ACUI brings sustainability education to campus community builders
On Dec. 22, ACUI will release a new online publication"Sustainability Smarts: Best Practices for College Unions and Student Activities. The publication was released early to attendees of ACUI’s extended online learning event, “Sustainability Issues Facing the College Union and Student Activities Professional,” held Dec. 11"12.
(Media-Newswire.com) - The Association of College Unions International ( ACUI ) is on a mission to further the sustainability education of college union and student activities professionals by acting as a resource and disseminating its vast amount of information.
“As a whole, higher education is making great strides in the area of sustainability,” said Marsha Herman-Betzen, ACUI executive director. “ACUI believes that college union and student activities professionals are in a position to start new green initiatives and to contribute to what is already being done on their campuses.”
On Dec. 22, ACUI will release a new online publication—Sustainability Smarts: Best Practices for College Unions and Student Activities. A sneak preview is now available on the ACUI website. Sustainability Smarts furthers the sustainability information given at the webinar and introduces numerous other green topics, such as green cleaning, fair trade, car-sharing programs, and much more.
“This publication will be a tremendous resource for those in the college union and student activities profession,” said the author, Elizabeth Stringer. “It was great to work on this publication and hear our members’ stories and discover how passionate they were about sustainability. I am glad to share this with the rest of ACUI.”
The publication was released early to attendees of ACUI’s extended online learning event, “Sustainability Issues Facing the College Union and Student Activities Professional,” held Dec. 11–12. The program took an in-depth look at many sustainability topics relevant to higher education, including the triple bottom line, green roofs, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, funding for student sustainability projects, and the Sustainability, Tracking, Assessment, & Rating System ( STARS ).
“It was an outstanding online learning opportunity,” said Keith Kowalka, University of Houston. “The presenters were clearly first-rate, and our University of Houston team—no matter their experience in the green world—found the sessions a good balance of philosophical underpinnings, implementation strategies, and best practice options for our campus.”
The webinar also featured green initiatives from ACUI member campuses. The administration and facility showcase looked at composting at the University of Maryland, the Ohio Union sustainable move-out program at The Ohio State University, and green features of Tulane University’s Lavin-Bernick Center. A programming and student activities showcase highlighted City Cycles at the University of Rochester, the California Student Sustainability Coalition, and the Campus Consciousness Tour.
Individual sessions presented during the sustainability webinar will be available for archive purchase on the ACUI website; Sustainability Smarts can be downloaded or viewed in a flash version from the “Sustainability” page ( located under “Advocacy” ) on the ACUI website as well.
“Sustainability is a definite ‘hot topic’ for college unions, and campuses are looking to educate their communities about more than the environmental implications for sustainability,” said Justin Rudisille, ACUI program coordinator. “Both ACUI’s new publication and the two-day webinar offered practical advice for helping professionals achieve this goal.”
Association of College Unions International Founded in 1914, ACUI is a nonprofit educational organization that brings together college union and student activities professionals from hundreds of schools in seven countries. Its members work on urban and rural campuses, in two-year and four-year institutions, and at large and small schools. They are students and administrators whose mission is to build campus community. ACUI enriches them all through education, advocacy, and the delivery of services. www.acui.org
For more information, please contact: Elizabeth Beltramini 812.245.2284 ebeltram@acui.org
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