Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 81.96
Liaison Lindsey Lyons
Submission Date March 1, 2024

STARS v2.2

Dickinson College
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.88 / 3.00 Lindsey Lyons
Assistant Director
Center for Sustainability Education
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Percentage of employees served by a peer-to-peer, sustainability educators program

Total number of employees:
842

Total number of employees served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program:
215

Percentage of employees served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program:
25.53

1st program 

Name of the employee educators program (1st program):
Eco-Reps

A brief description of the employee educators program (1st program):
The program strives to create a community of leaders in sustainability who in turn work to empower others to make sustainable changes in their lives and in their communities through peer education, programming, and outreach. The program empowers Dickinsonians to represent and lead a community of their choice to become more sustainable and foster connections. In 2015, the program expanded to include faculty and staff because of their lasting impact at the college. Any faculty or staff member can be an Eco-Rep. The Center for Sustainability Education hosts custom trainings and workshops for the Eco-Reps who in turn educate other faculty and staff in their departments or offices.

We have adopted the belief that students can educate employees and employees can educate their peers with equal success. All of our programs, trainings, and coordination for Eco-Reps targets students, faculty and staff. We do not think these needed to be siloed as such a small residential college.

Examples of peer-to-peer outreach activities include composting, e-waste, plastic bag and battery collection and recycling. Other examples include recycling education programs amongst the housekeepers, waste reduction programs amongst the department coordinators, and departmental participation in the Dickinson EcoChallenge.

A brief description of the employee educators program’s target audience (1st program):
When applying, each Eco-Rep will select a community to serve. Examples for faculty and staff could include an athletic team, academic department, office, building, or center. The Eco-Rep should be involved in the community they choose to serve.

All Eco-Reps are peer educators, serving various campus communities and aim to:

1. Maintain plastic bag recycling bins within their campus community.
2. Work to make facilities and operations more sustainable.
3. Advocate for sustainable practices within the professional/academic environment.
4. Serve as a liaison to the office, building or department for sustainability info and events.
5. Host educational programs, campaigns or events for their peers.

Number of trained employee educators (1st program):
3

Number of weeks the employee educators program is active annually (1st program):
28

Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (1st program):
3

Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (1st program):
252

Website URL where information about the employee educators program is available (1st program) :

If reporting employees served by additional peer-to-peer programs, provide: 

2nd Program

Name of the employee educators program (2nd program):
Green Office Certification

A brief description of the employee educators program (2nd program):
The Green Office Checklist reflects current sustainability practices and resources at Dickinson.

It is designed to provide a framework for academic department coordinators, office managers, program coordinators, and technicians to think about ways to practice sustainability in their departments or offices. Users can self-assess, discuss with colleagues, and set targets for improvement by using the scoring key provided to see where they are doing well or ways they can make improvements.

Our Center for Sustainability Education provides training and guidance about how to use the checklist to identify areas of improvement in office sustainability. This program is meant to be a guide for departments or offices to work through at their own pace and potentially review each year to monitor progress.

We host an annual training for academic department coordinators (staff) to learn how to use the checklist and how to peer educate and drive behavior changes in their offices/departments. The green office checklist focuses on actions and behaviors related to energy, office management, infrastructure & practice, purchasing, events and catering, kitchen/food and water waste, human health and indoor environmental quality, furniture, and involvement/engagement.

A brief description of the employee educators program’s target audience (2nd program):
The target direct audience is our academic department coordinators that run and coordinate spaces and programming on campus. They are responsible for coordinating departmental meetings, purchases, finances, travel, etc., and therefore are in a great position to promote operational change with others in the department.

Number of trained employee educators (2nd program):
15

Number of weeks the employee educators program is active annually (2nd program):
28

Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (2nd program):
0.50

Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (2nd program):
210

Website URL where information about the employee educators program is available (2nd program):

If reporting employees served by more than two programs, provide:

Additional Programs 

A brief description of all other employee peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education programs:
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Number of trained employee educators (all other programs):
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Number of weeks, on average, the employee educators programs are active annually (all other programs):
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Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (all other programs):
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Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (all other programs):
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Part 2. Educator hours per employee served by a peer-to-peer program

Grand total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (all programs):
462

Hours worked annually by trained employee sustainability educators per employee served by a peer-to-peer program:
0.55

Optional Fields

Website URL where information about the employee sustainability educators programs is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The Dickinson Eco-Reps program is open to students, faculty, and staff. Eco-Reps serve as peer educators for sustainability in a community of their choice (residential space, team, club, office, department organization, etc.). Providing all campus communities access to the Eco-Reps program, strengthening the sustainability education workshop series, and creating forums for students, faculty and staff to work together on these issues has taken the program to the next level and provided a forum for faculty and staff to connect to sustainability.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.