University of Texas at Austin
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

The Space Security, Safety, and Sustainability (SSSS) program at the Strauss Center explores the many issues that arise at the intersection of security, technology, and policy in light of both government and commercial space programs, including but not limited to the challenges of dealing with an increasingly-crowded orbital domain. The SSSS program offered by Strauss Center provides students with transdisciplinary courses and opportunities for scholarship. The program sits at the junction of hard and soft sciences, as well as law, business, and policy studies, and is engaged with the most timely and relevant space-related issues. The goals of the program are to develop and offer innovative and transdisciplinary courses; to provide guidance and support to participating students from across campus; to create a pipeline of Brumley fellows going forward; to produce high-impact scholarship (especially but not only as an element of the Brumley SSS program requirements); and to deepen ties amongst academia, industry, NGOs, and the public sector in this area.

In 2022, the Campus Environmental Center's Environmental Justice Collective (EJC) put together a list of courses based on student feedback that expose students to social justice topics and include the cultures of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color.

The courses meet at least two of the following criteria:
• The course tackles the history of the group’s marginalization.
• The course acknowledges and discusses how existing systems of oppression affect marginalized communities in the past and present.
• The course goes through the various aspects of identity, how they intersect, and how those intersections can ultimately result in an individual or group being oppressed in various ways.
• There are readings from scholars, guest speakers, or other supplemental videos that identify with the marginalized groups(s) covered.
• The course uses a social justice lens to place the course content in context.

The EJC also offers a "compilation of past recommended courses" of those previously recommended but not being offered in upcoming semesters.

2021 marked the tenth anniversary of The University of Texas at Austin Green Fund (formerly known as the Green Fee). What began as an undergraduate research project resulted in a competitive grant program that has awarded over five million dollars to UT students, faculty and staff for sustainability projects and research. The Green Fund Committee has approved over two hundred grants to twenty-five departments across fourteen colleges, twenty non-academic units, and thirteen student organizations and funded over one hundred paid student positions and numerous volunteer opportunities on the UT-Austin campus and its affiliate locations including the Pickle Research Center, McDonald Observatory, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Brackenridge Field Lab, and Marine Science Institute. Jill Parrish has been the Green Fund Coordinator since 2016. The Green Fund is the result of passionate, focused and hardworking students and is funded by student tuition dollars. As such, Green Fund administrators are committed to creating student leadership opportunities and supporting student sustainability efforts. The Green Fund committee is comprised of six students and three faculty and staff. The committee carefully reviews and discusses each grant application before making its funding decisions and serving on the committee provides valuable experience in the grant-making process. In 2013, the grant program expanded eligible projects to include student research and the committee has since funded over twenty-five undergraduate and graduate research projects. Another priority of the Green Fund is to facilitate staff/faculty/student collaborations utilizing campus as a Living Laboratory. Numerous grants to faculty have resulted in changes to campus operations after successful and productive collaborations with campus staff. In addition, the Green Fund provides a great opportunity for staff to pilot innovative sustainability ideas on campus. Over the last ten years, approximately 30% of all grants were awarded to staff for energy and water conservation efforts and waste reduction projects.
There have been many meaningful and impactful Green Fund projects over the years, but a few include a grant to Landscape Services to fund a student/staff collaborative research project on efficient irrigation practices utilizing drone technology, a grant to graduate students for a zero-waste theater production, a Student Government grant to install water bottle fillers across campus to encourage the use reusable water containers, and one of the first Green Fund awards to the Campus Environmental Center to establish an organic farm which is still thriving to this day.
https://sustainability.utexas.edu/getinvolved/greenfund

In 2022, The University of Texas at Austin is also celebrating the Campus Environmental Center's (CEC) 20th anniversary. The CEC is a community of students who explore, learn about, and act on contemporary environmental issues on campus and in the Austin area. It welcomes diverse interests, ideas, and perspectives as its members grow together to become effective environmental change-makers now and in the future. The CEC is the oldest and largest student organization at The University of Texas Austin for those interested in the environment, and it is sponsored by the UT Office of Sustainability. The Campus Environmental Center was started in Fall 2002 by a group of students led by Corinna Kester. The students, members of the group Environmental Outreach, had tried to improve UT’s recycling program. They wrote a proposal to Facilities Services but it did not gain wide support. The students then decided to found the CEC as an organization that could effectively build partnerships with UT administrators to improve the campus environment. In Fall 2002, the Student Government agreed to have the CEC become an official agency of Student Government. The CEC officially launched in January 2003. The CEC was able to begin thanks to a grant from the National Wildlife Federation Campus Ecology Program and matching funds from Student Government, the Environmental Science Institute, and the Volunteer Service Learning Center. In September 2017, the CEC welcomed its first General Membership. These students were able to be involved in the organization without having to join a specific project team. The CEC also established a team to specifically handle Education and Outreach with the goal of educating students not involved in the CEC. Now, the CEC is focused on fostering a diverse and inclusive community to offer environmental experiences to all students on campus. The CEC strives to do this through increased promotion to various majors, backgrounds, and cultures. The community is open to all and can be utilized differently by each student involved. No application, no points system.
https://utenvironment.org/