| Overall Rating | Gold - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 72.78 |
| Liaison | Nathan King |
| Submission Date | Feb. 18, 2021 |
Virginia Tech
EN-2: Student Orientation
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
2.00 / 2.00 |
Dennis
Cochrane Director, Office of Sustainability Division of Campus Planning, Infrastructure and Facilities |
Are the following students provided an opportunity to participate in orientation activities and programming that prominently include sustainability?:
| Yes or No | |
| First-year students | Yes |
| Transfer students | Yes |
| Entering graduate students | Yes |
Percentage of all entering students that are provided an opportunity to participate in orientation activities and programming that prominently include sustainability:
A brief description of how sustainability is included prominently in new student orientation :
Beginning in 2009, sustainability has been prominently featured in New Student Orientation. The Office of Sustainability and the student group Environmental Coalition joined together to participate in the 2009 New Student Orientation Hokie Resource Fair, which introduced incoming freshman, transfer students, and their parents to Virginia Tech’s many student organizations, including all sustainability initiatives.
In 2010 New Student Orientation was restructured to streamline the information provided to incoming students. Campus organizations and departments were invited to participate in Gobblerfest on the first Friday of the fall semester, instead of the Hokie Resource Fair. Gobblerfest is a welcome festival for students, staff, faculty, and community members to learn more about Virginia Tech and the Town of Blacksburg community, find ways to get involved with student organizations, volunteer opportunities, campus events, and what local businesses have to offer.
The Office of Sustaianability has had a booth at Gobblerfest to promote Virginia Tech’s ongoing sustainability initiatives and sustainability-related student organizations on campus every year since 2010.
To ensure that sustainability was still prominently featured in the 2010 New Student Orientation events, the Office of Sustainability partnered with the Student Government Association (SGA) to train the 2010 New Student Orientation Leaders about the importance of sustainability at Virginia Tech, the ongoing sustainability initiatives, and ways that new students could get involved. Additionally, the 2010 SGA president, Bo Hart, included remarks about sustainability in his speech during New Student Orientation.
The Office of Sustainability continues to train the new student orientation leaders every summer. In summer 2019, the Office of Sustainability was contacted by Linzy Martinelli, the Assistant Director for Student Leadership, Training, and Developing with New Student and Family Programs, inviting us to give a presentation to the students leaders for both new student orientation and transfer student orientation. The idea being that the Office of Sustainability presents information to student leaders, who in turn use this knowledge to brief the students that they lead during orientation programs. Dennis Cochrane and Blake Bensman gave a presentation to student leaders on June 27, 2019 and the presentation slides are shown in the attachment below.
In response to COVID-19, Virginia Tech has moved its orientation program online to include pre-orientation modules, live virtual sessions, and post-orientation modules along with office hours hosted by orientation team members prior to each session.
Website URL where information about sustainability in student orientation is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.