The New School
PAE-19: Community Sustainability Partnerships

The following partnerships are active or were active in the last two years. 1. Lower East Side Ecology Center (LESEC): Parsons The New School for Design first-year students work on creating a more sustainable New York City with the Lower East Side Ecology Center. They take part in providing community-based recycling and composting programs, developing local stewardship of green space, increasing community awareness, as well as involvement and youth development through environmental education programs. The students do volunteer work, such as canvassing businesses in the Lower East Side of Manhattan to educate them about EcoBiz (a LESEC program that encourages sustainable practices for small businesses), gardening work in the East River Park, and teaching workshops on composting to first graders in public schools. 2. Solar Decathalon Competition: The Solar Decathlon is an international competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy to design and build a solar-powered exhibition house. Parsons The New School for Design, in collaboration with students and faculty of Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, and New School programs in Media Studies and Environmental Studies, are partnering with The Stevens Institute of Technology in carrying out the project. The New School’s “whole-life” approach addresses all aspects of the house, including furnishings, clothing, and household products. What's more, instead of just building a model prototype house, the school has committed to build practical, real-world duplex homes in the Deanwood section of Ward 7 in Washington DC. The team has also partnered with Ward 7 community-based organizations, nonprofits, and the local government. Given that the approach is intended to encourage more efficient and affordable housing programs in urban areas across the country, collaboration with Habitat for Humanity of DC provides the organization with a model for energy-efficient housing that it will replicate in future affordable housing projects. 3. Ashoka Changemaker Campus: Changemaker Campus is a unique partnership opportunity between Ashoka U and New School students, faculty, staff and administrators. Ashoka aims to co-create a vision and plan of action to improve teaching, research and engagement opportunities in social entrepreneurship – both on campus and in the local and global communities. New School students, staff and faculty are encouraged to use Ashoka support in terms of capacity building, financial resources and workshops to engineer new sustainable solutions for environmental and other problems in our community. 4. Trees New York: The New School's Urban Forestry club works with Trees New York to train students to become Citizen Tree Pruners. The training consists of eight hours of classroom work and four hours of field-based learning with a Trees New York Forester. Students who become tree pruners work in the Union Square area of Manhattan pruning trees and cleaning tree beds to ensure tree health around campus. 5. Habitat for Humanity: Beginning in 2009, the Office of Student Development and Activities selected the Okiciyapi Tipi branch of Habitat for Humanity on the Cheyenne River Reservation as the site for its service trip. Groups of students have joined such Habitat trips since. 6. Recycle-a-Bicycle: Students in the Lang Outdoors offered in conjunction with Recycle-a-Bicycle, a local non-profit, develop the knowledge and skills to be safe, informed, and proactive urban cyclists. They learn the basics of bicycle maintenance and repair. 7. Community Gardens: Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts offers, in partnership with Just Food, a course that introduces students to urban gardening, the growing outdoor movement to improve health, build community, and protect the environment. Over the course of the semester, students plan, manage, and maintain a small garden plot near campus. The New School maintains several additional community partnerships with local, sustainable organizations. To read more, please look at the New School’s 2010 Civic Engagement report published at: http://www.newschool.edu/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=55170