Bonny Bentzin and Arianne Peterson, Manager and Project Coordinator respectively of University Sustainable Business Projects at Arizona State University, presented on their Campus Living Laboratory Network (CLLN, pronounced “clean”) model - which is a way to break down on-campus barriers and allow students, faculty, and staff to implement their sustainability ideas. It allows students, faculty, and staff to come together to solve problems. CLLN is run through the ASU Global Sustainability Initiative within University Sustainable Business Projects.

Here are a lot of the ideas presented during the session, with a few of my comments mixed in:

Challenges of Implementing Sustainability Initiatives on campus:
Students are members of the university for approximately 2 - 6 years, are physically on campus only nine months out of the year, and think in semesters. Faculty tend to think in the long term, and administrators think in the long and short term mixture. Additionally, faculty do not understand what it takes to run the campus and Facilities Managers do not understand how to interact with students. CLLN addresses these problems.

Tips and strategies from Bonny:
Colleges and Universities have a responsibility to lead through action by applying science and resources to their environment. Such an effort requires active engagement at all levels of the campus community. CLLN brings together diverse key players on campus issues and supports them in designing and implementing projects.

Start small - get small successes under your belt and expand from there.

You need a foundation. You need to know where resources come from, who the decision maker is, who can help you, how to get funding…..

Scheme with friends to come up with ideas and accomplish goals- include students, faculty, and staff from all departments. And do not forget that it’s critical to have someone track the big picture.

CLLN helps students get through bureaucracy. When a student, faculty, or staff member approaches you with a project, set up a charge of command to see who the student (or faculty or staff member) needs to work with to accomplish his/her goal(s).

Students want work experience, and employers want students with real experiences. Students come to faculty and staff members and say, “we have resources, we want to help you.” Students get excited to work on something real, on campus. Let them initiate and complete a project. Oftentimes students work on theoretical examples in class, with their professor by their sides. Let them work in a real world situation. Members of the campus community gain a sense of ownership over campus sustainability initiatives. Once you see your project implemented on campus, aren’t you inspired to do more? Additionally, students can gain valuable research experience.

Set up a forum of communication, that is NOT intended to add layers of bureaucracy. What do you have? what do you need? what do you want? Leverage contacts with faculty, staff and administrators.

More specifics on CLLN from Arianne:
CLLN was created to build connections and fill gaps. Active research, active learning, and active engagement are the three main goals of CLLN.

Here is what CLLN has accomplished at ASU:
-Currently, ASU has a student who is interviewing stakeholders on campus on their opinions on water use. She’s working with a graduate student , has funding from the National Science Foundation, and the project helps the initiative on campus. She’s getting research experience and helping advance sustainability on campus.
-Currently, ASU has a student who is creating a LEED certification system for restaurants on campus and around campus. - maroon, Silver, and gold decals (school colors)
-Outdoor classroom project: initiated by a faculty member who had done a similar project at another university. ASU built a pavilion at 16 locations on campus. Students participated in the design and building processes. They were able to see their ideas implemented. These locations function to give students a sense of place.

-Green Action Fund: get capital funding for a revolving loan program.

Four types of CCLN Programs:
1. Research Projects
2. Campus initiative internships (paid and unpaid)
3. Green Action Fund - (project would have payback - through monetary gains, or social or learning - must be proven by student before the project is started)
4. Applied, Interdisciplinary Problem-Solving Studies - 4 models:
-Segmented, Unified, Menu-based, & Student-initiated

CLLN helps to engage diverse interest groups:
-undergraduate students
-graduate students
-Faculty from a variety of disciplines
-staff in operations
Any one of these groups can initiate a project and complete it successfully

How to use this model on your campus:

First steps: Form faculty, staff, student committees, hold visioning sessions - determine project list, build an interactive online portal (can very important), continue to increase visibility, set up marketing strategy
- identify web portal as a priority
-it’s a necessary step to showcase what’s already going on before we form visioning committees

Lessons being learned:
Faculty and staff members don’t realize that opportunities exist to work directly with students on campus projects
many students don’t realize they have an opportunity to initiate campus projects for credits
our challenge is to get the word out but also to support project that are currently in progress

Say, for example, you’ve got a problem on campus - increased bike riders on campus, but theft is at an all time high. No one on campus wants to deal with it, because there isn’t an easy solution. So, they made a class out of it and students created paid protected parking for bikes.

**Accountability: all parties need to be up-front about their role and expectations - student clubs take on a commitment, and key people graduate - to avoid - plan ahead - connect people early and proactively, be realistic about time commitments. CLLN Memorandum of Understanding: Each partner’s role, resources required (including time commitments), and project timelines.

it’s about empowering students, faculty, and staff to implement their sustainability projects on campus.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 3:11 pm and is filed under AASHE Biz, Andrea Webster, Co-Curricular Learning (Community Engagement), Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.