| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 69.24 |
| Liaison | Kelsey Beal |
| Submission Date | July 12, 2024 |
Indiana University Indianapolis
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
4.00 / 4.00 |
Kelsey
Beal Sustainbility Analyst Office of Sustainability |
Campus Engagement
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Campus Engagement:
All Sustainability Interns have campus engagement as part of their internship duties. This includes engaging the campus through educational events, and communications (website updates, social media management, graphic design, etc.), and engaging with university partners across multiple areas to drive sustainability solutions - including student government, residence hall association, and staff council.
More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Public Engagement
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Public Engagement:
The Energy Club at IUPUI competed in the Solar District Cup - a collegiate design competition, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, challenging multidisciplinary student teams to design and model optimized distributed solar energy systems for a campus or urban district.
The IUPUI team was named one of 35 finalists, advancing to the final round where they presented their projects to judges and industry partners during a live video-conference event.
Air & Climate
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Air & Climate:
The IUPUI Sustainability internship program employs 10-12 student interns, almost all of whom are involved with aspects of tracking, assessing and/or reducing the university's greenhouse gas emissions.
A few instances of this work include:
- The Energy Intern is charged with promoting energy-saving across campus.
- The Sustainability Support Intern was involved in the gathering and analyzing of data for the assessment of campus-wide greenhouse gas emissions
- The Sustainable Waste Management Intern is responsible for all waste diversion programs and initiatives on campus, including waste reduction, recycling and composting.
More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Buildings
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Buildings:
IUPUI Sustainability often partners with faculty to use courses, capstone classes, research projects, and internships to provide students with hands-on sustainability opportunities that advance IUPUI's sustainability goals.
Examples of Living Lab in this category:
- Students in O'Neill's capstone course benchmark campus buildings against LEED Operations + Maintenance practices to make recommendations for how to improve operations in pursuit of LEED O+M certification for campus buildings.
- The Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) conducts energy audits of campus buildings and makes energy efficiency recommendations back to the campus.
- The O'Neill School's Principles of Sustainability class benchmarks IUPUI's sustainability performance and identifies projects to improve it by drafting applications to the Greening IUPUI Grant.
Energy
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Energy:
The Energy Intern is responsible for focusing on energy efficiency projects at IUPUI, including lighting inventories, space heater exchange program, researching demand side management strategies, analyzing campus energy trends, and partnering with campus energy engineers. The Energy Intern also provides educational seminars and engaging awareness events for the respective building occupants. They work closely with Campus Facility Services and the Industrial Assessment Center to develop a solid building utility portfolio through energy audits and customized efficiency plans for each building and the building occupants. More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Food & Dining
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Food & Dining:
IUPUI Sustainability employs Urban Garden Interns who are responsible for the planning, planting, and maintenance of our two campus gardens. These students not only care for the garden, but also handle a number of other associated responsibilities, including marketing and promotion, recruiting volunteers, and communicating with campus partners like IUPUI Food Services and Paws’ Pantry.
More on IUPUI urban gardens: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/operations/food/index.html
More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Grounds
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Grounds:
IUPUI Sustainability employs sustainable landscape interns to assist IUPUI Campus Facility Services (CFS) Grounds team in strengthening IUPUI’s commitment to sustainable landscape practices and connecting the IUPUI community to our campus’ green spaces by enhancing public spaces. Interns manage IUPUI's Tree Inventory and Bee Campus certification. Tree Inventory management includes planning and leading other students in both tree planting and soil testing events to better inform tree management practices. More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Purchasing
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Purchasing:
IU Procurement is administered centrally for all IU campuses. Over the past few years, the Sustainable Technology and Procurement Working Group has extended its reach from department-oriented projects (printing, e-waste and power use) to more University Administration and student move-in focused issues.
Transportation
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Transportation:
The Transportation Active Safety Institute (TASI) is a collaborative University, Industry, and Government consortium to facilitate research, development, evaluation and assessment of transportation active safety systems. As a cross- campus research center, faculty members from more than 10 departments and schools at IUPUI, Indiana University Bloomington, and Purdue University West Lafayette are involved in TASI’s research activities. TASI’s main activities are: Vehicle testing and evaluation, Human Factors in active safety systems, Crash data analysis and risk benefit analysis, Scientific research on automation of selected driving functions, Crash prevention technologies, Connected vehicles
https://tasi.iupui.edu/index.html
The Sustainable Transportation Intern is responsible for enhancing and communicating IUPUI’s alternative transportation options. Working alongside IUPUI Parking and Transportation’s Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Manager, this individual will assist with ongoing projects, including data collection and interpretation, research on best alternative transportation practices, engagement and awareness campaigns, and the like.
More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Waste
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Waste:
The Sustainable Wate Management Intern, an undergraduate student employee of IUPUI Sustainability, is responsible for managing waste reduction and diversion efforts on campus (recycling and compost), including developing outreach and conducting data analysis to track progress of waste diversion initiatives. The Sustainable Waste Management Intern is responsible for hosting waste audits around campus. As part of the waste audits, this student is responsible for recruiting and managing volunteers, tracking food waste data, and communicating it to the campus community.
More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Water
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Water:
The IUPUI Sustainability Energy Intern assists Sustainability along with Campus Facility Services (CFS) in providing energy & water efficiency education and outreach opportunities to faculty, staff, and students across campus. - Facilitates the IUPUI Energy Challenge to engage the campus community in energy education and reduction. Assist with the promotion of campus energy and water efficiency awareness and education campaigns and develop a portfolio of Energy Challenge events. - Works to develop a water use dashboard that can be used as an education and reduction tool, eventually to be added as an element of the annual Energy Challenge. - Updates and enhances the campus Energy Challenge website and standard operating procedure. - Expands the energy dashboard beyond the residence halls to show the energy used in buildings across campus and the associated emissions.
More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Coordination & Planning
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Coordination & Planning:
The IUPUI Sustainability interns sit on and attend a number of committees at the university, including Greening IUPUI Grant Review Committee, campus operations sustainability meetings, Climate Action Plan committee, and more.
Diversity & Affordability
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Diversity & Affordability:
Students serve as financial educators with MoneySmarts U—Indiana University's financial education platform that teaches students financial wellness. Student ambassadors: https://moneysmarts.iu.edu/contact/index.html
The IU Money Smarts Team are IU student Peer Educators led by the IU Office of Financial Literacy. They assist with topics like: Budgeting and saving money, Managing credit cards, Handling student debt, Building and establishing credit, Dealing with identity theft, Tackling student loan repayment, Preparing for graduation.
Since the inception of IU Money Smarts, there has been a $126.4 Million reduction in student borrowing since 2011 and a 23% Decrease in Student Borrowing across all IU campuses.
Investment & Finance
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Investment & Finance:
The Office of Sustainability employs interns research and pursue sustainable fund development opportunities. In addition to each intern’s on-campus projects and focus areas, interns are expected to continue to search and apply for external funding opportunities both for project implementation and for career development opportunities.
More on the Internship program: https://sustainability.iupui.edu/engagement/internship-program/index.html
Wellbeing & Work
A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Wellbeing & Work:
The Indiana University Student Outreach Clinic (SOC) is a free, student-run clinic that provides primary care-based medical, dental, social and legal services for the uninsured and underserved in the Indianapolis community. Led by IU School of Medicine, this clinic strives to close the healthcare gap in the community by coordinating a medical presence to address a wide variety of conditions including infections, musculoskeletal complaints, high blood pressure and depression.
More about the Student Outreach Clinic: https://medicine.iu.edu/indianapolis/service-learning/outreach-clinic
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.