Pratt Institute
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

During the 2016/17 academic year, The Provost’s office and the Center for Sustainable Design Strategies (CSDS) supported a new initiative called the Departmental Sustainability Coordinator (DSC). Each DSC’s role is to promote sustainability in their home department, focusing on enhancing the curriculum and promoting the achievements of students and faculty. Each DSC works with their chair, curriculum committee, fellow faculty and students to identify opportunities and to provide resources related to sustainability. They work collaboratively to create a written mission/vision statement around sustainability for their home department, create benchmarks for success, and find ways to record and document this. In addition to the individual departmental work, all of the DSC representatives meet together monthly to coordinate best practices, as well as report curriculum developments (including, for example, the Academic portions of this report).

Pratt Institute is proud to be a core partner on the team selected to develop The New York Climate Exchange, a non-profit world-class climate center on Governors Island. Led by Stony Brook University, the team includes Pratt Institute, Georgia Tech, Pace University, University of Washington, IBM, BCG, and Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES).

This is a profound moment for Pratt and our community, as the Institute will be part of a research and educational hub poised to establish New York City as the global leader for the most pressing issue of our time: climate change.

With its diverse coalition of partners and unprecedented resources, Governors Island will become home to a first-of-its-kind international center for developing research and supporting teaching and community engagement that addresses the global climate crisis and champions climate justice and equity for those most impacted by climate change.

GiveTake is a campus-wide art material reuse program. Throughout the year, materials are donated, collected, sorted, and given back to students, free of charge, through a free store. All materials donated back to students are weighed. At the end of each semester, GiveTake staff distribute special blue bags to all of the studios and additional donation space is marked in common areas and hallways. These materials are then collected and sorted so that they can be reused by students the following semester. Givetake has recovered over 20 tons of materials since its launch in 2016.