Ithaca College
EN-2: Student Orientation

The Resource and Environmental Management Program (REMP) incorporates sustainability into new student orientation. The group has an educational table with numerous informational packets, hands out door hangers with recycling guidelines for campus, and meets with orientation leaders to teach them how to present sustainability to incoming students. Eco Reps especially target their peer-to-peer educational programs to residence halls where significant numbers of first-year students are housed. This summer, REMP participated in a Residential Life program to create an informational podcast about sustainability-related programs and practices that new students should know. Incoming students are offered The GREEN Tour (Gardening, Recycling, Eating, Enjoying Nature), which is an opportunity for first-year students to learn about Sustainability and to connect to one another and to the Ithaca community by exploring local food traditions. The group will travel by bus to see firsthand the diversity of food production systems in use on a variety of farms around Cayuga Lake. A hike in the Taughannock Falls gorge and dinner at Stewart Park are also trip highlights. Sustainability guides will lead discussions and exercises about participants’ observations and sites they have explored. The GREEN Tour will help new and transfer students learn about being a part of a connected community and understand the impact they have on a local level, regional, and global level.