Indiana University South Bend
EN-3: Student Life

The Sustainability Club is a group of students dedicated to making conscious living choices that do not harm the planet, people, or our potential prosperity. This club is primarily focused on encouraging each other to be sustainable while encouraging our campus to be more sustainable. We will be focusing on making a loud presence on our campus to ensure that sustainable progress is being made at IUSB. We welcome all students from any degree path or background because we recognize that diversity is a wonderful thing and enjoy new and differing perspectives. The Honors program works closely with the Sustainability Club and the Center for a Sustainable Future for an annual event to celebrate Earth Day & Arbor Day to remove invasive species, plant trees, work in the campus garden, and conduct a trail and river clean up.

The Unity Garden program at Indiana University South Bend serves as a resource for faculty and students to help out, harvest, and be educated on not only what goes on in the garden, but how to garden and on plants through demonstrations and planned events. Its main purpose is to provide a food resource for those who may go hungry or would like to pick the fruits of labor done by the garden workers and to build a community for those that want to be involved.

The IU South Bend Center for a Sustainable Future works with the community and campus to promote innovative and engaging ways to advance sustainability and create healthy, inclusive, economically thriving communities. Every spring semester a weekly series of world class sustainability champions from Michiana and beyond. They share how they have used sustainability and innovation as a platform for prosperity and how attendees can too.

A Bee Art Contest that was held on April 18th 2019. The Bee Art Contest was open to all IUSB students. IUSB Students were encouraged to submit Bee themed artwork and a 300-500 word written piece responding to four, sustainability related questions. 1. Why is saving bees important to you and the community? 2. What environmental bee concept are you addressing? 3. Why are bees important to our environment? 4. What media and material did you use in your artwork? A panel of judges from the IUSB campus and community selected the winner(s) based on creativity, strength of bee related theme, concept use materials, and adherence to the above rules. The winner(s) were announced at IUSB’s Earth Day Reception and Award Ceremony.

SUST-B 190 The Sustainable Future (3 cr.) is a first year experience course. In this course, students are introduced to systems thinking and begin to examine the foundations of sustainability. They learn how sustainability requires the integration of natural scientific understandings of the threat of environmental degradation, with social and behavioral scientific understanding of the social, economic, cultural and political factors driving the human contributions to the problem, as well as to its solution. Course work draws upon the historical perspective, ethical sensibility, and creative imagination of the arts and humanities to help understand what led us to this point and to map out alternative futures. This course is designed to provide a broad based approach to societal challenges and an interdisciplinary framework within which students can study the foundations of sustainability and learn how the development and implementation of sustainable values, practices, technologies, and strategies in our homes, on campus, in the workplace, and in our communities can create system wide change. It emphasizes interconnections between environment, economy, and society, and encourages and empowers students to address the complex socio-environmental problems confronting our communities and the world.

The Titans of Sustainability work-study internship program, now known as the Titan Green Team, is focused on engaging students in all facets of sustainability. The program was started support from Woman’s Philanthropy Council at Indiana University and currently supported through support from the Work Study Engagement Program supported by IU South Bend Academic Affairs. Titans work closely with faculty, staff, and other students at the Center for a Sustainable Future. Students engage in a learning community, working together to connect real world problem solving, student learning, and community connections necessary for students as they progress through their academic careers and enter into the workforce. Titans are involved in a number of initiatives, including: > Campus garden, providing fresh produce to communities in need in South Bend. >Annual eWaste event, which provides Michiana community members a safe and environmentally sound way to dispose of their unwanted electronics. >Earth Day events, including the Mayors Proclamation for sustainable towns and cities. Connecting to others interested in sustainability via the creation of newsletters and social media campaigns. >Sustainability Lecture Series, engaging the broader Michiana area with innovative sustainability thinkers and practitioners. >Annual Green Town event, connecting all facets of cities and towns to work together for sustainability. >New initiative connecting to area K-12 teachers and students interested in sustainability. >Opportunities to engage in a variety of sustainability related research projects.

Data for this credit was retrieved from the Director of the Center for a Sustainable Future, and from the Center for a Sustainable Future website. https://clas.iusb.edu/centers/cs-future/index.html According to the Director of Alumni Relations and Campus Ceremonies IUSB currently does not have a graduation pledge where students pledge to consider social and environmental responsibility in future job and other decisions?