Emory University
IN-39: Sustainability Office Diversity Program

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives at Emory has made its opportunities accessible to all students on campus by enrolling in hiring programs, such as the Federal Work-Study Program, the Rollins Earn and Learn program in the public health school, and the Ethics & Servant Leadership Program in the Center for Ethics. The office posts jobs on all campus recruiting sites and in ways that students seeking roles will find them. The Office generally posts about job opportunities and promotes them at campus student events. The office adopted email interviews as a part of the interview process following a recommendation from a former intern and current environmental justice professional. The format helps students who may not have formal interview experience have another medium to identify how their experiences and identity make them assets for campus sustainability work. When hiring for full-time positions, the office wanted to post opportunities to groups, such as Diversity in Sustainability, but could not meet the group’s standards for pay transparency due to university policy restricting departments from publicly posting compensation. 

The Office has also created a Fellowship currently comprised of three full-time positions staffed by recent graduates, and designed to enable young professionals from underrepresented backgrounds in sustainability an opportunity to launch their career. In 2022, OSI hired its first cohort of Fellows including (2) Sustainability and Social Justice Fellows (SSJ) and (1) Climate Solutions Fellow. Both SSJs were female and POC and contributed to OSI's further integration of social justice issues in its work through both formal activities and informal conversations and perspective sharing. More at: https://sustainability.emory.edu/get-involved/internships-and-sustainable-careers/   

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives incorporated the institution’s available training into its required onboarding tasks. All Fellows and staff complete the “Managing Bias” and “Diversity in the Workplace” online training. Some staff have also completed the “Safe Space” training offered through the Office of LGBT Life. Throughout the 2022-2023 academic year, Emory, Princeton, and MIT’s sustainability staff hired a DEI consultant, Running Grass of the Three Circles Center, to facilitate a series of environmental justice training sessions to help the teams work together to identify strategies for work at the intersection of sustainability and DEI in strategic, operational, programmatic, and individual ways. 

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI) staff worked as members of multiple committees led by DEI staff and faculty. Emory’s Associate Vice President of Resilience, Sustainability, and Economic Inclusion co-chaired the “civic and community partners” that gathered insights and recommended goals and strategies for the institutional DEI strategic plan. OSI staff also served on the “Indigenous Language Path” working group of the “Task Force on Untold Stories and Disenfranchised Populations.” OSI staff also served on the “Campus Planning and Physical Accessibility Committee” overseen by staff in the Officer of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 

Job descriptions for the Sustainability and Social Justice Fellows, who are full-time staff that are recent graduates of undergraduate or graduate programs, are attached and describe specific responsibilities.