Pitzer College
EN-3: Student Life

EcoCenter Pitzer Green Initiative Fund Redford Conservancy Fellows ReRoom Initiative Garden & Composting Club Terracycle Club Food Not Bombs Claremont Market Shares Pitzer Food Collective A Cleaner Tomorrow

Pitzer students have the opportunity to gain experience in organic agriculture on-campus, as part of the Garden & Composting club, and off-campus, via volunteering with our community partner, Huerta del Valle.

The Pitzer Green Initiative Fund seeks to engage students in social responsibility and environmental sustainability by encouraging innovative and creative solutions to environmental problems. The PGIF Grant Committee, comprised of student voting members and faculty/staff advisers, provides one-time grants to students for sustainability initiatives on campus. Pitzer's ReRoom Initiative is a student-lead initiative that aims to promote a culture of sustainability on campus through the collection and reuse of used items donated by Pitzer College residents at the end of each semester. All proceeds from ReRoom sales go toward supporting student sustainability initiatives.

Redford Conservancy Past Events (Spring 2015) April 2, 7pm, Pitzer, Benson Auditorium Guest Speaker: Irma R. Muñoz, Founder/President of Mujeres de la Tierra April 3, 12pm, Pitzer, Shakedown Cafe Shakedown Student Forum: Getting to Know the Redford Conservancy April 11, 5pm, Pomona, Edmunds Ballroom Luau 2015: “Me Ke Aloha No Ka Mokupuni Honua” – “With Love for our Island Earth.” April 18, 9am-4pm, Meet in front of Pitzer Admissions (Must have a confirmed spot) LA Toxic Tour with Communities for a Better Environment March 26, 7pm, Pitzer, West Hall Demo Kitchen Sustainable Cleaning Products Party March 30, 9-11am, Pitzer, Broad Hall 210 Faculty forum to discuss current and future uses of Bernard Field Station March 31, 12:00-1pm, Pomona, Edmunds 114 Guest Speaker: Shimul Javeri Kadri on “The Evolving Courtyard” March 23, 6:30pm, Pitzer, Benson Auditorium Guest Speaker: Nancy Sutley, Former Chair, Council on Environmental Quality EcoCenter Past Events (Spring 2015) February 19 - March 9: PowerDown energy reduction competition April 2: Guest speaker, Irma Munoz of Mujeres de la Tierra April 18: Beach cleanup with Heal the Bay at Santa Monica Beach April 22: Film screening, Planet Earth April 23: Guest speaker, Jennifer Stephens of The Wilderness Society

Pitzer’s Art+Environment program explores the intersection of the arts and the environment and is funded by a four-year, $600,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Pitzer Multi-Species Commons develops a new way to sense, understand and interact with our urban ecosystems as a multi-species commons — and it creatively rethinks the capacities of landscape design, commons practices, subsistence practices, urbanism, public art, and the ecology of public space. We developed this landscape program over a two year period under the auspices of the Art + Environment Visiting Artist initiative: http://www.spurse.org/what-weve-done/pitzer-multi-species-commons/

Pitzer offers Orientation Adventure programs to all incoming students and these programs all follow Leave No Trace principles. Additionally, the Pitzer Outdoor Adventure club organizes recreational outings that also follow these principles.

Orientation Adventure (OA) is the off-campus component of Pitzer’s new student orientation program. Student participants spend four days on excursions with 10-15 of their peers in, above, and around the Los Angeles Basin and the greater Southern California area. Sustainability focused OAs include: Sustainability in Action and Social Justice in Action Sustainability in Action Through hands-on experiences, students will be introduced to the complexities of sustainability issues in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Participants will visit local urban farms, markets, and other community projects, explore Ojai via a farm to fork restaurant, experience a beekeeping workshop, and learn to make kombucha. Folks who have spent years working on sustainability issues and folks to whom this is a new issue will all feel welcome on this trip. Participants will cook and taste a variety of locally grown and harvested foods, including goat cheeses and produce from sustainable farms in the LA area. Two nights will be spent sleeping in community spaces near Pitzer and one night will be spent camping outside under the stars. Social Justice in Action This trip will introduce participants to critical social and cultural issues in the Los Angeles Basin and Inland Empire. But, it won’t stop there. Through collaborating with Pitzer’s Community Engagement Center and their community partners, participants will tap into relationships that Pitzer has taken years foster and begin to define for themselves what local social justice issues they feel most connected to. Not to mention, this is a jump start on Pitzer’s social responsibility graduation requirement. Splitting time between Pitzer, Claremont and Los Angeles, participants will gain well rounded perspective of their new home.

The Office of Sustainability and the Redford Conservancy currently employ one student worker each. Also, the ReRoom Initiative pays student staff members to collect, organize, and ultimately resell donated items at the end of every semester. For the most recent ReRoom sales (8/15), five students worked as paid staff.

-PowerDown: part of Campus Conservation Nationals, PowerDown is the name of the Claremont Colleges' energy reduction competition. -ReSource: an initiative that provides compost bins and laundry drying racks to students for the year at no cost.