Duke University
EN-3: Student Life

There are two main student groups at Duke University actively involved in campus sustainability. Environmental Alliance (EA) is an undergraduate student group committed to promoting the implementation of sustainable practices at Duke University (http://sites.duke.edu/dukeea/). Through organization, advocacy, and outreach, this organization strives to make Duke a model campus for environmental stewardship. EA's mission is to support and defend the environmental values in the campus community and beyond. This group’s goal is to minimize the university's ecological footprint on the planet through the implementation of sustainable practices on Duke's campus and in Durham. The Duke University Greening Initiative (DUGI) is a primarily graduate student organization (http://web.duke.edu/greening/mission.html). While the organization is project-based, it focuses on projects that will further the institutionalization of sustainability at Duke. In addition to EA and DUGI, there are a number of other student groups at Duke focused on sustainability, including the Duke Food Project, Food for Thought, WOODS, REMEDY, Business and Environment Club, Duke MBA Environment Club, Duke Energy Club, Nicholas School Energy Club, Green Wave, Farmhand, Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, Divest Duke, Duke Environmental Law Society, and the Duke chapter of Net Impact. All groups listed are student-governed.

The Duke Community Garden is a student run-organization that seeks to improve campus sustainability by providing organic food to campus eateries and providing students, staff, and faculty with educational and recreational opportunities related to gardening. The garden provides its members with a place to relax and enjoy nature, as well as an opportunity to enjoy fresh produce. The plants in the garden are regularly maintained with crops optimal for the season and climate. Any student or staff member is able to participate, and the garden will provide instruction in optimizing and tending crops. The community garden is student-governed. In addition to the community garden, in 2010 Duke also started the Duke Campus Farm, a 1-acre vegetable farm located close to campus in Duke Forest. The Duke Campus Farm not only produces vegetables for the dining halls on campus, but it also serves as an educational setting to teach students and community members about farming and sustainable agriculture. Every semester classes, workshops, and tours are hosted at the farm, and every year the farm's network of professors, researchers, and students grows. Two full time staff members manage the farm with the help of student interns.

There are several student enterprises at Duke that achieve the objective of education in sustainable business skills: DukeFish DukeFish is a student organization whose mission is to promote sustainable fishing and consumer practices by reaching out to our peers, community members, and local industry. In 2009, DukeFish organized a community-supported fisheries (CSF) pilot project called Walking Fish. Walking Fish is a community supported fishery (CSF) that links fishermen on the coast of North Carolina to consumers in the Triangle. The CSF involves pre-payment by consumers for a 'share’ of fresh, locally harvested seafood (i.e., a set amount of seafood generally picked up by the consumer on a weekly or bi-weekly basis). Just as CSAs can encourage sustainable and profitable farming practices, CSFs have the potential to do the same for fishing. http://www.dukefish.org/ http://walking-fish.org/ Duke Start Up Challenge The Duke Start-Up Challenge, founded in 1999, is designed to help Duke's entrepreneurship community flourish, with a year long entrepreneurship competition followed by an accelerator program. The Challenge includes two sustainability related tracks, "Clean Energy" and "Social Enterprises". http://www.dukestartupchallenge.org/ Farmhand Farmhand began in fall 2006 as a volunteer effort geared toward building awareness of sustainable agriculture throughout the Nicholas School community by providing physical labor for local small-scale farmers that produce healthy food for the Durham/Triangle community through sustainable agriculture. In addition to the organization of an annual Fall Festival and Spring Sustainable Dinner, for which the group collects revenue, students also maintain a program selling local food boxes, providing local farm food to the Duke community. https://wiki.duke.edu/display/nickipedia/Farmhand

Duke University holds many major events related to sustainability each year. Examples of major events include: Summoned Toward Wholeness Conference (Duke Divinity School), Shared Tables: A Triangle Symposium on Global and Local Food Studies; and the annual presentation of the Duke LEAF Award for Lifetime Environmental Achievement in the Fine Arts. Duke typically hosts more than 30 sustainability-focused events throughout Earth Month, including speakers, workshops, tours, and an Earth Day Festival led by the Nicholas School of the Environment.

The 2013 Duke Arts Festival featured a sustainability theme. As part of the festival in September 2013, the Duke community constructed "Fort Duke," a structure comprised 3,500 used cardboard boxes that were collected when students moved in on campus. It stood 16 feet tall and occupied a 70-by-70 square foot area on the Chapel Quad. At its core was a tower surrounding the James B. Duke statue.The fort was designed by Todd Berreth, a research programmer in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies. About 300 people participated in the construction of the building over the course of 10 hours. The structure was dismantled the same day and the boxes were then recycled. The event kicked off this semester's Duke Arts Festival, which had a theme of using recycled materials and promoting messages of environmental stewardship. The organizers of Fort Duke were the Duke Arts Festival, Sustainable Duke, and Duke Sanitation and Recycling Services.

Project WILD began as Duke’s first pre-orientation program in 1974 with the help of the Carolina Outward Bound School. Since then, the program has grown to include a spring break trip, a house course, a low ropes course, and a fall trip for Durham area high school students. Over the past 30 years, thousands of Duke students have started their college experience with Project WILD, and through the low ropes course and Step into the WILD, the Durham community benefits from wilderness experiential education as well. Duke Outdoor Adventures (http://recreation.duke.edu/recreation/outdoor-adventures/) provides regular guided outdoor trips to students, staff, and faculty. Trip activities include camping, hiking, backpacking, paddling, and rock climbing. Leave No Trace principles are incorporated into the outdoor education program during these trips. A part of Duke Outdoor Adventures is the Duke Outpost. The Duke Outpost (http://recreation.duke.edu/recreation/outdoor-adventures/trips-and-clinics/the-outpost-gear-rentals/) loans camping gear and sports equipment to Duke students, faculty and staff. The Outpost also provides a gathering space for student group and individuals seeking outdoor recreation opportunities and has many resources about activities, parks, and sites in and around North Carolina.

Duke’s Focus Program for first-year students provides clusters of courses designed around an interdisciplinary theme. Students explore a range of issues and ideas from different viewpoints across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences; Focus faculty from diverse academic departments are leading researchers in their fields. The Focus program has had several sustainability-related clusters over the past few years, among these clusters have been “Evolution and Humankind," “Engineering Frontiers," and “Ethics, Leadership, and Global Citizenship,” all of which included sustainability classes and components. In addition, PBuild and PWild are pre-orientation programs that feature a sustainability theme. PBuild students spend a day working on small construction projects at the Duke Campus Farm while PWild is an outdoor education program.

During the summers at Duke, prospective students on campus tours view a model Green Dorm Room that displays how live sustainably at Duke and includes a check-list of sustainable items to bring to campus (i.e. bicycle and helment, reusable grocery bag). The Green Dorm Room was created by student employees in the Students for Sustainable Living program. Funded by a $500 grant from the Green Grant Fund, the room is furnished with approximately 20 sustainable items purchased from Whole Foods Market, Target and Etsy.com, a website that sells sustainable goods made by independent artisans around the world. According to results from Duke's Green Devil Challenge - a monthly effort to promote sustainable behavior at Duke - students at the university average about one metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions annually from dorm room energy and water usage. Biodegradable toiletries and cleaning products, and a power strip that automatically turns off electronics are some items featured in the room. A sign accompanies each product and explains what the item is and how it makes the room more sustainable. Due to a shortage of rooms for residential students, the Green Dorm room is not currently available during the academic year. However, in true sustainable fashion, all items are reused each summer as a highlight of Duke campus tours. What's in the room? * Organic sheets & pillows * "Smart" power strip that turns off electronics * Lamp made with recycled bottles * Area rug made of recycled plastic * Clothes drying rack * Aluminum water bottle * Biodegradable laundry detergent * Reusable shopping bag * Compact florescent light bulbs * Bike helmet * Chemical-free cosmetics * Biodegradable cleaning supplies * Wall art printed on recycled paper with soy inks

Two student internship programs are available with Sustainable Duke. The Students for Sustainable Living program (http://sustainability.duke.edu/campus_groups/ssl.html) provides students interested in sustainability an opportunity to work on campus-wide projects relating to outreach, green dining, sustainable transportation, and other key areas of campus sustainability. Students work 3-5 hours per week and are paid hourly. The Campus Sustainability Fellows program (http://sustainability.duke.edu/campus_groups/fellows.html) provides students interested in careers in sustainability the opportunity to serve as consultants for various schools across Duke, to help client staff members in their schools improve their sustainability and decrease their environmental footprint. Fellows work 8-10 hours per week and are paid hourly.

Sustainable Duke maintains a list of ideas for on-campus, client-based student and group projects in areas like energy, water, recycling, transportation and carbon offsets. The list is updated prior to each semester and interested students are connected with the sustainability resource person who proposed the project. A few current project examples include: -Create baseline metrics for Duke's irrigation system and standards for irrigation in new construction; -Develop “Shut the Sash” fume hood behavioral campaign in labs at Duke; -Develop an urban forestry carbon offsets pilot project; and -Work with Parking & Transportation Services staff to collect bicycling shortcut data for a campus bike map. The Duke University campus also offers many living laboratories for diverse co-curricular educational experiences in sustainability including: -Home Depot Smart Home – Students living in the home use and develop “smart technology”, courses are offered on sustainable living topics such as “Smart Home Technology Development” and “Sustainable Structures” -Duke Campus Farm – Courses in law, marketing and food issues have used the farm as a research client, students can propose projects in their particular areas of interest -Duke Forest – The Forest hosts up to 50 research projects at a time, with topics like the effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels on forest ecosystems -Duke Lemur Center – Research by faculty and students in areas like cognition, behavior, and communication furthers Lemur conservation -SWAMP – Outdoor classroom and field laboratory for wetland restoration -Duke Marine Lab – Students and faculty at the Marine Lab are engaged in research, education, and service to understand marine systems, including the human component, and to develop approaches for marine conservation and restoration

http://www.dukestartupchallenge.org/ http://today.duke.edu/2013/09/%E2%80%98fort-duke%E2%80%99-sets-world-record-reused-cardboard-boxes#video http://studentaffairs.duke.edu/new-students/preorientation-programs