Lafayette College
EN-3: Student Life

Society of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (SEES)- SEES is an organization with three main goals. First, S.E.E.S. provides a learning experience for interested students in the related fields of environmental science and engineering. Second, S.E.E.S. conducts research to help solve current environmental science and engineering problems. Third, S.E.E.S. seeks to promote environmental sustainability through community outreach and partnerships.
Lafayette Environmental Awareness and Protection (LEAP)- LEAP, advised by Katalin Fabian, is Lafayette College’s student environmental advocacy group. They are dedicated to making Lafayette a more sustainable institution and decreasing its ecological footprint. They are composed of students from all class years and all majors, and take advantage of our variety of perspectives to address a multitude of environmental concerns at Lafayette.
The Lafayette Food and Farm Cooperative (LAFFCO) is a student organization that works to increase involvement and knowledge of our food and agricultural system. It also serves as the student branch of LaFarm.
LEAP (Lafayette Environmental Awareness and Protection) club promotes environmental initiatives and hosts sustainability related events on campus. LEAP organizes events like community clean ups and recycled paper making to foster community for passionate environmental students.
TBTT (Take Back the Tap) is a club devoted to banning single use plastics on campus. TBTT promotes reusable water bottle use and water refill stations. In 2018, they built several plastic cup pyramids displaying how many plastic cups are used everyday in certain dining halls. The club is currently inactive but comes and goes depending on student interest.
Food Recovery Network works with Dining Services to recover unused food from dining halls around campus and donate it to local food pantries and food banks. This builds on existing food recovery efforts that have been created and maintained by the founders of this club, utilizing institutional recognition and the agency that comes with it to expand these programs in order to normalize and preserve sustainable food practices on the Lafayette campus.

For more information about clubs on campus visit: https://sustainability.lafayette.edu/student-organizations/

LaFarm, run by Food and Farm Manager, Josh Parr, is one of several sustainability initiatives at Lafayette. LaFarm Community Garden & Working Farm is a site for teaching, research, outreach, growing healthy food and building community. Our daily work and our long term goals aim to build an understanding of the critical role of food and farming in environmental stewardship.
More information: https://garden.lafayette.edu/

In the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022, Sustainability Interns through the Office of Sustainability ran Pop-Up thrift stores on campus, whose proceeds went to local charities. Items are collected in the residence halls on campus, sorted by size and type, and sold at a sale through a "pay-what-you-can" model. These items are diverted from the landfill and redistributed to the student body through this store-like setup. In spring 2022, proceeds from the sale when to local charity, Afros in Nature (https://www.afrosinnature.org/).

Beginning in fall of 2022, students worked to make this program more permanent on campus, hosting 7 pop up thrift stores from 2022-2023 using items collected through Green Move Out. Proceeds go towards program operations.

As a part of Lafayette's Climate Action Plan, the college has established a Green Revolving Fund for programs on campus.

Additionally, the Student Government Sustainability Committee has established an Endowment Coalition aimed at drafting a resolution including sustainable policies and practices that guide the Lafayette endowment.

The Office of Sustainability, in partnership with faculty and students, host events regularly to educate students about sustainability topics of interest.

Recent examples from spring include:
-Karl Stirner Arts Trail Clean Up
-Earth Month Opening and Closing Keynote Addresses focused on food systems (Melanie Lino of Made by Lino local bakery and Justin Kamine of Do Good Foods chicken production focused on decreasing food waste)
-Importance of Native Plants - this event was held in partnership with the Lafayette College Library to bring awareness to native trees and plants and their purpose on and off campus.
-EarthFest - this festival was in celebration of Earth Day 2023. Food, activities, and learning experiences related to sustainability were featured from campus departments, student groups, community organizations and more.

More related series can be found here: https://sustainability.lafayette.edu/events/

Lafayette often hosts movie screenings and arts programs focused on sustainability for students to attend. For example in spring of 2023, the Peer Anti-Violence Educators hosted a screening of Wind River that tells a story of sexual violence on an Indian reservation and exemplifies themes of environmental injustice. Williams center for the Arts also showed Straight Line Crazy about Robert Moses and urban development in New York City with a professor led talk before.

In spring 2022, the Office of Sustainability paired with the Bushkill Stream Conservancy and Community Based Teaching Program of Easton & Phillipsburg to take the waste collected from a local stream cleanup and transform it into an art piece. This art was then displayed at the EarthFest celebration on Earth Day.

Also in spring 2022, the Office of Sustainability worked with the after school program for local elementary school students of Easton to learn about sustainability. During the session, students drew the Earth and reflected on why they love the Earth and what they plan to do to help the Earth in a sustainable way. These drawings were displayed during the EarthFest celebration on Earth Day.

The Lafayette Outdoors Society (LOSt) is an organization that introduces students to the great outdoor recreation activities that the Easton area has to offer. Events include hiking/Camping, rock climbing, kayaking, cycling and running. LOSt follows Leave No Trace principles. The faculty advisor for LOSt is Cliff Reiter.

https://sites.lafayette.edu/outdoors/

Groups also often host outdoor hikes and programming in the local area. In spring of 2022, the Office of Sustainability hosted a hike to a local lookout point, Gallop Park, and disseminated tips on how to camp sustainably. In spring of 2023, the Newman Catholic Association hosted a reading of Psalm 8 followed by a walk and litter clean up.

The Eco Reps Leadership Program has themes each month for their outreach initiatives in their houses and halls to ensure a wholistic overview of sustainability through educational activities. These themes follow the themes identified for the Office of Sustainability as priorities and the time of year where it aligns with other behaviors.
September & February: Circular Economies & Zero Waste
October: Sustainable Food Loop
November: Energy & Carbon Neutrality
March: Water & Regenerative Ecosystems
April: Environmental Justice

The TREEHouse and GreenHouse are special interest living groups located on in off campus houses that are college-owned. The purpose of the living groups are to establish a low-impact, environmentally-conscious culture. The members of the TREEhouse and Greenhouse all live together, trying to be models of recycling, efficiency, and conservation – employing human ingenuity, innovativeness and resourcefulness to establish a virtually waste-less and environmentally friendly community. The members of the groups help to develop a campus-wide consciousness about preservation of the environment and the group serves as a pilot for new campus-wide environmental and energy policy. The TREEhouse was previously an interest floor located in a residence hall on campus.

Additionally, the Eco Reps Leadership Program embeds sustainability into the living experience in residence halls, greek houses, and off-campus houses through programming and the Sustainable Living Certificate for individual behavior change, education and improvement.

Through Lafayette's community garden, LaFarm, students work under Josh Parr, the Food and Farm Manager, to grow food using organic, small scale, sustainable practices and then help in selling that food both to our Dining Halls and at a market for students and staff on campus. This both involves hands on labor and logistical office work. More information: https://garden.lafayette.edu/jobs-and-volunteering/

Sustainability Interns and Fellows are also paid student employees through the Office of Sustainability to serve as peer-educators, researchers and sustainability ambassadors across campus. More information: https://sustainability.lafayette.edu/aboutus/studentinterns/