University of North Carolina, Greensboro
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

There are three categories which fit broadly within Green Fund guidelines:

Education / Community Outreach
Research
Infrastructure Development

Projects are considered on the following factors, including, but not limited to:

Clarity of presentation: Provides a clear outline of goals, budget, relevance, and implementation plan.
Relevance to UNCG’s Climate Action Plan: Provides a clear understanding of the plan and addresses a number of the fundamentals of UNCG’s definition of sustainability (economics, environment, social equity, and aesthetics).
Desirability: Clearly demonstrates how the project will enhance multiple stakeholders on campus.
Benefit to Students: The project offers professional development opportunities to students or has a direct impact on their lives and interactions on campus. Quantity doesn’t always equal quality. Projects that only involve one or handful of students but provide a high quality experience are equally important and acceptable.

The projects are reviewed by a student committee to make the awards.

In AY 2014-2015, the Sustainability Faculty Fellows Program was instituted as a way to connect faculty members more closely to sustainability work on UNCG's campus. The Sustainability Faculty Fellows Program promotes collaboration among scholarly disciplines in order to encourage the integration of sustainability in research and teaching across the campus. The SFFs partner with the Academic Sustainability Coordinator (ASC) to further academic sustainability in the areas of Leadership/Outreach, Teaching, and Research. SFFs work on clearly specified projects that may include, but are not limited to:
1) co- or extra-curricular campus programs,
2) curriculum activities (including team-taught and individual courses), and
3) research projects or collaborations.
The SFF can be a 1- or 2-year position renewable through re-application. SFFs may be either tenured, tenure-track, or full-time non-ladder faculty. SFF’s are remunerated on an ad hoc basis in consultation with the faculty member’s department head and dean; remuneration (up to $3500) may include a course release, research/travel funding, graduate assistant support, or other agreed upon resources.

As per the "UNIVERSITY-WIDE EVALUATION GUIDELINES FOR PROMOTIONS AND TENURE," UNCG states that "The evaluation of research and creative activities shall consider contributions to the field or discipline, including interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and collaborative work, the quality of the work, and its significance or impact" (p. 7). Further, "Professional, interdisciplinary, and community-related service will be given consideration as part of promotion and tenure review based on their importance to the discipline or profession and the mission of the University." Further, individual departments may provide more specific valuation of interdisciplinarity.

(In addition, the Provost's Office provides a document to guide the administration of, including tenure and promotion of faculty within, interdisciplinary programs; the website URL is in the notes field for this credit.)

The UNCG Library has a Green Library Group, and there is a dedicated, publicly available online site for sustainability resources: http://uncg.libguides.com/env