Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 58.64
Liaison Casey Meehan
Submission Date Dec. 22, 2020

STARS v2.2

Western Technical College
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 3.00 Casey Meehan
Director of Sustainability and Resilience
Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

1st Partnership 

Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability :
Sustainability Institute

Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? :
Yes

Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe?:
Multi-year or ongoing

Which of the following best describes the partnership?:
Sustainability-focused

Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? :
Not Sure

A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability:
The Sustainability Institute is a 501c3 organization housed and heavily subsidized by Western Technical College. For more on the programming of Sustainability Institute visit sustaininstitute.com

2nd Partnership

Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (2nd partnership):
La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium

Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (2nd partnership):
Yes

Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (2nd partnership):
Multi-year or ongoing

Which of the following best describes the partnership’s sustainability focus? (2nd partnership):
Sustainability-related

Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? (2nd partnership):
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (2nd partnership):
The Consortium was founded in 1993 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation and a collaboration of the five founding partner institutions. While it was created in response to projected health care workforce shortages, it also facilitates improvements in regional health and healthcare and supports applied research in health and medically related disciplines.

The first project of the Consortium was to establish the Health Science Center, a facility for education and research that would house programs of the partnering institutions. The building was opened in the summer of 2000 and today is home to programs, classes, and research efforts of Gundersen Health System, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Western Technical College.

In 2005, the Consortium began engaging not only within their partnership but in the community, recognizing the value of the education/healthcare collaboration to the community at large. Several teams were established to explore project work in the areas of improving population health, addressing healthcare workforce shortages, increasing graduates in healthcare programs, and finding collaborations among researchers. Today, we are involved in a number of community-based projects that reach beyond the core partnership into our surrounding region.

In 2009, the La Crosse County Health Department and the School District of La Crosse joined the Consortium as partners.

For more, see www.lacrosseconsortium.org/content/health-science-consortium

3rd Partnership 

Name of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (3rd partnership):
Grow La Crosse

Does the institution provide financial or material support for the partnership? (3rd partnership):
Yes

Which of the following best describes the partnership timeframe? (3rd partnership):
Multi-year or ongoing

Which of the following best describes the partnership? (3rd partnership):
Sustainability-focused

Are underrepresented groups and/or vulnerable populations engaged as equal partners? (3rd partnership):
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s formal community partnership to advance sustainability (3rd partnership):
Grow La Crosse is a 501c3 organization that rents office and greenhouse space from Western at a highly subsidized rate. Grow La Crosse installs, operates, and develops curriculum around school gardens in the La Crosse School District. Students in some of Western's programs including horticulture education and early childhood education observe operations and volunteer with Grow in a manner that directly supports their chosen career fields.

Optional Fields 

A brief description of the institution’s other community partnerships to advance sustainability:
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Website URL where information about the institution’s community partnerships to advance sustainability 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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