University of Connecticut
ER-14: Incentives for Developing Sustainability Courses

Environmental Literacy EPAC Workgroup

With approximately 22,000 students located at the UConn Storrs campus, the University of Connecticut is aware more than ever of its impact on the local environment and has therefore increased its efforts to educate students, faculty, and staff regarding their daily impact upon important natural resources. To further these efforts, the Environmental Literacy Workgroup strives to identify areas of improvement in environmental awareness and education, as well as to advertise and promote environmental leadership and outreach throughout the UConn community. By promoting new academic courses, hosting environmental speakers series and "green" career panels, and developing environmental outreach and education events, we continue to advance environmental stewardship and progress at UConn.

Sustainability is one of only three areas specifically mentioned in the Academic Plan, providing institutional support and resource allocation that is targeted towardsthe development of programs related to sustainability.

This workgroup participated in the Climate Change Adaptation task force, which drafted an amendment to the University Climate Action Plan that specifically addresses the need to focus institutional resources on sustainability-related research, which the University President signed on March 26, 2012.

http://www.ecohusky.uconn.edu/docs/climate/Adaptation%20narrative.pdf

This group also has been working for the past 3 years to create an undergraduate major in Environmental Studies, to complement oour existing Environmental Sceince program. This major will be implemented incrementally, starting in Septemebr, 2012, and will be targeted towards students who wish to pursue careers in environmental policy making.

Incentives for sustainable building technology are also being written into existing plans for new construction projects via interdisciplinary collaboration during the planning phase. For example, the use of the new Depot Campus fuel cell as a microgrid research station was designed into its siting and installation; and the new Biotech Park project has $172 million earmarked for sustainable design, including a state-of-the art human-centered smart building research project. Members of the teams pursuing this research were included in the Environmental Policy Advisory Committtee workgroups, permitting the vision of the lead scientists, philosophers, and researchers to have their vision translated into action items for the university.