SUNY New Paltz has joined an exclusive list of fewer than 350 higher education institutions that have earned recognition from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). The College was granted a Silver Rating from the AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) this March.

“Filing a report with STARS has been a priority of the Office of Campus Sustainability (OCS),” said Lisa Mitten, campus sustainability coordinator. “Compiling this data gives us a starting point and allows us to track our performance over time and to compare ourselves to other institutions. It also creates momentum. We’re silver now; the next question is, how do we get to gold?”

The OCS aims to capitalize on that momentum with a new sustainability meet-up series this spring, featuring faculty and other guests versed in various environmental topics. The meet-ups will focus on topics including energy, zero waste, biodiversity and green infrastructure and will be open to faculty, staff and students interested learning about sustainability at New Paltz.

“The primary goals of the series are to educate the campus community about the range of ongoing sustainability initiatives, programs and research at SUNY New Paltz, to facilitate more inclusive dialogue to move initiatives forward and to cultivate awareness of the number of people across campus involved in sustainability,” Mitten said. “These meet-ups are a great opportunity to be exposed to current thinking and practices, which can become seed ideas for future assignments, programming or independent study.”

Each meet-up will also serve to educate participants about the new Sustainability Seed Fund, a one-time allocation of $50,000 to be awarded by the OCS to students, faculty and staff to support sustainability research and programs, student internships, professional development and conference attendance. Catherine Hoselton of Sponsored Programs will also be on-hand to speak about funding opportunities available through SUNY System and external sources.

Spring 2015 Sustainability Meet-ups:

• Zero Waste in the Residence Halls  – Date, time and location TBD
• Sustainable Food  – Friday, April 3 at 11 a.m. in Student Union Room 418
• Energy  – Tuesday, April 7 at 12:30 p.m. at the Teaching and Learning Center
• Water & Green Infrastructure  – Date, time and location TBD
• Exploring Intersections of Humans, Plants, Wildlife and Curriculum – Friday, April 10 at 3 p.m.  Location TBD.
• Campus Trees – Thursday, April 23 at 11 a.m. at the Old Main Quad
• Rail Trail Bike Excursion to the Rail Trail Cafe – Friday evening in May – Meet at the traffic circle at Old Main.  Exact time and date TBD.

Information about the STARS Silver Rating and information about the Sustainability Seed Fund are available at the Office of Campus Sustainability website.

To read the STARS report for SUNY New Paltz, including our score in each of the rubric’s credit categories, follow this link.

About STARS

With more than 650 participants on six continents, AASHE’s STARS program is the most widely recognized framework in the world for publicly reporting comprehensive information related to a college or university’s sustainability performance. The system is designed to enable meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions by using a common set of measurements developed with broad participation from the international campus sustainability community.

More information about the AASHE and STARS is available online.