Harvey Mudd College
EN-3: Student Life

Engineers for a Sustainable World / Mudders Organizing for Sustainability Solutions (ESW/MOSS) is a student organization at Harvey Mudd College devoted to promoting sustainability on campus, in the community, and around the world through projects and community education. ESW/MOSS is deeply involved with campus facilities projects, which have recently included promoting a new compost and waste sorting program across campus, and have also played a major role in promoting a Claremont Colleges-wide electricity saving competition across all residence halls. The organization has also been involved in International projects, which have included work on clean water and solar power in Ngomano, Kenya, as well as on sustainable agriculture in Koundara, Kenya.

The institution does have a Green Revolving Fund of $1 million, which is largely centered on sustainable investments in facilities project with a minimum price tag of $50,000 and with a specified return on investment. Projects are reviewed and evaluated by the campus Sustainability Committee, which includes 2-3 students each year who partake and represent the student body. In addition, interns placed in the Facilities & Maintenance department through the Energize Colleges program have also had the opportunity to work directly on Green Fund projects and perform financial analyses and evaluations of those projects.

Every two years (as of October 2016), the Hixon Center for Sustainable Environmental Design hosts a Biennial Conference for Sustainable Design and Solutions on campus. The conference aims to raise academic and personal awareness regarding environmental sustainability issues on local, regional and global scales. In addition, the Hixon Center hosts and participates in a number of events on- and off-campus regarding environmental and sustainability topics, both independently and collaboratively. For example, the center puts on a "Black, Gold and Green" Speaker series is every Spring semester, which brings speakers to campus from all around the world to speak to Harvey Mudd and Claremont College students, faculty and staff about large-scale environmental sustainability topics. Featured speakers have included Senator Kevin de Leon, energy experts Daniel Kammen (U.C. Berkeley) and Dian Grueneich (Stanford), and more. The Center has also co-facilitated programs with its Career Services office (bringing in alumni in green careers) and the campus Office of Institutional Diversity (e.g., an environmental workshop series that engages students in dialogue on Environmental Justice, Ethics and Leadership through the exploration of local case studies). In Fall 2017, the Hixon Center put on an "Eco-Engage" Sustainability Dialogue series, which brought students, staff and faculty together into moderated dialogues around environmental issues with the aim of facilitating a transition from critical thinking on these issues to individual and community action.

The Hixon Center started facilitating an "Eco-Engage" Sustainability Dialogue Series in the fall of 2017, which is a series of moderated dialogues and workshops aimed to transition participants from critical thinking to individual and community action. The workshops have included more life-skills focused components, including sustainable cooking and dining, community engagement and activism, civic participation, and more.

The Hixon Center for Sustainable Environmental Design at Harvey Mudd College offers a number of sustainability-focused student employment opportunities: (1) the Energize Colleges program offers a number of on- and off-campus semester-long internships that allow students to work on projects and initiatives in energy career pathways. These internships have included work with campus facilities offices, as well as with local city and non-profit entities; and (2) the Hixon Center also offers a number of paid research/internship opportunities, including through its Hixon Center-Ecologic Institute Summer Internship Program, the Rasmussen Summer Research Fund, and the Hixon Summer Research Fellowships (and soon-to-be-established Social Justice Fellowship).

Every spring, the Hixon Center for Sustainable Environmental Design and the campus student sustainability group, ESW/MOSS, co-sponsor and host "Eco-Hacks" - a sustainability-focused Hackathon event that encourages students from all majors interested in coding and problem solving to spend an entire evening devoted to presenting a coding or digital platform solution to a stated environmental problem. The hackathon is developed and co-ideated with faculty from across campus, and is one of the campus' staple co-curricular sustainability programs. In addition, the "Black, Gold and Green" Speaker Series, which primarily serves as a series of seminars and lectures, are largely academically focused (and feature a number of prominent environmental scholars) - and could be considered as a co-curricular sustainability program.