Occidental College
EN-3: Student Life

ASOC Sustainability Fund
"SusFund" is a branch of Oxy’s student government that funds projects, initiatives, and events related to sustainability. This includes everything from FEAST’s chicken coop and baby chicks to the physics department’s solar panel robot, farmers market vouchers for students, and the Earth Day Quad Fair.

Bengal Bus
Oxy’s no-cost shuttle service offers nightly runs to and from anywhere within 7 miles of campus. The shuttle also offers occasional day trips to a variety of locations across LA, including the Santa Monica Pier and Grand Central Market. 

Bike Share
Bike Share is student-run service that provides free access to bikes and assistance in maintaining and fixing personal bikes for a nominal fee.

Biology Club

Biology Club is committed to encouraging all Oxy Students to participate in and learn about various topics in Biology. Additionally, they aim to introduce students to sustainability practices and commonly overlooked aspects such as conservation ecology, sustainable agriculture, and the science behind restoration projects. The club has partnered with groups such as FEAST in the past to look at native restoration and compost science, as well as going off campus to the Pasadena Homestead to learn about sustainable urban agriculture.

Excess Food Recovery Team (EFRT)

EFRT is a student volunteer organization dedicated to the goal of spreading food justice through food recovery, in which the organization takes food at Oxy and the surrounding community that would otherwise be wasted and bring it to people who need it. They also support local community gardens, urban farms, and other organizations promoting food justice. EFRT is also a member of the national Food Recovery Network. 

FEAST (Food, Energy and Sustainability Team)
This student service runs organic and eco-friendly gardens established with the goal of mobilizing students to work on issues around food systems, energy usage and sustainability. FEAST aims to expose students to the connections between food and regional ecology through immersion in urban gardening and sustainable landscaping.

Geology Club
This club provides an outlet for students, faculty and staff who are interested in the study of earth sciences. It provides support for the community relating to natural disasters, the earth’s environment, current geologic events and discoveries, and education on field methods that are specific to our region.

Green Bean
Green Bean is a student-run coffee lounge founded in 2009. It serves fair-trade, organic coffee in compostable to-go cups or mugs as well as pastries from a local bakery.

OSCAR (Occidental Student Composting Actions for Remediation)
This club, formerly called the Occidental Students Compost Association with REHS, is spearheading the efforts to increase composting efforts across campus. They have undertaken introducing compost bins to all residence halls. In 2022, the club combined forces with the Cooler Compost Project to sort and empty compost bins in the Tiger Cooler. 

Oxy Ecossentials
This club endeavors to reduce the amount of waste that enters landfills and decrease the number of new goods being purchased at retail stores. At the end of each semester, especially during the spring Move Out, they collect used items from each residence hall. These items are re-sold to the Oxy community at very low prices at the new "Touchdown Thrift" store run by students. 

Public Health Club
This club presents events and campaigns that relate to the intersection of health and sustainability. It has helped to facilitate a compost project on campus, led a campaign to remove plastic water bottles from campus dining facilities and made sustainable menstrual products available to students at no cost.

Sunrise Oxy

Sunrise Oxy is a student organization dedicated to building student power and winning climate justice initiatives on campus and in LA. Sunrise played a strong role in Oxy's divestment from fossil fuels in 2022, as well as a supporting role in the transition to reusable take-out ware at Campus Dining. In addition, Sunrise Oxy helps local climate champions get elected to public office, and conducts mutual aid projects in solidarity with people on the front lines of the climate crisis.

Sustainable Oxy Citizens Club

SOCC is a sustainability and climate justice-oriented club that seeks to educate and engage Oxy students about sustainability, public transit, food justice, and climate justice and seeks to make the outdoors more accessible to students. SOCC hosts a variety of events throughout the school year to foster more sustainable global citizens. In the past, the club has taken groups to local farmers markets via public transit, gone on group hikes, cleaned beaches, and hosted a clothes mending workshop.

FEAST (Food, Energy and Sustainability Team)
This student service runs organic and eco-friendly gardens established with the goal of mobilizing students to work on issues around food systems, energy usage and sustainability. FEAST aims to expose students to the connections between food and regional ecology through immersion in urban gardening and sustainable landscaping. The garden manages the Cafeteria to Compost program composting food scraps from our largest dining hall, maintains a flock of 11 hens to demonstrate how to use livestock in regenerative agricultural endeavors, and grows seasonal crops for use in community-centered potlucks. Furthermore, the garden hosts workshops, is the cite of many sustainability-centered events, and is the subject of urban agriculture research with the Urban and Environmental Policty Institute (UEPI). 

The FEAST team is 13 total students supervised by a full-time faculty member. There is also a group of over 100 volunteers and an additional 16 students in a one-unit sustainability class that teaches sustainable food growing practices. 

The Touchdown Thrift shop is a student-led secondhand store that collects donated goods from move out and throughout the academic year for affordable resale. Sustainability is central to its mission. 

We also have a student managed sustainable coffee shop called the Green Bean, which focuses on purchasing sustainable products. All of their disposable service items are compostable. They serve fair trade coffee, pastries from a local bakery, and other local/organic/sustainable food items.

Students assess themselves a $10 fee every semester to finance a branch of student government called the Sustainability Fund. The Fund is entirely run and operated by students. Anyone from the Oxy community can submit a proposal to the Fund. Projects must be related to sustainability and benefit the entire campus community in some way. Fifty percent of the funds must be used on permanent infrastructure upgrades or changes. 

In October 2014, the Board of Trustees approved the creation of a $3.5-million Green Revolving Fund within the endowment. The Green Revolving Fund, named the Occidental Sustainable Investment Fund (OSIF), will make loans across the campus community, enabling investments in energy and water efficiency upgrades, renewable energy, and other sustainability projects that generate utility cost savings and reduce the environmental impact of the College’s operations. The OSIF projects will be developed and administered by a multi-stakeholder subcommittee of the campus Sustainability Committee comprised of Facilities, Board of Trustees representatives, faculty, staff, and students.

Jane Fonda in Conversation with Greg Dalton '86:  An inspiring conversation in which Academy Award-winning actor and activist Jane Fonda will speak with Greg Dalton ’86 (host, Climate One podcast) about her decades-long commitment to sustainability, climate justice, and voting rights, focused on supporting the next generation of leaders. Jane and Greg were joined by Emma Silber ’23 and Emma Galbraith ’25, climate activists leading the local charge in the fight for climate justice.

2025 Antoinette and Vincent M. Dungan Lectureship on Energy and the Environment: Bryant Terry. As part of the 2025 Core Program hosted chef and artist Bryant Terry, an MFA student at UC Berkeley and award winning chef. This event was required for all first years to attend, but was open to the entire campus community. His lecture focused on the topic of food justice, with an emphasis on the ways art and justice intersect. 

Community Book Program 2023-24: The Community Book Program promotes the mission of the College by empowering our students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and other members of the broader Oxy community to experience the joy of reading and learning together. The College purchases an e-book for each student wishing to participate in the Community Book Program. The 23-24 selection was "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants"  by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who spoke in a virtual setting about her book in a discussion facilitated by then-college president Harry J. Elam. 

There have been several arts programs focused on sustainability in the last three years, with students as the intended audience for each, but including the entire community. 

2025 Antoinette and Vincent M. Dungan Lectureship on Energy and the Environment: Bryant Terry. As part of the 2025 Core Program hosted chef and artist Bryant Terry, an MFA student at UC Berkeley and award winning chef. This event was required for all first years to attend, but was open to the entire campus community. His lecture focused on the topic of food justice, with an emphasis on the ways art and justice intersect. 

2024 Earth Month Film Fest: The first Earth Month Film Fest, organized by students and the Office of Sustainability, featured three documentaries with environmental themes, including "Roots so Deep," "HANDS-ON: Women: Climate: Change," and a finale debut of Oxy alum Angelina Lee '22's "The Big Raise," a 40-minute documentary about permaculture in France. 

Community Book Program 2023-24: The Community Book Program promotes the mission of the College by empowering our students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and other members of the broader Oxy community to experience the joy of reading and learning together. The College purchases an e-book for each student wishing to participate in the Community Book Program. The 23-24 selection was "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants"  by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who spoke in a virtual setting about her book in a discussion facilitated by then-college president Harry J. Elam. 

OxyArts Installation Spring 2024: Mercedes Dorame: Where Sky Touches Water. Mercedes Dorame's exhibition Where Sky Touches Water brings together a collection of new and recent work, combining photography and sculpture to explore the profound beauty of our natural world. Dorame's lens captures the vibrant tapestry of our Native ecology and its elusive peripheries, inviting reflection on the delicate balance between the familiar and what lies beyond. 

OxyArts Installation Fall 2024: The Iridescence of Knowing. The Iridescence of Knowing invites visitors to explore the rich lineage of Indigenous cultural production in Tovaangar, known today as the greater Los Angeles basin. The exhibition brings together a collection of works from diverse artists from multiple generations and varied First Peoples communities of Southern California. The works challenge conventional boundaries between "craft" and "fine art”, uplifting intergenerational transmission of culture, the significance of lineage, and the profound connections between cultural tradition and contemporary artistic practices. In Indigenous cultures, ancestral histories are often influenced by multifaceted perspectives—ecological, spiritual, oral, cosmological. The notion of iridescence captures this fluid, reflective, ever-evolving nature of understanding and serves as a powerful metaphor for the transformative and dynamic qualities of knowing.

Oxy Outdoors is a student organization that leads camping, hiking, backpacking, and other outdoors trips and centers sustainability and appreciation of the natural world in their activities. 

Community Book Program 2023-24: The Community Book Program promotes the mission of the College by empowering our students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and other members of the broader Oxy community to experience the joy of reading and learning together. The College purchases an e-book for each student wishing to participate in the Community Book Program. The 23-24 selection was "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants"  by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who spoke in a virtual setting about her book in a discussion facilitated by then-college president Harry J. Elam. 

Food Justice House is a themed on-campus housing option that allows students to live in a sustainable living community. Although called Food Justice, the students living in this house follow a range of sustainability principles, from energy and water conservation, to composting, and even growing some of their food in their garden. They also host regular workshops to engage their peers in these concepts and life skills. Historically, they have taught sewing fundamentals, food preservation techniques, and gardening techniques.

The Office of Sustainability employs two Data and Communications student workers who assist with all operations of the Office of Sustainability. They also employ one student full-time over the summer as a sustainability fellow. 

Campus Dining employs two student Sustainability Interns that work on everything from sustainable food procurement to waste management.

The Urban and Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI) hires research assistants to help with their research projects relating to food, environmental justice, transportation, and more. In addition, UEPI hires many students for the UEPI Summer Internship Program. Students receive on-campus housing and compensation.

The Green Bean, which aims to demonstrate sustainable business practices, has a staff of over 60 students during the school year. 

The Excess Food Recovery Team has one paid student coordinator who oversees the volunteer program and connections to the community. 

Additionally, all members of the Associated Students of Occidental College (student government) are paid, including the ASOC Sustainability Fund members. 

Each April, Oxy's campus comes to life for "Earth Month," a cross-campus celebratory and educational campaign that encompasses over 30 events.