Raritan Valley Community College
EN-3: Student Life

The Environmental Club was founded to educate and positively affect the community, student body, faculty and staff on environmental policy, global environmental issues and environmentally responsible living. The members of the Environmental Club focus on making the campus more "green" and the community more aware of their affect on the environment and will establish an appropriate plan every semester to accomplish all of these goals. The club is open to everyone and anyone who is interested in local environmental issues, concerned about global environmental issues and politics, has compassion for society and the environment, and/or would just like to see the campus continuously move into the future of environmentally friendly practices and sustainable business procedures. We will research together, educate together, work together and stand together to make a difference, even if it is one seed at a time. In 2013-14, students made and sold syrup from invasive maple trees and also made and sold lavender soap. They also sold shade-grown, fair trade, organic coffee. They raised $1000, which funded an Audubon Society internship. They ran a campus cleanup in the fall. The Environmental Club is student-governed.

The RVCC Organic Garden, located behind the baseball field, is .4 acres in size. Previously it operated as a CSA, but it is in transition to an organic orchard now. The garden is run by the Environmental Club, which is student-governed. Information about all RVCC gardens is available at http://www.raritanval.edu/community/forum/sustain/thematic_gardens.html. Enactus has a My Neighbor's Garden project. They built a 40 plot, 22,000 square foot organic garden. In 2013-14, they provided food from this garden to 400 food insecure families. They also made donations of up to 50% of their produce to the Community Food Bank of NJ.

Enactus started Big Dan's Bike Shop, which is included in their 2013-14 annual report. It addresses a social need, to improve the standard of living of the "at risk" youth that attend Middle Earth, a youth center for "at risk" youth. It addresses an environmental need, to promote a clean and alternate form of transportation. They sell bikes to the general public through various outlets such as pop-up shops at local events. In 2013-14, they grew the business' income by over 200% with the partnerships and donations collected by Enactus. On October 8th, 2014, Enactus was awarded a $85,000 Impact 100 grant to support this program.

RVCC has a weekly Science Seminar, intended for students and faculty to gain exposure to current research, breaking science news, and historical backgrounds in a variety of scientific fields. There is even a "Science Seminar - Honors" course (SCIE 128) in which students attend each seminar and present a short seminar on a topic of his or her choice. Many of the seminars are on sustainability-related topics. During the 2013-14 academic year, there were seminars on global water issues and hydrogen power. There were also a number of events during Earth Week.

As part of our Campus Caring garden plantings of native plants across campus in April, an art class created two artistic gardens outside of the Arts building.

Environmental Club outings, class trips, and school trips such as the Clean Ocean Action beach sweeps, follow Leave No Trace principles.

Campus Sustainability Day 2014 had educational opportunities where students learned about: recycling, composting, residential stormwater management, energy-efficient lighting, organic gardening, alternative transportation, and making their homes more energy efficient.

The Facilities department offers internships with an operational sustainability focus.

RVCC has a service learning program, in which students spend 15 hours doing community service and this is noted on their transcript. Some student projects involve sustainability projects in the local community.