Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 46.13
Liaison Traci Knabenshue
Submission Date March 3, 2021

STARS v2.2

West Virginia University
EN-2: Student Orientation

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 2.00 Kristi Wood-Turner
Director of the Center for Service and Learning
Student Life
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

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 No

Percentage of all entering students that are provided an opportunity to participate in orientation activities and programming that prominently include sustainability:
25

A brief description of how sustainability is included prominently in new student orientation :

WVU's orientation activities are branded as 'Welcome Week.' Welcome Week blends academic preparation, community service, student engagement, and fun for primarily fist year students. Sustainability is featured in the service learning portion of the week. Students spend a whole day in a combination of on and off-campus volunteer projects. Many are environmental in nature-- building and cleaning up trails at a local state forest and in a university run greenspaces, doing trash clean ups in canoes on the Monongahela River adjacent to campus, and repairing and maintaining outdoor spaces for local environmental non-profits. Many of the projects also focus on social justice issues in the community--including homelessness, mental health, food security, and pubic health. Examples include organizing clothing and linen donations for folks who have recently transitioned to stable housing, unloading food trucks for the Mountaineer Food Bank, and helping maintain the local rail trail mileage.

These service opportunities allow them to engage with outside community groups, and expand their horizons beyond the physical footprint of campus. Sustainability topics include natural resource management, water conservation, and waste management and recycling, among others. Host organizations typically hold a brief talk at the beginning of the day to talk about what they do and why the project the students are engaging in reinforces their missions. Students are given the opportunity to sign up for projects that interest them as space allows.


Website URL where information about sustainability in student orientation is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

The Welcome Week website hosts the schedule for all activities after incoming students move-in to residence halls. The schedule may not be posted at this time because of the uncertainties surrounding COVID planning.

Sign-ups for the volunteer activities are uploaded to https://iserve.wvu.edu/. This allows student to become immediately familiar with how to seek out volunteer opportunities in the Morgantown community on an ad hoc basis. It also introduces them to the Center for Service and Learning, who also administers service learning designated courses in conjunction with faculty.


The Welcome Week website hosts the schedule for all activities after incoming students move-in to residence halls. The schedule may not be posted at this time because of the uncertainties surrounding COVID planning.

Sign-ups for the volunteer activities are uploaded to https://iserve.wvu.edu/. This allows student to become immediately familiar with how to seek out volunteer opportunities in the Morgantown community on an ad hoc basis. It also introduces them to the Center for Service and Learning, who also administers service learning designated courses in conjunction with faculty.

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.