Dickinson College
PA-2: Sustainability Planning

From the CSE 2021 Strategic Plan:
Goal 1: Enable and enhance a curriculum rich in opportunities for exploring sustainability
Objective 1.1: Offer multiple, varied, high quality and well attended faculty development opportunities each academic year.
Objective 1.2: Connect sustainability learning with global education and civic learning in ways that are mutually supportive.
Objective 1.3: Increase the engagement of arts and humanities faculty members in sustainability teaching and scholarship.
Objective 1.4: CSE staff will contribute to sustainability learning by teaching and co-teaching courses, assisting with course projects, visiting classrooms, directing independent student research and advising students about educational opportunities, career opportunities and graduate school.
Objective 1.5: Promote student awareness of and enrollment in sustainability courses and sustainability-related certificate programs.
Objective 1.6: Lead assessment of student learning outcomes for the sustainability graduation requirement and assist faculty members in applying the assessment results to improve learning outcomes.

From the CSE 2021 Strategic Plan:

Goal 2: Support and improve living laboratory and other co-curricular opportunities for practicing sustainability. CSE will offer, and will support and collaborate with multiple campus partners in offering, impactful living laboratory and other co-curricular opportunities for learning about, innovating for and practicing sustainability. Opportunities will be varied in the depth, length and nature of engagement. Opportunities can range from designing and implementing a year-long living laboratory project, to researching campus sustainability options, to performing community service over a semester, to participating in a field trip or workshop, to absorbing and reflecting on knowledge about sustainable practices through living on campus with eyes and mind wide open.

Objective 2.1: Introduce new students to the college’s sustainability efforts through orientation and pre-orientation programs.

Objective 2.2: Raise awareness and understanding of sustainability values, principles and practices of Dickinson students, faculty and staff by engaging them in the work of advancing campus and community sustainability.

Objective 2.3: Sponsor and co-sponsor multiple events each year that bring sustainability scholars, practitioners and activists to campus to share ideas and experiences from a variety of perspectives.

Objective 2.4: Increase the diversity of students who participate in co-curricular sustainability activities by developing programs that are inclusive of and responsive to concerns of the full spectrum of the Dickinson community.

Objective 2.5: Assess student learning outcomes for co-curricular sustainability programs.

Goal 4: Nurture and strengthen mutually beneficial college-community partnerships for sustainability. CSE will work with multiple partners to strengthen opportunities for Dickinson students, faculty and staff to engage with organizations in the Greater Carlisle area in creating positive changes, advancing sustainability goals and enriching student learning.

Objective 4.1: Participate in and contribute efforts to create a college-wide strategy and framework for supporting college-community partnerships.

Objective 4.2: Engage students with work of the Greater Carlisle Project and its member organizations in ways that benefit the community while developing students’ knowledge, competencies and dispositions as sustainability change agents.

Objective 4.3: Support and build the Greater Carlisle Project while assisting the network to become self-sustaining and less reliant on Dickinson leadership.

Dickinson's Climate Action Plan, Strategic Plan and Campus Master Plan all have sustainability objectives for campus operations.

From Dickinson’s Climate Action Plan: Reduce Dickinson’s GHG emissions 25 percent from the 2008 level by the year 2020 and achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2020.

From the Dickinson Strategic Plan: All major construction/renovation to LEED “silver” standard or better.

From Dickinson’s Campus Master Plan:

Building Stewardship and Sustainability Guidelines (pg 49):
1. Evaluate materials and systems based on life cycle costs rather than on capital costs alone.
2. Evaluate systems that use natural ventilation, heating, and cooling during certain periods of the year.
3. Orient buildings to minimize solar gain and maximize usable daylight.
4. Consider the placement, eventual size and density of trees planted near buildings in relation to solar gain and natural daylight use.
5. Progressively replace existing fixtures with water conserving fixtures.
6. Treat and reuse storm runoff from roofs and other surfaces.
7. Select locally manufactured materials to limit transport-related costs and impacts.
8. Specify materials manufactured using environmentally sound production processes and renewable material sources. Favor certified wood products and recycled content materials.
9. Use materials that are durable, require limited maintenance, and are recyclable.
10. Eliminate CFCs, HCFC, halons and volatile organic compounds in building materials, mechanical systems, paints and adhesives.
11. Accommodate reclamation and recycling of chemicals in buildings; accommodate solid waste recycling within all new and remodeled buildings; protect indoor environmental quality.
12. Increase building materials salvage and construction waste recycling rates; encourage energy auditing by suppliers.
13. Increase on-site effluent treatment from laboratories to protect the campus environment.
14. Make consistent use of performance measures to determine the environmental and cost effectiveness of energy reduction and sustainability investments.
15. Use a consistent and tested set of guidelines to achieve project-wide sustainability.
16. Meet or exceed standards endorsed by the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUCCP).

From Dickinson’s Inclusivity Strategic Plan:

Commitment statement: Ensuring a working and learning environment in which everyone has equitable opportunities for academic excellence and professional growth depends upon us embracing our diversity.

Goal #1: Embed inclusivity in the college culture
Objective 1.1: Understand campus climate & community by gathering experiences, perceptions and knowledge from community members to establish baseline of the campus climate and institutional culture.
Objective 1.2: Evaluate institutional policies, protocols and structures to build a more culturally inclusive and interconnected campus, community and world.
Objective 1.3: Evaluate theory(ies) and best practices to inform policies and actions; contribute to field of diversity and inclusivity in higher education based on our experiences

Goal #2: Expand and deepen learning and skill development for all members of the community.
Objective 2.1: Implement a comprehensive approach to involve all areas of the college
Objective 2.2: Increase learning and skill development around values shared by ethics, civic engagement and inclusivity.
Goal #3: Cultivate a diverse campus community that is reflective of the broader world.
Objective 3.1: Attract and retain a diverse student body
Objective 3.2: Attract and retain a diverse faculty
Objective 3.3: Attract and retain a diverse staff

From Dickinson’s Strategic Framework:

A Revolutionary Future (preamble)
Dickinson will seek new ways to strengthen the individualized, interdisciplinary education it provides while continuing to prepare scholars with intellectual agility, ethical grounding, intercultural understanding and the skills to work toward a just and sustainable world. The world needs the global leaders Dickinson educates, individuals imbued with a revolutionary spirit that challenges assumptions, seeks new and sustainable solutions and understands cultural differences. We will tackle the challenges ahead together, as an inclusive, collaborative community committed to shared governance and transparency.

Strategic Commitment I: A Pioneering Education
We commit to continue to provide a rigorous and exceptional education in the liberal arts and sciences that simultaneously draws on the wisdom of the past, strives for new knowledge and dynamically embraces contemporary challenges and future possibilities. That education will stress ethical decision-making and be supported by emerging technologies, preparing students with the problem solving skills they’ll need to creatively meet the challenges of this new age.

We will deepen, expand and connect our strengths in global education, sustainability, civic engagement and interdisciplinary programs to establish Dickinson as a preeminent leader in educating citizen leaders with the skills to synthesize multiple sources of knowledge and perspectives in solving complex problems.

Strategic Commitment III: Educating Global Citizen Leaders
We commit to civic learning and community engagement as fundamental to the Dickinson experience. We envision a civically engaged campus culture that enriches the connections between the academic program and student life, and intentionally integrates a global mindset, sustainability principles and values, and interdisciplinary and civic learning. We will provide innovative opportunities to ensure that our students understand the complex issues facing society and graduate with the experience of working with others to address the important challenges of our times.

Improving the human condition equitably in this and future generations while conserving environmental systems necessary to support healthy and vibrant societies.
http://www.dickinson.edu/info/20052/sustainability/2180/what_is_sustainability

Educating for a Sustainable World (https://www.dickinson.edu/info/20052/sustainability/2181/commitment): Dickinson is committed to educating for a sustainable world, reducing our ecological footprint, cutting our net emissions greenhouse gases to zero, and advancing sustainability goals globally, nationally and in the communities in which we reside, work and study. Our commitment follows from our long-standing mission – to prepare young people, by means of a useful education in the liberal arts and sciences, for engaged lives of citizenship and leadership in the service of society.

Our founders intended a revolutionary education designed for a revolutionary age, one that is innovative, forward-looking and ultimately useful to citizens of a new democracy. Now, more than two centuries since our founding, in an age of human-caused climate change, widespread environmental disruption, and widening inequality, fulfilling this commitment requires that we make far reaching change.

Dickinson signed the American College and University President's Climate Commitment in 2007, making us a Charter Signatory. Dickinson signed the Talloires Declaration in 2010, committing the College to create an institutional culture of sustainability and educate for environmentally responsible citizenship. In 2012 we signed the Rio+20 Declaration of Higher Education, which states that we will teach sustainable development concepts, encourage research on sustainable development issues, green our campus, and support sustainability efforts in our community. In 2015 we signed the UN Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, joining with other institutions around the world to teach sustainable development across all disciplines of study, encourage research and dissemination of sustainable development knowledge, green campuses and support local sustainability efforts, and engage and share information with international networks.

Strategic Framework: https://www.dickinson.edu/downloads/file/10024/strategic_framework

Sustainability Plan: the report of the 2010 Sustainability Symposium established recommendations and priorities to guide Dickinson's sustainability initiative that serve as a sustainability plan for Dickinson. The President's Commission on Environmental Sustainability sets measurable objectives that derive from the Symposium report as well as Strategic Plan III, the Campus Master Plan and other documents. http://www.dickinson.edu/download/downloads/id/2486/sust_performance_sustainability_symposium_pdf.

Strategic Plan III - http://www.dickinson.edu/info/20084/institutional_research/355/strategic_plan_iii

Campus Master Plan - http://www.dickinson.edu/info/20074/campus_operations/1695/planning_studies

Center for Sustainability Education strategic plan -
http://www.dickinson.edu/download/downloads/id/6417/cse_2021_strategic_plan.pdf

Climate Action Plan - http://www.dickinson.edu/download/downloads/id/2483/sust_performance_cap_2009_pdf

Inclusivity Strategic Plan -
https://www.dickinson.edu/info/20050/diversity_and_inclusion/3676/president_s_commission_on_inclusivity/4