University of Calgary
EN-9: Staff Professional Development

All new employees attend orientation, which includes sustainability training. Human Resources offers programs and workshops to all staff, and many of these programs and workshops cultivate core competencies in sustainability leadership or that have content tied to the sustainability compass points of nature, economy, society and wellbeing (e.g., The Working Mind - a workshop that focuses on mental health). Finally, all staff can participate in the Sustainability Coordinator program for on-the-job training in sustainability.

All university employees are eligible to receive full tuition support for 4 academic courses and 4 continuing education courses per year. Eligibility begins after 6 months of service. Sustainability courses are available throughout each faculty and also through Continuing Education. There are over 80 courses related to sustainability offered by Continuing Education that are eligible for full tuition support. See EN-12 for more information.

In addition to these courses, the Office of Sustainability and other departments facilitate several events and seminars focused on sustainability throughout the year. For example, the Sustainability Speakers Series launched in the 2016-2017 academic year and addresses four topics on sustainability: energy, water, food and health. Faculty are included as panelists in the event and student, faculty and staff are encouraged to attend. The speaker series ran for its second year in 2017-2018. The Campus Mental Health Strategy brings in a high-profile speaker each year to discuss mental health; this event is open to all students, faculty and staff. There are also numerous other speaker series on campus related to sustainability. These include the O'Brien Institute/CHS Seminar Series; ConocoPhillips IRIS Seminar Series; Enbridge Research-in-Action Series; Brookfield Residential International Speaker Series in Real Estate; Design Matters Lecture Series; Arctic Institute of North America Speaker Series; Progress Energy International Speaker Series; Gallagher Colloquium Series; and Women Leaders Speaker Series.

The Office of Sustainability offers training in High Performance Green Buildings to staff in Facilities group. In the 2017-2018 year, 20 staff went through the training.

Staff from the University of Calgary Office of Sustainability participated in the AASHE conference, the Canadian Green Building Council conference, Together 21 (a conference focused on the Sustainable Development Goals), the California Higher Education in Sustainability Conference and the Sustainability in Higher Education in Canada Conference.This represents a fraction of staff who participated in external professional development and training opportunities in sustainability that are supported by the institution.