West Chester University of Pennsylvania
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

What began as a sustainability-in-the-curriculum initiative in 2016, West Chester University's Brandywine Project for Sustainability Education has grown to include Faculty, Staff, and Student workshops designed to introduce our community to environmental, social, and economic sustainability and engage them in WCU initiatives to achieve our Climate Action Plan goals in collaborative ways. Four bi-annual Workshops for faculty from West Chester University (and nearby colleges and universities) have been held (the most recent in January 2022), eight Staff Workshops, and five Student Workshops (the latter organized and implemented by a student organization named Students for Sustainable Action). The Brandywine Project has influenced other efforts on campus by, for example, lending the "Brandywine b" logo to student research projects highlighted in each semester's Research Day activities. The program, which started as a "Sustainability Across the Curriculum" initiative, has expanded to include "Sustainability Across the Campus and for the University Community" effort.

WCU’s Geo-Exchange System heats and cools eighteen buildings on campus, representing more than half of all building space. Between 2008 and 2021, it reduced the university's energy costs by millions of dollars and on-campus fossil fuel carbon emissions by two-thirds. By seizing an opportunity to replace, rather than refresh, an aging district hot water heating system powered by a coal- and heating oil-fired boiler, WCU was able to decommission the plant (which had been a major point source of air pollutant emissions in Chester County, PA) and eliminate coal from its energy sources. The system maintains healthy and comfortable indoor environments on campus for learning, research, administration, and campus operations and serves as a teaching and research resource for students, faculty, staff, and community neighbors.

West Chester University's four campus gardens -- three vegetable gardens on North and South campus and at the president's residence, Tanglewood, along with the new Natural Pigments and Dyes Garden -- link the university's educational mission to sustainability, research, and social equity efforts. Food is grown organically, faculty use the gardens to extend the classroom outdoors, produce is donated to WCU's Resource Pantry and Chester County Food Banks and is sometimes used in the Nutrition lab for hands-on demonstrations, and research is conducted. In the past two years, the gardens have also been connected to the Ram Chefs initiative, a program to teach cooking and independence skills to young adults with disabilities and their caregivers.