Hope College
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

Students in every discipline can get involved with research at Hope College.
"Hope is consistently awarded more National Science Foundation grants for undergraduate research than any other liberal arts college in the country and was ranked fourth behind the University of Michigan, Stanford and MIT for undergraduate research and creative activity in the initial rankings by US News & World Report."

During the summer of 2016 the Hope Green Team hired four students to conduct research on campus about sustainability. There was a student for each of the topics which include: energy, water, a campus garden, and the history of sustainability at Hope. This project was a big success and the group is looking to continue and possibly expand it in the future. This opportunity is open to all majors.

Hope College offers a program called "Day One" which helps students plug in to hands-on research projects and solve real-world problems in laboratories and in the field, right from day one. As part of the program students can:
Investigate water quality and help the local community address issues
Design a product to meet the needs of the community
Learn professional geology skills while exploring Northern Michigan
Discover a new virus and investigate its genome
Study environmental issues in the Great Lakes region
Live with other Day1 students in the newly renovated Lichty Hall during your first year
Additional Information about the program can be found at: http://www.hope.edu/academics/day1/

While it is not specifically for sustainability Hope College recently received a major grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) which will enable the college to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones as the college continues to emphasize its acclaimed model of teaching through faculty-student collaborative research in the sciences.
Emphases will include enhancing research efforts in the biomedical sciences at Hope, with particular attention to collaborations with other institutions; increased emphasis on training K-12 science and mathematics teachers; increasing diversity in science, both at Hope and beyond; and initiating and participating in efforts to promote and develop scholarly lessons concerning teaching and learning at the college as well as within the broader higher education community. The full story can be found at: http://www.hope.edu/news/2008/04/22/major-grant-emphasizes-external-research-ties.html

There is no written policy on interdisciplinary research, but faculty that have interdisciplinary research are hired and obtain tenure and promotion. Within the Natural and Applied Sciences Division there are faculty that have joint appointments between multiple departments. The goal of those joint appointments was to support the further development of interdisciplinary research.

A recent article showcasing a student's interdisciplinary program "majoring in both biology and English with a writing emphasis" can be found at: https://magazine.hope.edu/winter-2016/merging-majors/

The library at Hope does not currently have a website/resources devoted to sustainability research but they do have hundreds of resources (journals, books, digital, written, audio/visual, etc...) that can aid in research on such topics. https://hope.edu/library/
Over the past few years we have added additional resources to the library with support from our Green Team Fund Dollars. These have ranged from films to books (adult and children).