Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 61.15
Liaison Ashley Woolman
Submission Date April 8, 2022

STARS v2.2

Western Colorado University
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.69 / 3.00 Ashley Woolman
Sustainability Coordinator
Facilities Services
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Total number of employees:
387

Total number of employees served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program:
50

Percentage of employees served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program:
12.92

Name of the employee educators program (1st program):
Race to Zero Waste Program

A brief description of the employee educators program (1st program):

Race to Zero Waste is a campus-wide recycling challenge to educate and engage students and staff on proper recycling, while reducing the amount of waste sent to the landfill. The campus Sustainability Specialist and Recycle Team engage with the entire Western community during the 8 week campaign to promote recycling. Emails are frequently sent to campus faculty and staff to educate proper recycling guidelines and promote the competition. The team also revamped the recycling education materials around campus, including new signage, a new cardboard recycle bin, and released the Mountaineer Recycling Pledge. Faculty and staff could enter to win a free reusable water bottle.


A brief description of the employee educators program’s target audience (1st program):

The program targets all faculty and staff. Regular emails are sent to staff to educate proper recycling guidelines, promote the competition, and encourages setting an example for students.


Number of trained employee educators (1st program):
5

Number of weeks the employee educators program is active annually (1st program):
8

Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (1st program):
6

Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (1st program):
48

Website URL where information about the employee educators program is available (1st program) :
Name of the employee educators program (2nd program):
Sustainability Through the Curriculum

A brief description of the employee educators program (2nd program):

The Sustainability Action Committee (SAC) developed a initiative called Sustainability Through the Curriculum within the Center for Teaching Excellence program to encourage and facilitate sustainability education in all departments throughout the Western campus. In the most recent session sustainability was explored through the lenses of multiple academic disciplines. The group discussed how sustainability is already being implemented in classes and explored opportunities to develop new curriculum and approaches. The group also discussed questions that faculty would want each graduating senior to be able to answer upon graduation that addresses sustainability through their discipline. The UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals were also presented.

SAC hopes to facilitate actions and successes that align with our institutional value of Stewardship! We will also present (ready for this mouthful?) the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) that is used nationally as a criteria for assessing sustainability efforts, successes and commitments on campuses. Western was most recently rated as Silver but we are hoping for Gold in 2022 (hear the Olympics music theme)! Part of this assessment looks at our academic sustainability performance. We will discuss how sustainability is already being implemented in classes and explore opportunities to develop new curriculum and approaches. In addition to many profoundly important reasons to develop sustainability literacy in the 21st Century, sustainability also offers potential as a recruitment leverage for Western. An ASSHE Gold rated STARS school will be noticed. According to the Princeton Review, 54% of students consider an institution’s philosophy toward and commitment to sustainability in their decision about attending college. We look forward to a fun and engaging session; please join us!


A brief description of the employee educators program’s target audience (2nd program):

Sustainability Through the Curriculum is targeted towards faculty and staff from all disciplines. Typically it is mostly faculty members present at CTE events, but our February event had staff members including the university president, a member of the board of trustees, and administrative professionals.


Number of trained employee educators (2nd program):
2

Number of weeks the employee educators program is active annually (2nd program):
2

Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (2nd program):
6

Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (2nd program):
12

Website URL where information about the employee educators program is available (2nd program):
A brief description of all other employee peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education programs:
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Number of trained employee educators (all other programs):
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Number of weeks, on average, the employee educators programs are active annually (all other programs):
---

Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (all other programs):
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Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (all other programs):
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Grand total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (all programs):
60

Hours worked annually by trained employee sustainability educators per employee served by a peer-to-peer program:
0.16

Website URL where information about the employee sustainability educators programs is available:
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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.