Pennsylvania State University
IN-1: Innovation 1

The Sustainable Communities Collaborative (SCC) is the University’s strategic platform and opportunity to develop innovative University/community-based collaborations that engage PSU faculty and students in existing courses from across the University through real world, community-identified sustainability projects. Through the SCC, Penn State is partnering with selected communities in Pennsylvania to meet their sustainability goals. These community entities may include government, business, schools, non-profits, and other organizations. Each project is a facilitated effort, involving interdisciplinary faculty expertise and students, co-led by a key community leader and the University’s SCC staff, to help develop and support thriving, healthy communities and advance student learning and the scholarship of sustainability.

State College Borough served as the community partner for the initial year of the program. Examples of projects include:

Evaluation of Borough's Residential Composting Program
Focused on the evaluation of the borough residential composting program.

Sustainable Asset Management: Proposed and implemented sustainable material management practices for inventory and surplus goods in the Borough.

Biking in the Region: Looked into the barriers that prevent community members from the Centre Region, in all demographics, from bicycling for exercise, recreation and commuting and developed a health promotion campaign to reduce barriers to cycling.

Way-finding in Community Design and Planning (Reducing Auto Emissions):
Part 1 - Explore and develop a way-finding plan to more efficiently direct people to various parking options available in town so as to decrease auto emissions.
Part 2 - Study bicycle and pedestrian linkages for design and planning of the West End to reduce auto dependency and increase cycling and pedestrian transportation modes.

This program has been enthusiastically received by both the State College Borough and Penn State administration, as documented in the news article attached below. It has provided students with experiential learning opportunities, faculty with class projects, and the Borough with fresh ideas and "person-power" that extends their capacity beyond existing employees..

Since this program is still in its infancy, documentation of positive outcomes is mostly anecdotal. Three assessments have been developed to formally evaluate the experiences of students, community, and faculty. Data have been collected for the first round of projects, and analysis and interpretation are underway.

The SCC program relates primarily to Curriculum and Public Engagement; however individual PROJECTS conducted under the SCC programmatic framework may relate to any of the other categories listed above.