where information about the sustainability committee(s) is available:
Does the institution have at least one sustainability office that includes more than 1 full-time equivalent (FTE) employee?:
Yes

A brief description of each sustainability office:

Chatham University's Office of Sustainability is the administrative home of all campus sustainability projects. The office works to initiate sustainable change on campus. One of the larger projects Chatham is working on is moving the university towards carbon neutrality. We coordinate with University departments, faculty, and student groups to take steps to a more sustainable living, learning, and working environment for the campus community.


Full-time equivalent (FTE) of people employed in the sustainability office(s):
2

The website URL where information about the sustainability office(s) is available:
Does the institution have at least one sustainability officer?:
Yes

Name and title of each sustainability officer:
Mary Whitney, Director of Sustainability

A brief description of each sustainability officer position:

The Director will be responsible for the following:

•Analyze current sustainability practices at the university, including recycling, transportation, energy use, land use, and other areas of sustainability against current research and trends worldwide, propose policies and new practices based on that analysis, and work with administration, facilities, faculty, staff, students and outside contractors to implement them at all campuses.
•Co-chair the President’s Climate Commitment Committee. Work with administration, facilities and institutional advancement to meet carbon neutrality goals for all campuses.
•Lead collaboration and communication on sustainability practices at the university and beyond, coordinating the efforts of members of the Chatham community and community partners.
•Develop and implement formal and informal educational initiatives, via formal courses and informal workshops on environmental studies, environmental citizenship and sustainability. Lead informal environmental education professional development programs. Develop outreach activities to complement academic programs.
•Represent and share Chatham’s sustainability efforts to a larger community via conference presentations, serving on committees and boards of local, regional and national organizations, publications, events, etc.
•Advise Chatham students in the area of environmental issues and sustainability practices, including serving as the advisor to Green Horizons student group, academic advising, and serving as a member of tutorial boards as appropriate.
•Administer sustainability program budget. Work with Institutional Advancement to seek funding for sustainability initiatives.
•Manage student employees, research assistants and interns.


The website URL where information about the sustainability officer(s) is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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