Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 65.69
Liaison Alan Turnquist
Submission Date July 24, 2023

STARS v2.2

Michigan Technological University
EN-2: Student Orientation

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Alan Turnquist
Director of Sustainability and Resilience
Office of the President
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Are the following students provided an opportunity to participate in orientation activities and programming that prominently include sustainability?:
Yes or No
First-year students Yes
Transfer students Yes
Entering graduate students Yes

Percentage of all entering students that are provided an opportunity to participate in orientation activities and programming that prominently include sustainability:
100

A brief description of how sustainability is included prominently in new student orientation :

Orientation is a week-long program at Michigan Tech, where students are welcomed to the University and onboarded with interactive meetings and resources covering information that they they need to be successful. Leading up to and during this orientation, they receive information on how the University runs the recycling program, the importance of not wasting food, campus re-use programs such as Husky Exchange, the Food Pantry, and the Clothing Closet, as well as the importance of conserving water by limiting its use in showers. Additionally, the university shares information on sustainability projects - for example, we touted the flow faucets that were installed in all dorm bathrooms in 2019. We have also shared information about our green move-out program and the "break bus" (don't bring your car: ride the bus back home over breaks!) to incoming students. Additionally, the students are informed of energy conservation by turning off lights when they leave their room and not leaving windows open in winter months. They are informed that in the cafeteria, their are only plates and that they should take what they can eat, and eat what they take. There are no trays for piling up food only to throw it our later.

The information is provided directly through Orientation Team Leaders who are upper-class students trained to orient incoming students, as well as videos (see notes section below) social media, emails, and our campus course delivery platform (canvas).

Orientation is designed to integrate into the Residence Hall Educational Programming throughout the academic year. There is a Resident Advisor, and there are other positions which the houses vote on for various duties. One of these duties is Sustainability Stewards (Stewards). This person is responsible to educating the house in sustainable practices. The Stewards meet with tenants of the Sustainability Demonstration House and the Green Campus Enterprise to discuss projects regarding spreading the word regarding sustainable practices. This orientation has been growing in terms of sustainability in the past two years. There seems to be an upsurge in the need and expectation by the incoming students, that we need to inform them of how we are sustainable as a University.


Website URL where information about sustainability in student orientation is available:
https://www.mtu.edu/success/orientation/undergraduate-orientation/

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

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