Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 48.46
Liaison Gabrielle Lommel
Submission Date Dec. 16, 2020

STARS v2.2

Concordia College - Moorhead
PA-2: Sustainability Planning

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Jackie Maahs
Sustainability Coordinator
Student Engagement
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have a published plan or plans that include measurable sustainability objectives that address sustainability in curriculum and/or research?:
Yes

A list or sample of the measurable sustainability objectives related to academics and the plan(s) in which they are published:

The most recent Strategic Plan - launched in 2019 - includes the following statements:

Exercise bold leadership in responding to climate change, ecological decline, and environmental injustice.

- Develop and implement a climate action plan that sets out strategies and timelines for reducing carbon emissions.
- Promote ecological health and reduce the negative ecological and environmental impacts of college operations.
- Make sustainability, climate change, and resilience key aspects of the curriculum and other educational experiences for all students.


Does the institution have a published plan or plans that include measurable sustainability objectives that address student, employee, or community engagement for sustainability?:
Yes

A list or sample of the measurable sustainability objectives related to engagement and the plan(s) in which they are published:

The most recent Strategic Plan - launched in 2019 - includes the following statements:

Deepen the college’s connections with the local region, working in collaboration with partners committed to building stronger communities.

- Expand integrative learning and PEAK opportunities in partnership with local organizations.
- Enhance the college’s infrastructure, support, and coordination of community engagement.
- Work with community partners to increase resilience to adapt and flourish in the face of climate change and ecological decline.
- Collaborate with Moorhead and Fargo partners on community development projects in arts, athletics, education, and sustainability.


Does the institution have a published plan or plans that include measurable sustainability objectives that address sustainability in operations?:
Yes

A list or sample of the measurable sustainability objectives related to operations and the plan(s) in which they are published:

The most recent Strategic Plan - launched in 2019 - includes the following statements:

Exercise bold leadership in responding to climate change, ecological decline, and environmental injustice.

- Develop and implement a climate action plan that sets out strategies and timelines for reducing carbon emissions.
- Promote ecological health and reduce the negative ecological and environmental impacts of college operations.
- Make sustainability, climate change, and resilience key aspects of the curriculum and other educational experiences for all students.


Does the institution have a published plan or plans that include measurable sustainability objectives that address diversity, equity, and inclusion; sustainable investment/finance; or wellbeing?:
Yes

A list or sample of the measurable sustainability objectives related to administration and the plan(s) in which they are published:

The most recent Strategic Plan - launched in 2019 - includes the following statements:

Build and implement practices that foster well-being and spiritual growth among all who learn and work at Concordia.

- Deepen, expand, and practice a campus ministry of daily living embodied in radical hospitality and belonging, wholeness in student development, and faith active in love of neighbors, local and global.
- Establish a center for holistic health that reimagines the college’s current student counseling and health services through a service model that develops students into proactive caretakers of their own health and wellness.
- Redefine faculty and staff roles, responsibilities, and organizational processes to capitalize on individual strengths and interests, to tend to the well-being of our faculty and staff, and to carry out the shared priorities of the college.
- Ensure that a review and revision of the daily calendar contributes to the well-being of faculty, staff, and students.

Recognizing that a transformative education calls us to learn across difference, Concordia will affirm a diversity of identities, experiences, and perspectives as a condition of institutional excellence, leading all who study and work here to honor difference with respectful understanding and to practice courageous citizenship for the common good. To realize this goal, Concordia will:

Become a diverse and inclusive college community in which every member feels a sense of belonging.

- Implement training programs and initiatives to increase intercultural understanding and communication among college faculty, staff, and students.
- Recruit, support, and graduate a diverse student body that celebrates interdependence, joins in dialogue, and is supported in a culture that adapts to its students.
- Recruit and support a diverse faculty and staff who model the experiences, curiosity, and commitment that the faculty and staff seek to instill in our students.

Learn through discovery of difference and lift up a common humanity.

- Incorporate diversity of identities, experiences, and perspectives into a new common curriculum.
- Deepen relationships that arise from a multi-faith community committed to the practice and study of religion, meaning, values, and faith.
- Broaden campus arts offerings to reflect the growing diversity of the campus community and create more inclusive cultural expressions.

Create an educational endeavor, shared between Concordia Language Villages and Concordia College, worthy of national attention, that builds public support for global understanding and language and cultural study.

- Establish a task force from those engaged in global, language, and cultural education at Concordia, to identify the intersections of expertise at Concordia and opportunities to exercise thought leadership in civil dialogue and shared problem-solving.
- Identify programming that is distinctly defined with respect to participants, supporters, and scope of operations.
- Secure sponsorship both for the budget and for the national visibility of this programming.


Does the institution have a published strategic plan or equivalent guiding document that includes sustainability at a high level? :
Yes

The institution’s highest guiding document (upload):
Website URL where the institution’s highest guiding document is publicly available:
Which of the following best describes the inclusion of sustainability in the highest guiding document?:
Major theme

The institution's sustainability plan (upload):
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Website URL where the institution's sustainability plan is publicly available:
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Does the institution have a formal statement in support of sustainability endorsed by its governing body?:
Yes

The formal statement in support of sustainability:

Concordia College will embrace a concern for sustainability that is rooted in the responsibility to ensure the environmental, economic, and social health of the college and of our global community. Concordia College’s sustainability vision is interwoven with our commitment to global learning, with our faith tradition and abiding commitment to ethical deliberation, and with the values and practices of the liberal arts.


The institution’s definition of sustainability:

Sustainability is the responsibility to ensure the environmental, economic, and social health of the college and of our global community


Is the institution an endorser or signatory of the following?:
Yes or No
The Earth Charter No
The Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) No
ISCN-GULF Sustainable Campus Charter No
Pan-Canadian Protocol for Sustainability No
SDG Accord No
Second Nature’s Carbon Commitment (formerly known as the ACUPCC), Resilience Commitment, and/or integrated Climate Commitment Yes
The Talloires Declaration (TD) No
UN Global Compact No
Other multi-dimensional sustainability commitments (please specify below) No

A brief description of the institution’s formal sustainability commitments, including the specific initiatives selected above:

In 2017 Concordia Signed the Climate Commitment is nearing the end of its planning process and will soon be launching it's Climate Action Plan.


Website URL where information about the institution’s sustainability planning efforts is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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