Ithaca College
EN-3: Student Life

- Ithaca College Environmental Society (ICE) promotes environmental awareness and responsibility on our campus through education, activism, and stewardship, while reaching out both within our campus and the community of Ithaca. - The IC undergraduate chapter of Net Impact represents the School of Business' objective to "foster sustainable enterprises." The program promotes the study and practice of sustainability in corporate enterprises and encourages a sense of ethical, social, and public responsibilities. http://www.ithaca.edu/business/clubs/netimpact/ - S.W.I.F.T. (Stop Wasting Ithaca's Food Today) works with Dining Services to repackage and deliver leftover, unserved food to local food pantries. - IC Organic Growers developed and maintains the campus organic garden and the Permaculture garden. - IC Progressives is an organization supporting grass-roots activists, environmentalists, advocates for social justice, non-violent resisters, and regular citizens who have had enough of corporate-dominated politics and want to change society. - Eco Reps are responsible for peer-to-peer education and engagement surrounding all aspects of sustainability: social, environmental, and economic. They host teach-ins, a variety of events, and provide compost services to student residents. They also implement new program that encourage responsible resource management and consumption.

Ithaca College Community Gardens, located on the lower portion of the IC campus and off of Farm Pond Road, are student-run gardens. We experiment with many aspects of sustainable gardening and farming including permaculture design, crop rotation, companion planting, four-season food production, and heirloom seed saving. We all help to organize classroom tours, assist with student research, and host harvest dinners and other special events for volunteers and community members. The IC Organic Garden is also currently working with Ithaca College’s permaculture garden and rooftop garden on Terrace 2.

South Hill Forest Products is a student-run business dedicated to providing high quality, all natural non-timber forest products (NTFP) grown and/or harvested on campus-owned property. Each spring semester, Professor Jason Hamilton, associate professor of Environmental Studies, leads an NTFP class that is comprised of students eager to learn. The class is based around an experiential type of education, that allows the students to interact with the subjects they learn. Once the students leave the class, they are well equipped to: - Integrate: connect academic knowledge, theory, and skills to the experiential learning context - Problem Solve: identify challenges and opportunities that arise in the experiential learning environment, and respond constructively to them - Communicate: develop written, verbal, and non‐verbal competencies to effectively communicate with diverse audiences - Practice Professionalism: understand their roles and responsibilities within the experiential learning context, and act appropriately Throughout the semester, students learn how to keep bees, farm mushrooms, and make maple syrup. While Jason and his TAs provide a knowledge base, the majority of the work is done by the students. Students in the South Hill Forest Products group pick and pack mushrooms, harvest and process honey, and tap maple trees and boil sap to produce maple syrup. We sell our products and organize an open house at the sugar bush. South Hill Forest Products brand maple syrup is also available for sale at the Campus Store.

- The Office of Energy Management & Sustainability, the School of Business, and the Ithaca College’s chapter of Net Impact co-host the annual IC Sustainability Week. Each year, renowned speakers give presentations and workshops and students host a sustainability expo that features local organizations and businesses, as well as on-campus student groups.

- Each year, faculty at Ithaca College host the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival - a week-long event featuring the screening of sustainability-focused films. The theme for 2019 was DISRUPTIONS. “Disruptions stop the flow of events, ideas, processes, and structures which can no longer continue like before. As interruptions, they produce breaks and fissures that create new way to think and to do. Global climate disruption describes unwanted and unnatural environmental changes. Divergent and disorderly, disruptions upset norms, cancel what exists, and release the untapped and the repressed.” - In spring 2019, the Eco Reps hosted “Earthfest: A Music & Art Festival” where student bands performed original music, students were able to display and sell their art, and Eco Reps led activities and discussions that encouraged sustainable behavior change (creating plant holders out of recycled t-shirts, planting herbs and vegetables, etc.)

- There is a program in one of the residence halls called the Outdoor Adventure Learning Community. This community organizes trips such as hiking, backpacking or kayaking. There are also several hundred acres of natural lands on campus that have posted Leave No Trace policies, which are used as outdoor classrooms.

The institution offers a sustainability-themed first-year orientation experience. Before the start of the school year, incoming freshman are invited to participate in the Jumpstart Program. One of the programs is the GREEN Tour that takes students on a bio-regional bus tour around Cayuga Lake with a GREEN Tour Sustainability Guide. The students also partake in activities that foster a better sense of the regional community and environment, like visiting the S.H.A.R.E. farm, run by the Haudenosaunee native tribe and the Ithaca Farmers Market. In addition, in Fall 2013, themed “tracks” into the Integrative Core Curriculum, where students select academic themes that underscore their entire college experience. One of those themes is "A Quest for a Sustainable Future." This theme includes courses that ask: - What does it mean to live sustainably? Is sustainability an attainable and meaningful goal? - How do we tell stories—in literature, in film, in media new and old—about consumerism, economic inequality and affluence, environmental change and degradation, and more - In what ways will the quest for sustainability define the coming century? - How have values systems in different times and places shaped our economic, social, and ecological behavior? - What are some meaningful metrics for assessing sustainability? - To what extent is sustainability a scientific problem versus a social issue? The Office of Energy Management & Sustainability (OEMS) also began incorporating monthly sustainability themes in 2017. Each month, all communications from OEMS and the IC Eco Reps center around education within the theme. OEMS staff give monthly lectures on challenges and opportunities within the themes, as well as provide informational posters in every campus restroom.

The Eco Reps held Student Leadership Institute (SLI) workshops on how to choose an apartment based on energy efficiency and best practices to reduce energy consumption in on- and off-campus housing.

Eco Reps work to create a more sustainable living and learning experience on campus. The group seeks to promote awareness of environmental concerns, educate the College community about how we can safeguard the earth's life-support system, implements new programs that encourage responsible resource management, social justice action and advocacy, and connects the campus to the surrounding community through service projects. The program employs 10 students each semester, as well as offer one or two paid or for-credit internships.