Georgia State University
EN-9: Community Partnerships

GSU enjoys a multitude of sustainability partnerships with the local community. Some of these partnerships include, working with the City of Atlanta's Sustainability Office and Central Atlanta Progress on creating more sustainable food options downtown; partnering with leaders from EPA Region 4, GreenLaw, and other Atlanta based environmental organizations to speak at our regular "green bag lunches", and partnering with local farmers on an on-campus farmer's market.

The university is currently participating in the Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge, which requires a partnership between GSU, Central Atlanta Progress, the City of Atlanta, and Southface to assess university owned buildings, collect data energy and water data, and implement efficiency recommendations.This is a collaborative effort among many Atlanta organizations to decrease energy and water consumption by 20% by year 2020 as set forth by the national challenge. Georgia State University has also partnered with local urban farmers to promote their businesses while bringing healthy food options to campus occupants as well as the downtown Atlanta community where healthy food is not readily available in our monthly farmers markets.

The School of Public Health at Georgia State University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have received $100,000 to work together on research to examine the impact of the Atlanta BeltLine on its surrounding communities. Funded by the CDC and Georgia State, the two-year pilot study will be managed by the School of Public Health’s Partnership for Urban Health Research (PUHR). The collaboration to study the BeltLine will involve more than 20 investigators at Georgia State and the CDC with expertise in public health and other disciplines, including several affiliated with PUHR. PUHR brings together faculty from across Georgia State who are interested in collaborating on research that examines the factors in cities that influence health and finds solutions to improve people’s health.

Professors Paul Ferraro of Georgia State University and Kent Messer of the University of Delaware will head the newly created Center for Behavioral and Experimental Agri-Environmental Policy Research (CBEAR), supported with a $750,000 award from the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). CBEAR-affiliated faculty will use behavioral and experimental economics research to improve the design and implementation of USDA programs that support farmers in their efforts to feed the world and provide valuable environmental stewardship of the nation’s agricultural lands. The three-year USDA seed grant will fund the new center. Along with Georgia State and Delaware, the CBEAR consortium includes Cornell University. The new center will: Lead and coordinate innovative behavioral research programs related to the design and implementation of policies and programs that provide ecosystem services and lead to greater satisfaction for participating farmers and landowners; Broaden the network of social scientists who participate in policy-relevant research on agricultural ecosystem services, policies and programs; and Disseminate information obtained via its research program to a diverse stakeholder audience, including USDA and other federal program agencies, farmers and the public. Researchers at the School of Public Health at Georgia State University have received a $300,000 grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to examine ways to reduce heat-related illnesses and death during extreme heat and reduce radon exposure in environmental metro Atlanta. Dr. Christine Stauber, director of the Division of Environmental Health at the School of Public Health, will use U.S. Census data along with satellite imagery to identify the hottest parts of the city and factors that increase temperature. Stauber will also examine which populations are at risk and social factors such as age and socioeconomic status that put people at risk when the weather turns hot. The grant will help fund high-resolution satellite imagery for the project. With assistance from Dr. Dajun Dai, an assistant professor in Geosciences who is jointly appointed to the School of Public Health, Stauber will use maps to interpret and illustrate the data.