Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 53.79
Liaison Leslie North
Submission Date March 5, 2020

STARS v2.2

Western Kentucky University
EN-9: Staff Professional Development and Training

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.50 / 2.00 Leslie North
Director of Sustainability
Geography and Geology
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution make available professional development and training opportunities in sustainability to all non-academic staff at least once per year?:
Yes

Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (the rate of staff participation in sustainability professional development and training)?:
Yes

Estimated percentage of regular, non-academic staff that participates annually in sustainability professional development and training:
25-49%

If sustainability professional development and training opportunities for staff are made available or supported, provide at least one of the following:

A brief description of any internal sustainability professional development and training opportunities that the institution makes available to non-academic staff:
The Office of Sustainability provides a variety of sustainability education and development opportunities throughout the year. These include workshops, demonstrations, and guest lectures on sustainability topics.

In 2019, WKU Resource Conservation and the Office of Sustainability worked with Housing and Residence Life to train 200 Residence Assistants on how and why to recycling in Residence Halls is important, introduced the Cupanion program and informed them of other Sustainability related efforts on campus.

Environmental Service Attendants, Facilities and Grounds employees, and several offices (Student Activities, WKU Libraries, WKU Planning, Design, and Construction, etc.) around campus go through a recycling demonstration as a form of sustainability professional development, where they learn what is and is not recyclable on campus, led by the Coordinator of Resource Conservation, Beth Gafford. Employees continue to learn more about recyclables on campus through peer-to-peer interaction as they come onto the job, and learn more about what they will encounter as a WKU employee.

WKU employees in the Facilities Front Office and Facilities HVAC (two separate offices with separate purposes housed in the same building) host a friendly, but fierce, recycling competition between the two staff offices, determining by overall weight who recycled the most over each month's time! This recycling competition between staff offices allows for the fun, but educational opportunity to become even more acquainted with what is and is not recyclable on campus.

The sustainability champions faculty/staff organization is open to participation by all WKU faculty/staff. An educational/training item is presented at each monthly meetings for the organization.

All WKU Restaurant Group employees are trained regularly on techniques for reducing food preparation waste and composting, among other topics. All temporary employees for concessions are also trained on composting practices of the University.

A brief description of any external professional development and training opportunities in sustainability that are supported by the institution :
WKU Facilities and the WKU Office of Sustainability offers professional development opportunities to its sustainability staff through the financial support and funding of attendance at the annual AASHE STARS Conference, several food waste documentary screenings, as well as inclusion in online webinars on GameDay Recycling initiatives, sustainability champions organizations, food waste diversion, and campus recycling.

Optional Fields 

Estimated percentage of regular non-academic staff for which sustainability is included in performance reviews:
1-24%

A brief description of how sustainability is included in staff performance reviews :
Facilities management staff are expected to adhere to adopted sustainability policies of the University in their daily job-related tasks. An inherent part of their job performance reviews is, therefore, whether they adhered to these sustainability expectations.

Website URL where information about staff professional development and training in sustainability is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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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.