Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 81.34
Liaison Mary Whitney
Submission Date Nov. 26, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Chatham University
PA-1: Sustainability Coordination

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Mary Whitney
University Sustainability Coordinator
Office of Sustainability
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Does the institution have at least one sustainability committee?:
Yes

The charter or mission statement of the committee(s) or a brief description of each committee's purview and activities:

The mission of the Chatham University Campus Climate Commitment Committee is to reduce the university's carbon footprint and achieve sustainability in energy use as described in the Presidents' Climate Commitment with communication and involvement of the entire Chatham community.

The Climate Committee membership includes faculty, staff, and students of Chatham University who come together biweekly to discuss and plan initiatives to push Chatham towards becoming a carbon neutral campus. The committee includes four subcommittees that work on specialized programming for campus. These committees are as follows: Transportation, Waste Reduction, Energy, and Outreach.

We now include resiliency as a goal of the committee, and have incorporated our Second Nature Climate Committment resilience initiatives under this same umbrella. The student-run Eden Hall Resiliency Committee is a self-convening group that works with this group as a subcommittee.


Members of each committee, including affiliations and role (e.g. staff, student, or faculty):

-Walter Fowler-Vice-President of Finance and Administration
-Mary Whitney, Sustainability Director
-Steven Karas, Assistant Professor of Health Sciences (waste)
-Deborah DeLong, Assistant Professor of Marketing
-Michael Boyd, Assistant Professor of Music (transportation)
-Carrie Tippen, Assistant Professor of English (transportation)
-Valerie Townsend, Chief of Police
-Robert DuBray, Director of Facilities Management and Public Safety
-Julia Saintz, Eden Hall Resilience
-Morgan Block - Eden Hall Resilience
-Peter Walker, Dean, Falk School of Sustainability
-Jeri Hale, Secretary to the Assistant Dean, College Graduate Studies, College of Continuing and Professional Studies.
-Kevin Pilarski, Property Manager at Eastside
-Bob DuBray, Director of Facilities & Management and Public Safety


Does the institution have at least one sustainability office that includes more than 1 full-time equivalent (FTE) employee?:
Yes

A brief description of each sustainability office:

Chatham University's Office of Sustainability is the administrative home of all campus sustainability projects. The office works to initiate sustainable change on campus. One of the larger projects Chatham is working on is moving the university towards zero carbon emissions. We coordinate with University departments, faculty, and student groups to take steps to a more sustainable living, learning, and working environment for the campus community.


Full-time equivalent (FTE) of people employed in the sustainability office(s):
3

Does the institution have at least one sustainability officer?:
Yes

Name and title of each sustainability officer:
Mary Whitney, Director of Sustainability

Does the institution have a mechanism for broad sustainability coordination for the entire institution (e.g. a campus-wide committee or an officer/office responsible for the entire campus)?:
Yes

A brief description of the activities and substantive accomplishments of the institution-wide coordinating body or officer during the previous three years:

Chatham University's Office of Sustainability is the administrative home of all campus sustainability projects. The Office of Sustainability and in conjunction with the university has achieved a variety of accomplishments, including:
2019
-Chatham University ranks #4 for The Princeton Review's Green Honor Roll, by receiving a score of 99 -- the highest possible score.

2018
-Chatham University's Eden Hall Campus and K-12 program received a 2018 Best of Green Schools Award from the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), in collaboration with the Green Schools National Network.
-Eden Hall campus was recognized nationwide with a 2018 Education Facility Design Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects.
-Eden Hall Campus' cafe and field lab were granted official LEED Platinum ratings
-Chatham University signs on to partner with Climate Reality Project 100% committed campaign in May, pledging to transition to 100 percent clean, renewable electricity by 2030
-Spring 2018: The RoundUp for Green Fund program continues at Cafe Rachel and in Anderson Dining Hall
-Spring 2018: Project Green Sleeves, one of our RecycleMania initiatives, has also been extremely successful as a fundraiser for the Green Fund. Chatham crafters have been creating and donating coffee cup sleeves to be sold at Cafe Rachel for $1, which have been selling out almost immediately
-Fall 2018: Chatham joins the Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge
-Fall 2018: The BikeWorks bike shop will host workshops on basic bike maintenance

2017
-Chatham University ranks #46 on Princeton Review's list of 375 Green Colleges.
-Chatham University ranks #14 for Sierra Club’s Cool Schools. The fifth year in a row for the university to rank in the top 25 schools out of 227 ranked schools
-Chatham ranks #13 for official competition results for Recyclemania, with a recycling rate of 66.527%; and #4 for food waste organics/compost with a rate of 31.898 pounds per capita.
-Chatham University has been recognized as a Tree Campus USA for six years running (2012-2017) due to the University's commitment to promoting healthy trees and engaging students and staff in the spirit of conservation.
-Chatham University developed and launched the Center for Regional Agriculture, Food, and Transportation (CRAFT) to provide the community with research and information on food last fall.
-Chatham University and the Peace Corps announced the launch of a new Paul D. Coverdell Fellows program associated with the Falk School of Sustainability and Environment last fall. The program offers at the most five graduate school scholarships to returning Peace Corp volunteers who have been accepted into the Masters of Sustainability, Masters of Arts in Food Studies, and dual-degree MSUS-MBA/MAFS-MBA programs.

2016
-Eden Hall campus was awarded the Sustainability Award for Stormwater Management and Sanitary Systems by the American Society of Civil Engineers, Pittsburgh Section


Job title of the sustainability officer position:
Director, University Sustainability

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The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
http://www.chatham.edu/outreach/sustainability/

Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

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.