Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 54.91
Liaison Andy Mitchell
Submission Date July 17, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

University of Illinois Chicago
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Cynthia Klein-Banai
Associate Chancellor for Sustainability
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution held at least one sustainability-related outreach campaign during the previous three years that was directed at students and yielded measurable, positive results in advancing sustainability? :
Yes

Has the institution held at least one sustainability-related outreach campaign during the previous three years that was directed at employees and yielded measurable, positive results in advancing sustainability?:
Yes

Name of the campaign:
Earth Month

A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged:

The Office of Sustainability hosted a variety of events during the month of April 2017. The purpose of Earth Month was to raise awareness around campus of the importance of sustainability, and how students, faculty and staff can practice sustainability on campus. The campaign included marketing through banners ("UIC Celebrates Earth Month"), flyers, website announcements, and University calendar announcements. Campaign events included a walking tour of the UIC Plant Research Laboratory ("Greenhouse") to showcase Bee Campus USA and pollinators, a stair climbing competition ("Step It Up") where attendees were encouraged to walk up the stairs of the 28-story University Hall. Each flight featured a sign with one of the UIC Climate Commitments and attendees were greeted at the top with sustainable snacks (with sign describing the sustaianbility features of the food - local, zero waste, etc) and the large projection screen featured real-time solar power information from the neighboring LEED-building, Lincoln Hall. Other events included a the Tree Campus USA annual arbor day event ("UIC Growing Green") in which over 200 students interacted with trees through tree tagging, snap chat tree hunt, and speeches about the benefit of UIC's trees. There was also a Bike Safety Quiz campaign during the month to encourage the entire campus community to pass a test about safely commuting with bikes (both for motorists and cyclists). winners received a banner bag, upcycled from the aforementioned UIC banners promoting earth month.


A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign:

Earth Month positively impacted the UIC community by raising awareness on the importance of sustaianbility, especially focusing on Climate Commitment 4) Biodiverse Campus. More importantly, many of these events were UIC focused, and provided students, faculty and staff the information and tools necessary to make a more sustainable community. Due to the events, UIC was able to recruit 4 new interns to the Sustaianbility Internship Program.


The website URL where information about the campaign is available:
Name of the campaign (2nd campaign):
Smart Grid Shadowing

A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged (2nd campaign):

Through funding from the Illinois Science and Energy Innovation Foundation, the Office of Sustainability worked with student interns to shadow a diverse set of employees across campus (including administrative services employees, and administrators in various UIC colleges) to observe their day to day activities, impacts, concerns and influences, particularly as they relate to energy use and other sustainability related endeavors. They also noted their concerns and developed a set of proposed initiatives to enhance energy awareness across the staff sector of campus.


A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign (2nd campaign):

This campaign helped people recognize how their sustainability-minded personal actions are connected to initiatives on campus. These approaches work to engage both our campus community and community partners in learning about energy use and what the Smart Grid can do for them.


The website URL where information about the campaign is available (2nd campaign):
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A brief description of other sustainability-related outreach campaigns, including measured positive impacts:

The Office of Sustaianbility hosts a variety of sustainability awareness related events throughout the year. Continuous events are always posted on the University's Events sustainability-tag calendar. This allows the UIC community to know of a place where they can learn of sustainability related events at UIC and within the Chicagoland area. It is the goal of the Office of Sustainability to continuously host and market sustainability related events on the website, calendar and through physical media, as a regular sustainability campaign. Events include academic lectures, awareness events (transportation fair, bike workshops, tabling events at Involvement Fairs, etc.) and involvement events such as the "Great Stuff Exchange", Campus Electronics Recycling, "Great Lab Exchange", "Weigh Your Waste", and others.


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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