CSUN strives to reduce its own footprint on the environment and to educate its students and the broader campus population on sustainable practices.
Main Strategies
- Expand education on sustainability principles and practices to entire campus population
- Increase formal educational offerings in sustainability
- Increase opportunities for hands-on student learning in sustainability
- Increase research opportunities in sustainability
Objectives for 2023
- Participation in a sustainability office program by all campus offices/units by 2015
- Implement university-wide sustainability education for all students by 2018
- Offer M.A. Degree in Sustainability Practices by 2018
- Expand service learning and internship opportunities in sustainability
- Expand network of faculty engaging in sustainability-related research
2018-19 Priorities and Outcomes
- Provide faculty development on sustainability Student Learning Outcomes (SLO’s) and on how to incorporate sustainability content into courses.
- The Institute has formed a Sustainability Academic Strategy Committee focused on faculty development and increasing sustainability SLO's in the curriculum. The committee includes approximately 20 faculty representing every college. They have met twice to discuss structural, cultural, and financial challenges regarding integrating sustainability into the curriculum. They plan to continue meeting in Fall 2019.
- Develop and launch a sustainability internship program.
- This Spring, the Institute employed eight Sustainability Scholars working on various projects and tasks including: gardening and compost (4 students), research including data collection, analysis and reports (3 students), social media, outreach, and event coordination (1 student). This program will continue next year as funds allow.
- Develop method for identifying faculty research related to sustainability and develop an online directory of faculty.
- A database of faculty and staff who conduct research and/or hold expertise in a sustainability-related topic area was created based on the data collected from the AASHE STARS report. The directory is posted on the CSUN Sustainability website Resources page. The directory will continue to be updated as additional faculty are identified.
- Coordinate with film and journalism departments to encourage student films, documentaries, public announcements and articles related to sustainability. These can be screened before events, on MIND screens, and linked via webpages.
- Numerous Journalism students reached out to sustainability staff for stories relating to LimeBike, Zero Waste and other sustainability efforts. Department chairs were made aware of sustainability-themed student project opportunities, and several students chose to pursue projects related to sustainability. Sustainability staff appeared on the Journalism student-run show "On Point" to discuss single-use plastics and CSUN's sustainability efforts.
Other Highlights
- As of the 18-19 academic year, CSUN has graduated nearly 160 students with a minor in sustainability. Today, there are currently 80 students minoring in sustainability and 450 students enrolled in the 13 sections of sustainability minor courses offered this year.
- Students in the sustainability minor participated in hands-on learning through campus lighting inventories. Their data will be used to calculate the cost and savings of different lighting efficiency improvement projects within the buildings surveyed.
- As an ongoing priority to provide sustainability education to the entire campus and surrounding community, the Institute hosted 42 campus and community events and participated in 33 additional events, reaching over 6,000 people.
- The Institute hosted seven Sustainable Living Workshops with topics ranging from gardening to activism.
- Approximately 300 people attended the Institute's annual Sustainability Day event in partnership with Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, which was focused around sustainable energy and transportation solutions for disadvantaged communities. In addition, over 650 people attended the Institute’s annual water Day event that focused on local and global issues.
2019-20 Priorities
- Develop an Employee Educators Program to engage CSUN employees about sustainability through peer-education.
- Engage faculty to encourage student-driven creative endeavors related to sustainability.
- Encourage inclusion of sustainability-related SLO’s and/or SUST core courses in programs by providing course-specific resources and materials to faculty and Department Chairs and hosting one course modification workshop per semester.
- Collaborate with local agencies and nonprofits to establish a list of service learning and internship opportunities in the community related to sustainability
SOP Materials
Issue:
ED1.1
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Develop sustainable office program (SOP) training materials for student trainees and office staff
Status:
Training videos, assessment tool (survey), consultant FAQ sheet, and department resource list have been created. (IS)
Party Responsible:
IS, AS
Next/Action Items:
Completed
Training Workshops/Audits
Issue:
ED1.2
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Establish schedule of training workshops for office staff and execute audits
Status:
Training for student consultants conducted in April, 2014 (IS). There are 4-8 students interested in being consultants. AS will schedule assessments in Student Affairs offices.
Party Responsible:
IS, AS, HR
Next/Action Items:
See AD1.4
SOP Tracking
Issue:
ED1.3
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Establish and maintain tracking system for SOP
Status:
Data collected will be stored in survey monkey. New account purchased.
Party Responsible:
IS, AS
Next/Action Items:
Ongoing
Host Events
Issue:
ED1.4
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Continue to host annual sustainability day and water day events, and participate in America Recycles Day and Earth Day
Status:
IS continues to host Sustainability Day in the Fall and Water Day in the Spring. Approx. 525 students attended Sustainability Day, using Garbology as the theme. Thirteen faculty brought their classes and approx. 400 students attended Water Day, where climate change and the drought were the theme AS continues to host America Recycles Day in the fall (700 attendees) and Earth Fair in the Spring (3,000+ attendees)
Party Responsible:
IS, AS
Next/Action Items:
Ongoing
Film Series
Issue:
ED1.5
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Establish sustainability-related film series
Status:
This has not been started yet.
Party Responsible:
IS, AS, SA, Housing
Next/Action Items:
Look into the potential to run a film series through the MataSphere.
Site Signage
Issue:
ED1.6
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Design and post educational signage at sustainability sites on campus
Status:
Signage has been posted at Orange Grove, Fuel Cell, Rainforest, Institute for Sustainability, Student Rec Center, VPAC, AS Recycling, Food Garden, Weather Station, PV projects, Transit Station, Ecoregion Garden, and other sustainability sites on campus. Signage was added for the Matador Dr. and F5 bioswales.
Signs have been posted by AS for new drinking fountain spigots for filling reusable water bottles.
Party Responsible:
IS, FPDC, PPM
Next/Action Items:
Signage will be added as new installations are made. Signs are being posted for new dual-flush toilets. Also new signage is being developed for the restrooms on saving water. (Rosenthal)
Informational Signage
Issue:
ED1.7
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Increase informational signage for waste, food, water and energy use
Status:
FPDC/IS have working with VISCOM to develop a sustainability marketing campaign for all aspects of this plan.
Party Responsible:
IS, AS, TUC, PPM, SA sust.comm.
Next/Action Items:
On-going.
Student Media Pieces
Issue:
ED1.8
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Coordinate with film and journalism departments to encourage student films, documentaries, public announcements and articles related to sustainability. These can be screened before events, on MIND screens, and linked to webpages.
Status:
Potential to use students to create sustainability media pieces.
Party Responsible:
IS, faculty, AS
Next/Action Items:
No action taken.
Campus Tour and Orientation
Issue:
ED1.9
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Coordinate with the University Ambassadors (UA) and Student Development Office (SD) to include sustainability education and features in campus tour and new student orientation
Party Responsible:
SA, AS
Next/Action Items:
AS (Crandall) will work with UA and SD on implementation.
Informal Education in Housing
Issue:
ED1.10
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Provide informal sustainability education to students in campus housing and develop a plan for improving related practices
Status:
Potential to do this through the Matasphere as champions in student housing.
Party Responsible:
IS, Housing
Next/Action Items:
No action taken.
Life-Learning Community
Issue:
ED1.11
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Establish living-learning community in campus housing and train students as peer-to-peer educators in sustainability
Status:
Summer 2014 the MataSphere was created in Student Housing as a living learning community.
Party Responsible:
Housing
Next/Action Items:
On-going.
Assess Sust. Literacy
Issue:
ED1.12
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Assess sustainability literacy within student population
Status:
IS (Cox) developed survey based on one conducted at OSU and obtained Human Subjects Approval in Fall 2013. Conducted pre and post surveys for all SUST classes in F2013. IS (Jackiewicz, Geog) and a student assistant are conducting assessment with a range of classes, mostly lower division in Spring 2014. Goal is to assess 1000 students this semester and continue for 4 years. Analysis to take place based a multiple student attributes starting in Summer 2014.
Party Responsible:
IS, Faculty, AS
Next/Action Items:
Ongoing
Identify Courses
Issue:
ED2.1
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Identify and flag sustainability-related courses. Maintain list of such courses
Status:
Created GE course SUST 111/L GE course in climate change.
Party Responsible:
SCC, IS, LSP
Next/Action Items:
On-going. Need to develop more SUST courses.
Faculty Development
Issue:
ED2.2
Priority:
3
Strategy:
Provide faculty development on sustainability SLOs and on how to incorporate sustainability content into courses
Status:
Some of this is being done through the GE path.
Party Responsible:
SCC, LSP
Next/Action Items:
In-progress.
SLOs and SUST Courses
Issue:
ED2.3
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Encourage inclusion of sustainability-related SLOs and/or SUST core courses in programs
through faculty and Department Chairs
Status:
No action taken.
Party Responsible:
SCC, LSP
Next/Action Items:
No action taken.
Master's Program Tracks
Issue:
ED2.4
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Work with Department Chairs to develop discipline-specific tracks for Master’s program in Sustainability Practices
Status:
MBA with a sustainability concentration has been approved.
Party Responsible:
SCC
Next/Action Items:
In-progress.
Sustainability Literacy
Issue:
ED2.5
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Develop and provide sustainability literacy education to all students
Status:
Also under ED1.6.
Created GE course Sustainability 111/L GE course in climate change.
Party Responsible:
SCC, LSP, IS, AS
Next/Action Items:
On-going.
Identify Faculty
Issue:
ED2.6
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Identify faculty willing and able to teach sustainability
Status:
CSUN has 12 faculty currently teaching Sustainability 300, 2 additional teaching in Sustainability 310.
Party Responsible:
SCC, LSP, IS
Next/Action Items:
On-going.
Online/Hybrid SUST 300
Issue:
ED2.7
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Identify faculty willing and able to teach sustainability
Status:
This has not been done yet. There has not been an issue filling in class sessions. We would add in class sessions before online if expanding.
Party Responsible:
Faculty
Next/Action Items:
On-hold.
Offer Graduate Certificate
Issue:
ED2.8
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Implement and offer Sustainability Practices graduate certificate through Tseng College
Status:
On-hold.
Party Responsible:
SCC, IS, Tseng
Next/Action Items:
On-hold.
On-Campus SL & Internships
Issue:
ED3.1
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Establish list of service learning and internship opportunities on campus related to sustainability
Status:
This has been expanded, garden compost, lighting inventories, RFC, SOP, farmers market, event org.
Party Responsible:
IS, CIELO
Next/Action Items:
On-going: IS will work on expanding On-campus SL & internships.
Community SL & Internships
Issue:
ED3.2
Priority:
3
Strategy:
Collaborate with local agencies and non-profits to establish a list of service learning and
internship opportunities in the community related to sustainability
Status:
There are some opportunities on Moodle.
Party Responsible:
IS, CIELO
Next/Action Items:
Need to contact external companies for opportunities.
Active Learning Procedures
Issue:
ED3.3
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Establish procedures for accepting, allocating, and supervising students in active learning opportunities in sustainability
Status:
Keeping a Moodle page updated with available service learning projects and opportunities.
Party Responsible:
IS, CIELO
Next/Action Items:
On-going.
Active Learning Outreach
Issue:
ED3.4
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Engage in outreach to bring in students from a variety of departments into active learning opportunities in sustainability
Status:
On-going.
Party Responsible:
IS, CIELO
Next/Action Items:
On-going.
Internship Course
Issue:
ED3.5
Priority:
2
Strategy:
Create internship course in sustainability, SUST 494
Status:
In Progress.
Party Responsible:
SCC, Faculty
Next/Action Items:
In Progress.
Faculty Research
Issue:
ED4.1
Priority:
3
Strategy:
Identify and maintain a list of faculty conducting sustainability-related research
Status:
Potential to use the Library team to develop an efficient way to determine faculty involved with sustainability research.
Party Responsible:
IS, RGS
Next/Action Items:
In Progress.
Online Directory
Issue:
ED4.2
Priority:
3
Strategy:
Establish online directory to connect faculty engaging in sustainability-related research
Status:
No action taken.
Party Responsible:
IS, RGS
Next/Action Items:
No action taken.
Faculty Participation
Issue:
ED4.3
Priority:
1
Strategy:
Increase faculty participation in green core team, and expand size and number of working groups
Status:
Potential to use the Library team to develop an efficient way to determine faculty involved with sustainability research.
Party Responsible:
IS
Next/Action Items:
On-going.
