Universities Focus On Green Facilities and Educational Programs

As reported in USA Today

From tours of energy-efficient buildings to discussions about recycling rates and solar panels, universities and colleges across the country are increasingly putting on the green to attract students who are serious about environmental issues.

The trend is growing at schools large and small, public and private, says Mark Orlowski, founder and executive director of the Massachusetts-based Sustainable Endowments Institute. The non-profit research organization focuses on issues such as recycling, energy efficiency, food sourcing and investment priorities in higher education.

"The schools are seeing it as a way of attracting the best students possible," Orlowski says.

In 2009, the institute's survey, the College Sustainability Report Card, found 27% of colleges and universities were incorporating a sustainability message during the admissions and student orientation processes. The 2010 report card shows that number has increased to 69%,Orlowski says.

Green Mountain College in Poultney,Vt., has long incorporated an environmental focus in its recruiting efforts, says Sandra Bartholomew, the college's dean of Enrollment Management. Bartholomew says she and her staff have seen other universities jump on the bandwagon.

"It's a really popular trend. But is it all talk or is it the walk?" she says. "What we're going after are people who embrace the values of honoring the planet."

At American University in Washington, D.C., prospective students are taken through the school's arboretum and green-certified buildings, says admissions director Greg Grauman. He says the university uses social media and the Internet to help cut down on printed paper communications with current and prospective students.

Colorado State University in Fort Collins. has dubbed itself "The Green University" — its colors are green and gold — and is building what, according to the Denver-based Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, will be the largest solar power plant on a university campus. "We make efforts to show them the latest building innovations — ones that are LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certified or have solar panels," says Jim Rawlins, CSU's executive director of admissions.

CSU is also in the process of buying battery-powered vans to shuttle prospective students and their parents around campus, he says.

Hailey Broderick, 27, a second-year MBA student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, says she considered colleges in Boston and on the West Coast, but selected the university's Leeds School of Business in part because the program incorporates sustainability — from energy-efficient buildings to case studies on solar companies — into everything it does.

"I wouldn't have chosen Leeds if they were just a traditional business school," she says. "The sustainability piece was big for me."

Contributing: Hughes reports for The (Fort Collins) Coloradoan

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