| Overall Rating | Silver - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 54.15 |
| Liaison | Leslie North |
| Submission Date | March 3, 2017 |
| Executive Letter | Download |
Western Kentucky University
EN-9: Staff Professional Development
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
1.25 / 2.00 |
Does the institution make available professional development and training opportunities in sustainability to all staff at least once per year?:
Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (the rate of employee participation in sustainability professional development and training)?:
Estimated percentage of regular staff (full-time and part-time) that participates annually in sustainability professional development and training that is either provided or supported by the institution (0, 1-24%, 25-49%, 50-74%, 75% or more):
A brief description of any internal sustainability professional development and training opportunities that the institution makes available to staff:
The Office of Sustainability provides a variety of sustainability education and development opportunities throughout the year. These include workshops, demonstrations, and guest lectures on sustainability topics.
As part of WKU's Cultural Enhancement Series, Joel Sartore lectured on photography as a medium for outreach and education on sustainability-related issues such as climate change, habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and extinction. 500 WKU students, faculty, and staff attended.
WKU Resource Conservation and the Office of Sustainability worked with Housing and Residence Life to train 60 Residence Assistance on how and why to recycling in Residence Halls and on other Sustainability related efforts on campus.
The Sustainability Coordinator presents to 30 staff members on sustainability at WKU with the goal of developing Sustainability Champions at the annual Staff Leadership Institute.
Environmental Service Attendants, Facilities and Grounds employees, and several offices (Student Activities, WKU Libraries, WKU Planning, Design, and Construction, etc.) around campus go through a recycling demonstration as a form of sustainability professional development, where they learn what is and is not recyclable on campus, led by the Coordinator of Resource Conservation, Beth Gafford. Employees continue to learn more about recyclables on campus through peer-to-peer interaction as they come onto the job, and learn more about what they will encounter as a WKU employee.
WKU employees in the Facilities Front Office and Facilities HVAC (two separate offices with separate purposes housed in the same building) host a friendly, but fierce, recycling competition between the two staff offices, determining by overall weight who recycled the most over each month's time! This recycling competition between staff offices allows for the fun, but educational opportunity to become even more acquainted with what is and is not recyclable on campus.
A brief description of any external professional development and training opportunities in sustainability that are supported by the institution(e.g. through payment, reimbursement, or subsidy):
WKU Facilities and the WKU Office of Sustainability offers professional development opportunities to its sustainability staff through the financial support and funding of attendance at the annual AASHE STARS Conference, several food waste documentary screenings, as well as inclusion in online webinars on GameDay Recycling initiatives, food waste diversion, and campus recycling.
Estimated percentage of regular staff (full-time and part-time) for which sustainability is included in performance reviews (0, 1-24%, 25-49%, 50-74%, 75% or more) :
The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
Our percentage is based on the summation of 165 (1/3 of 500), 60, and 30 =255 staff members reached through sustainability training or professional development, which is 10% of total 2450.
Our percentage is based on the summation of 165 (1/3 of 500), 60, and 30 =255 staff members reached through sustainability training or professional development, which is 10% of total 2450.
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.