University of Maryland, College Park
EN-1: Student Educators Program

The SustainableUMD Outreach Team previously known as the LEAF Outreach Team is a group of trained interns who take an active role in promoting sustainability at UMD. Outreach Team members participate in diverse activities and events aimed at encouraging people to reduce their footprint and become more sustainable.
Key activities of the SustainableUMD Outreach Team include:

- Communication by helping spread the word to others. From workshops with their residence hall, club, team, group, etc. to tabling at events, their job is to inform others about how to reduce their environmental impact.
- Educational activities and crafting at special events. These events include Earth Day, Stamp Fest, Maryland Day, The Farmers Market at Maryland, First Look Fair, The Commuter Breakfasts, and more. At events, students engage with sustainable activities and crafts including all-natural green cleaners, upcycled margents from old magazines, the Small Footprint Pledge, and DIY natural air fresheners.
- Education through workshops, social media, and events. The Outreach Team host workshops where they sustainable topics like water, energy, food, transportation, and many more. For example, previous workshops focused on teaching people about food miles or carbon footprints associated with their food. At events and workshops, each activity includes lessons about why the activity is sustainable and how the student can be more sustainable in their every day lives.

This program remained active through the online education transition.

All UMD students

The University of Maryland provides a First-Year Sustainability Education program. The Office of Sustainability selects a group of junior and senior students to be Student Sustainability Advisors. The Advisors develop and deliver a sustainability presentation that engages first-year students in conversation about sustainability, encouraging them to get involved in finding solutions to global climate issues. The Student Sustainability Advisors share their contact information with first-year students and make themselves available to follow up as needed. Additionally, the program remained active at a limited capacity during COVID.

The work done by Student Sustainability Advisors directly targets and engages first-year students at the University of Maryland. In the Fall 2021 academic semester, the Sustainability Advisors gave more than 50 presentations to 1,100 first-year students.

The Green Chapter program encourages fraternity and sorority brothers and sisters to adopt habits that conserve water, save energy, minimize waste and save money. The Green Chapter program, a partnership between the Department of Fraternity and Sorority Life and the Office of Sustainability, seeks to motivate sustainable practices by providing guidelines, ongoing motivation, and recognition for best practices. Each participating Green Chapter must have a Sustainability Chair to serve as a student educator amongst members of their chapter, to arrange sustainability actions, activities, and presentations, to achieve and document the steps to certification, and to ensure adequate participation in the Green Terp pledge.

Members of fraternities and sororities, as recognized by the Department of Fraternity and Sorority Life.

The Common Ground Multicultural Dialogue Program at the University of Maryland provides opportunities for dialogue among diverse groups of students who differ in identities, perspectives, and experiences. The program brings together groups of 12 to 16 undergraduates to engage in peer-led, structured exploration of contemporary dilemmas in U.S. multicultural society such as affirmative action, abortion, income inequality, and immigration policy. The design is deliberative and encourages an analytical approach to the issue.

Common Ground dialogues are led by Peer Dialogue Leaders (PDLs). The PDL training program is currently a 90-hour, three-credit internship. Training topics include foundational aspects of dialogue and the Common Ground program, facilitation approaches and techniques, participant roles and behaviors, mediating hot buttons, cognitive development, and building understanding on controversial issues. After completing training, trained PDLs can facilitate for hourly pay for the remainder of their time as students. Some of them may choose to become Multicultural Advocates.

The Multicultural Advocates (MAs) assume an active leadership role in developing and maintaining a positive and inclusive learning environment within the residence halls. MAs serve as role models and resource persons in assisting students in their education, personal growth, and sense of belonging in the residence hall community and at the University of Maryland. Their primary responsibilities fall under two categories: (1) community development and education of residential students and (2) the training and development of Resident Assistants and other student staff.