University of Calgary
EN-3: Student Life

There are currently 20 clubs participating in the Sustainability Club Alliance on campus. A volunteer Peer Helper (Sustainability Clubs Alliance Facilitator) coordinates monthly meetings for the group. The alliance provides a venue for sustainability club executives to update the group on club activities, discuss opportunities for collaboration and share resources and information. The purpose of the Alliance is to create a community of practice amongst students interested in sustainability and to facilitate cooperative sustainability events and program success. There are more than 60 clubs on campus which address at least of the one of the four dimensions of sustainability.

The university’s Community Garden is a campus organization that is nearly 15 years old. It aims to seed sustainable agriculture by providing students, faculty, staff and the nearby community the opportunity to practice sustainable agriculture. It facilitates an environment that fosters the sharing of ideas, development of research projects and the demonstration of sustainable living principles. The current garden was relocated in the spring of 2015 and is now managed by the Office of Sustainability.

The university Bike Share is a wholly student-run club and business which rents bikes out to students, faculty, staff and the community. The Bike Share exists to promote active and sustainable transportation around campus and in the city. The project was initially funded with a Students' Union Sustainability Fund grant and is run from the Sustainability Resource Center on campus. The Bike Share collects membership revenues and charges a nominal fee for rentals that allow it to operate as a fiscally sustainable enterprise.

The Sustainability Fund is a branch of the Student's Union Quality Money program, a fund endowed with over $1.5 million by the university's Board of Governors. The Sustainability Fund is managed by a board of elected student officials. Organizations and initiatives seeking to advance sustainability on campus make proposals to this board. If approved, a project would receive capital from the fund to advance their proposal. Students serving on the board develop the skills to invest responsibly in social and environmental causes.

Through the SU Quality Money program, the SU Sustainability Fund is designed to provide the necessary capital required to support projects that promote and support sustainability on campus. Any current University of Calgary (U of C) undergraduate student can access this fund by proposing a project idea. The Sustainability Fund is designated for sustainability projects, but students are also welcome to seek funding through the general Quality Money Fund program if they choose.

The university facilitates several speaker series and symposia on sustainability. The IRIS speaker series is one larger initiatives which hosts several events each year on various topics. The Office of Sustainability also facilitates a speaker series which brings together faculty, community members and local business to weigh on pressing issues in sustainability. These events all encourage student attendance.

Several student clubs and societies host independent sustainability related events on campus. One such example is the Emerging Leaders for Solar Energy (ELSE) is a student organization at the university. On March 31st, ELSE hosted a symposium on the future of solar energy in Alberta. ELSE assembled a panel of presenters and opened the room to students to field questions related to the economics of solar projects, the hurdles in developing utility-scale projects, and a comparison of policies across different provinces and states. 95 students attended the event to learn about and discuss sustainable energy.

The FUSE Collective student organization held the Innovation Reactor Speaker Series through a collaboration with the Faculty of Science, the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Haskayne School of Business, Innovate Calgary, W21C and Skunkworks. The event connected solutions to challenges and provided a showcase for student ingenuity. The event featured speakers and focused on topics such as a low-carbon future, the energy economy, biome conservation and radical change in creativity, community and collaboration.

NUTV, the student broadcasting program at UCalgary, started the Greenlite Arts Festival 5 years ago as a way to connect storytelling and media arts to sustainability in a creative way. The festival includes the 48 Hour Eco Film Contest, The Hour of No Power, film screenings, spoken word events, workshops and a photo contest. Every event is structured to have zero waste but maximum impact in awareness of the environment and sustainability.

The goal of the Greenlite Arts Festival is to provide resources and a framework for students and community members to tell meaningful stories about sustainability. The participants are challenged to become leaders in sustainability as they problem solve to tell a story focused around sustainability. This festival creates a safe space and community where arts and media entertainment intersect with sustainability in an effort to share stories that truly matter.

The University of Calgary's Outdoor Centre organizes a variety of outdoor activities in the surrounding area including hiking, backpacking, kayaking, canoe trips, rock climbing, winter sports, outdoor safety training and more. The Outdoor Centre follows "Leave No Trace" principles.

The Haskayne Leadership Expedition is a five day backpacking expedition that takes participants into high mountain terrain in the Rockies. The expedition follows Leave No Trace principles by teaching students how to travel safely and efficiently in the mountains. Participants learn trip planning, navigation & route-finding, risk assessment, camp craft, wilderness skills and ecological awareness from experienced mountain guides.

The Common Reading Program gives every newly admitted student a common and shared academic experience – one that encourages a sense of community and provides a basis for students to begin exploring the idea of leadership and their roles on campus and in the greater community. This is done through a common reading selection that all newly admitted students receive prior to their arrival on campus. The discussions focus on the ideas and themes raised in the literature and take place online throughout the summer and in-person during Fall Orientation Week.

For the 2015/16 school year, the Common Reading Program selection was “Little Princes”. This nonfiction titles tells the story of Conor Grennan, whose journey around the world led him to the Little Princes Children’s Orphanage in Nepal. This book tells the story of Conor’s unexpected dedication to reuniting the children with their communities and highlights issues of human trafficking, poverty, social justice and civic duty. Now in its fifth year, over 15,000 students have participated in the Common Reading Program and over 100 students have chosen to enter a personal reflection competition showcasing their critical thinking and creativity. Thousands of students have participated in BLING BLING to help raise money for various charities.

In collaboration with Cenovus, the Schulich School of Engineering steered a student-led project to create the Spo'Pi Solar House. The house is a dome-shaped, 93-square-metre structure that couples the latest in solar power technology and energy-efficient building systems with a culturally responsive design for First Nations in southern Alberta. The house, built for a family of four, is also net-zero, which means it produces as much electricity as it consumes. The structure is a permanent program fixture on campus and is currently used for research, as a green meeting space and a model study for sustainable living. It is open throughout the year and sustainability tours are led through the building.

Residence Eco Move-In and Move-Out is a student-led initiative to help residence students reduce waste when entering and leaving residence during the academic year. Students were provided with bins and moving trucks to put their donations of clothing, cutlery and other household items. Students were encouraged to reuse as much as possible and recycle only what could not be donated.

The Office of Sustainability opened the Sustainability Resource Centre (SRC) in fall 2014. The Center was created to provide a meeting and event space for sustainability-affiliated clubs on campus. It features conference tables, sustainability resources, a projector, computer station and a reusable trifold among other materials aimed at helping students convey their ideas and communicate sustainability in events and projects across campus. The SRC space is utilized by faculty, students and staff in facilitating workshops and other events, some of which focus on sustainable life skills such as DIY projects, composting, waste reduction and cooking with sustainable ingredients (Fair Trade, organic, local, etc.)

A student club named Campus Community Kitchen was formed to teach students sustainable life skills in a residential setting. Students collaborate to cook large group meals. Using the Crowsnest Hall residential space, the club conducted 6 events in the 2015/2016 academic year, teaching over 120 students how to cook. When appropriate, the club provided organic ingredients for cooking and composted all scraps. Low impact choices and dietary restrictions were also accounted for in vegetarian and halal options. In addition, some events were themed around certain cuisines, such as Asian or Middle Eastern, to introduce students to diversity through food.

The Office of Sustainability employed 3 full time sustainability interns in the 2015/16 school year. All 3 internships are 12 months in length. One intern focused specifically on student engagement and promoted student volunteer opportunities around the Peer Helper, Sustainability Ambassador and Sustainability Club Alliance programs. Another intern focused on activities specific to communicating ongoing sustainability initiatives/news across campus and in the community. The third intern was recruited from the Schulich School of Engineering specifically to work on the facilities/technical side of sustainability including energy reduction and LEED certification of buildings across campus.

Together with the Office of Sustainability, the Centre for Community-Engaged Learning offers a community service program called UCalgaryCares: Sustainable Cities. This Reading Week program (Feb 2016) was aimed at students interested in sustainable urban development. Utilizing imagineCALGARY as a framework, students critically examined Calgary's triple bottom line (social, economic, and environmental) while working alongside community organizations.

The Centre also offers the UCalgaryCares: Indigenous Leadership & Engagement program. This collaborative service-learning program sends students to the Arctic Institute of North America and Kluane Nation Territory in the Yukon. Students further their knowledge of social justice, Indigenous ways of knowing and cross-cultural awareness through service and participation in the local community. All participants receive Native Ambassador Post-Secondary Initiative certification on their co-curricular records after completing the program.

UCalgaryCares offers local, national and international volunteer programs for student engagement. Programs are diverse, exploring issues of sustainability, poverty, global citizenship and community development through service.