Advocacy Working Group
Summary
Discussion
on internal and external strategies for advancing SHE:
Internal
strategies:
1. Focus across the university and engage at all levels (finance managers, facilities, purchasing, investment, faculty, students, etc.) and all departments
2. Less reliance on upper echelon and more incorporation into the core value system
3. Promote change in tenure/promotion policies
4. Expand concept of graduation pledge to beginning of matriculation (orientation) and discuss integrating it into education process (include in Student Handbook)
5. Form consortia/ build on existing consortia (e.g. Associate Colleges of the South; Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy)
6. Form learning networks within and across universities, creating peer-to-peer discussions within higher ed as well as between greening business and higher ed
7. Develop marketing materials/strategies/social marketing
A. Develop primers for each of the target areas
(curricula, students, presidents/administration, purchasing, finance,
facilities…) which include concise practical definitions, possible processes
and formulas to use, appendices with case studies, stories and a resource list
of people for questions
B. Introductory (Activists’) handbook on how to
speak to and mobilize different audiences for sustainability
8. Focus on K-12 Teachers and counselors
9. Explore opportunities to connect with
people exploring new ways of learning
10. Link up with existing networks: civic engagement network, tenure and promotion network, and collaborative learning network to integrate sustainability agenda/paradigm
11.
Increase multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary research – see below
12.
Strategies to enhance student engagement
13. On-going on-site permanent comparative experiences (e.g., sustainable vs. conventional dormitories; possible curriculum comparison of two different ways to teach chemistry)
14.
Try to influence strategic plan/master plan (Into activist handbook)
15. Conduct baseline of who is interested and what is going on, and use this to create a critical mass for action. Use students to gather the information (Into activist handbook)
16. Faculty and staff development training (e.g., Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute, Northern Arizona Univ.’s Ponderosa project, WRI’s BELL project, Second Nature’s regional workshops)
17.
Start a Futures Institute
18.
Develop mechanisms for continuous communication/learning
19.
Rewards and appraisal (Reward and celebrate what has been done in the past)
20.
Engage presidents and trustees
21.
Get sustainability strands into disciplinary conferences
22.
Speak the language that works – concise, practical definition; use stories
24.
Focus on financial directors (senior management)
25.
Connect operations and research
External
Strategies:
1.
Connect
with activist community (e.g., SEAC – Student Environmental Action Coalition)
2.
Sustainability
to be a greater priority for research/education $ (e.g. NSE, industry)
3.
Engage
private sector that cares about sustainability re: funding and recruiting
4.
Peer
pressure “modeling/competitition” reporting; appeal to schools’ reputations; piggyback
on where deans, presidents, provosts etc. meet regularly and try to get on
agendas there
5.
Professional
associations
6.
Engage
alumni
7.
Directory
of sustainably oriented businesses – use existing networks
8.
Higher
Ed associations
9.
Accrediting
agencies
10.
Use
political pressure and existing public policy requirements going on – Arizona
business environmental survey
11.
Make
connection between retention of employees and need for students to know
sustainability
12.
Training
career officers
13.
Change
employment codes for alumni
14.
Continue
to ask difficult questions – transformative experiences to create and manage an
organizational culture change (“Is your purpose to change the institution or to
contribute to the larger social project?”)
15.
Use
the media – Engage larger press and internal press
16.
External
recognition for leaders – competition for awards
17.
Vendors
education – vendors can be required to share environmental impact of products
18.
Investment
and pension funds
19.
Insurance
costs as incentives and insurance companies to assist
20.
Use
investment dollars from universities for sustainability – 0% revolving loan
fund (e.g. Harvard)
21.
Form
a consortium of environmental schools (which provides internal and external
pressure)
22.
Work
with the public sector (community and state levels) to facilitate efforts
23.
Work
with industry CEOs to speak directly with college/university presidents (rather
than typically being spoken to by environmental groups)
Participants:
Kathy
Cacciola
Wynn
Calder
Terry
Calhoun
Tony
Cortese
Lyvier
Conss
Bob
Ford
Michel
Lambert
Terry
Link
Sara
Parkin
Jim
Pittman
Debra
Rowe
Corinne
Salinas-Meoni
Mark
Starik
Chris
Uhl
Damon
Waitt
Prepared
by Debra Rowe
Edited
by Wynn Calder