Prescott, AZ -- Members of Prescott College’s SEED (Sustainability Exploration and Education Development) Committee are seeing the results of their efforts in “green” projects sprouting up across the College.
In January 2007, Prescott College President Dan Garvey was one of the first hundred or so signatories to the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), committing Prescott College to create a timeline for becoming “climate neutral”; reducing college greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. Within the year, Prescott College students had begun a preliminary energy audit and a task force including students, staff, and faculty was formed to begin developing strategies for achieving climate neutrality.
The Prescott College SEED Committee was created in April of 2008 and since then has implemented a number of social, ecological, and economic sustainability initiatives funded by student sustainability fees.
Sustainability coordinator, Luisa Walmsley ’08, was hired in July of 2008. SEED encourages Prescott College students, staff and faculty to propose and receive funding for projects that advance sustainability.
In a course called “Achieving Carbon Neutrality at Prescott College”, undergraduates continued to work on an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions from building energy use, ground transportation, and air travel. They explored solutions to carbon footprint reduction including retrofitting buildings, renewable energy, and carbon offsets. A task force of students, staff, and faculty is currently conducting a detailed energy use audit of the campus, creating a climate neutrality policy and developing a Climate Action Plan. Several of their conclusions were presented to the SEED Committee, which funded $23,500 in carbon reduction projects including recommended building retrofits and replacement of thermostats with programmable ones. These tasks are scheduled to be completed by September of 2009.
In addition to climate initiatives, Prescott College has invested in many other sustainability projects including environmentally sustainable computer technology, upgrading to blade servers with the support of SEED. These servers “virtualize” the hardware, compressing it into a smaller space and saving up to 40% of the energy required to run a conventional server. The limited residency Adult Degree and Graduate Program has also developed a paperless process for contracts and evaluations with support of SEED.
Prescott College is home to the nation’s first Ph.D. Program in Sustainability Education, which received startup funding to launch the first online, peer-reviewed Journal of Sustainability Education in the country (June 2010). Prescott College President Dan Garvey will serve as guest editor for the first year. The Ph.D. Program will also be hosting the First Annual Sustainability Education Symposium on June 3 through 5, 2009 featuring internationally renowned authors Chet Bowers and Jeffrey Ball. Mr. Bowers has written on a wide range of environmental and sustainability issues and Mr. Ball is the Environmental News Editor for the Wall Street Journal. Dissertations from graduating students will also be presented.
Students also received funding for projects that demonstrate Prescott College’s commitment to environmental and social responsibility. Resident Degree Program Senior Allison Trowbridge ’09 completed a visual art display demonstrating the importance of protecting Yavapai County’s Verde River, which was exhibited in the Prescott and Prescott College Libraries. Adult Degree Program student Carolyn Chilcote worked with Prescott College’s Ironwood Tree Experience project to teach youth in Tucson about sustainable agricultural systems. Resident Degree Program student Catie Armstrong received funding to build a bicycle enclosure with recycled materials for Prescott College’s Helping Understand Bicycles (HUB), an open-access bike collective. The enclosure will protect their bicycles and bike components.
For more information on SEED, and for updates on SEED projects and SEED-sponsored opportunities, please visit the SEED website at
http://www.prescott.edu/seed.
