Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 65.42
Liaison Dayna Cook
Submission Date March 3, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Northern Arizona University
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 3.00 Ellen Vaughan
Manager
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability :
NEW ECONOMY NORTHERN ARIZONA (NENAU)

Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? :
Yes

Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe?:
Multi-year or ongoing

Which of the following best describes the partnership’s sustainability focus?:
The partnership simultaneously supports social equity and wellbeing, economic prosperity, and ecological health

Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners in strategic planning, decision-making, implementation and review? (Yes, No, or Not Sure):
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability, including website URL (if available) and information to support each affirmative response above:

https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/NENAU/

New Economy for Northern Arizona University strives to work locally and globally towards a more equitable, sustainable, resilient, and empowering economy through the study, practice, and promotion of a culture of awareness and cooperation in enterprise and entrepreneurship. The food choices we make everyday impact economies all over the world. We are currently working on empowering ourselves as students to take action for the food system we want to see on campus. We want our impact on those economies to encourage sustainability, equity, and justice. The first step is to understand what the student population at NAU envisions as a just and inclusive food system and then work to achieve this vision. The study, recognition, and shaping of our impact on the local economy in particular will continue to be a major part of our work moving forward.


Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (2nd partnership):
WEATHERIZATION AND COMMUNITY BUILDING ACTION TEAM (WACBAT) / ECO

Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (2nd partnership):
Yes

Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (2nd partnership):
Multi-year or ongoing

Which of the following best describes the partnership’s sustainability focus? (2nd partnership):
The partnership simultaneously supports social equity and wellbeing, economic prosperity, and ecological health

Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners in strategic planning, decision-making, implementation and review? (2nd partnership) (Yes, No, or Not Sure):
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability, including website URL (if available) and information to support each affirmative response above (2nd partnership):

https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/WACBAT/ECO/

The Weatherization and Community Building Action Team (WACBAT) works to bridge the gap between campus and community while encouraging our students to engage in sustainable initiatives that promote democracy and democratic action. WACBAT focuses on where social and environmental justice align with the goal of addressing local issues, and then putting them into action to create lasting change. This student led group hopes to bring about culture change, policy change and community building around saving energy, money and jump-starting a greener economy based on renewable energy.


Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (3rd partnership):
TOTAL LIBERATION

Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (3rd partnership):
Yes

Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (3rd partnership):
Multi-year or ongoing

Which of the following best describes the partnership’s sustainability focus? (3rd partnership):
The partnership simultaneously supports social equity and wellbeing, economic prosperity, and ecological health

Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners in strategic planning, decision-making, implementation and review? (3rd partnership) (Yes, No, or Unknown):
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability, including website URL (if available) and information to support each affirmative response above (3rd partnership):

https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/TL/

Total Liberation (TL) Action Learning Team is a collective of students, artists, and community members who have come together asking the questions:
What can we do as activists to creatively address nonhuman oppression?
What are the connections between nonhuman and human oppression?
What can be done to help create alliances between animal liberation activists and other social justice activists?
How is animal liberation inseparable from the cultivation of sustainable and just communities?
Our choice of the name “Total Liberation” reflects our shared belief that all oppression is connected and our collective vision for a creative activism that is holistic, compassionate, and inclusive of all living beings.
Our Action Learning Team “champions a politics of total liberation which grasps the need for, and the inseparability of, human, nonhuman animal, and Earth liberation and freedom for all in one comprehensive, though diverse, struggle” (Best, Nocella, Kahn, Gigliotti, & Kemmerer, 2007, p. 2).
We are currently involved in several projects. These projects are:
Veganic Gardening at NAU- We have just recently secured a veganic (no animal product) garden plot on campus.
Volunteering at local animal shelters
The Really Real Food Challenge – We are starting conversations to create more just, local, fairly traded, ecologically grown, and plant based food options on campus.
Creating Art as Activism – We are creating and distributing zines about holistic justice and decolonizing veganism. We also create and share public art in the form of poetry, crafts, and painting about issues affecting humans, nonhuman animals, and the planet.


A brief description of the institution’s other community partnerships to advance sustainability:

ALT: Community Gardens
https://nau.edu/Provost/VP-TLDA/FYS/Community-Gardens/
Since its inception in 2012, the Community Garden ALT seeks to change the way we produce, consume, and value local food through educational outreach, increasing community participation in community gardens, and building innovative partnerships between Flagstaff businesses, non-profits, and community groups.
Students from NAU visit Colton Community Garden weekly to do maintenance and upkeep, work with The Peaks Senior Living residents and Museum of Northern Arizona staff to gain landscaping and gardening, social, and professional skills, build compost bins, plant communal garden beds, learn about beneficial and harmful weeds and insects, and maintain a useful rain harvesting system.


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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