Community Engagement

  • The student-run Environmental Coalition sponsors an Environmental Awareness workshop each year for first-year students. Sustainability literacy is also evaluated during Week One of students' first year for comparison at graduation.

  • A student-focused Clean Energy Revolving Fund was created in the spring of 2008. The Student Government Association allocated $5,000 of seed money to the fund. The fund has an appointed board of four faculty/staff and four students who receive project proposals and evaluate them for selection and funding. Energy savings are then calculated, and the projected savings is re-directed to the fund by the college from the appropriate utility budget for a period of five years.

  • The Student Government Association has created a seat for an environmental senator in the Student Senate, and the first senator was elected in the spring of 2008.

  • Student volunteers were instrumental in pulling together St. Olaf College's participation in the first Focus the Nation national teach-in on global warming involving more than 1,000 institutions across the U.S. Focus the Nation is an initiative designed to inform college students and other communities about the realities of global climate change and about constructive responses to it.

  • Each year, the Environmental Coalition helps organize Earth Week activities and sponsors the Minnesota College Energy Wars, a concerted effort to reduce energy consumption by college students at more than a dozen campuses across the state.

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