This week’s interview is with Angela Halfacre, Director of the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability and Professor of Political Science at Furman University. At Furman, Dr. Halfacre teaches environmental policy and sustainability courses and directs the Shi Center for Sustainability, especially its curricular programs and community based research efforts. In her interview, Dr. Halfacre discusses the many ways she is involved in advancing sustainability on Furman’s campus and surrounding community, advice she has for others in similar positions, and the area she views as having the largest potential for growth in the field.

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How did you get started in campus sustainability?

For almost fifteen years, I have been creating or nurturing environmental and sustainability programs on college campuses and within their surrounding communities. Before returning to Furman in July of 2008, I spent ten years at the College of Charleston as a political science professor and director of the graduate program in Environmental Studies. At Furman, I teach courses in environmental policy, sustainability, and research methods. I also coordinate several curricular and co-curricular programs (teaching and research) related to sustainability on campus and in the local community, and I recently organized an ongoing faculty workshop at Furman to infuse sustainability concepts into existing courses. My research and publications examine public perceptions of sustainability issues, community governance, and environmental decision-making.

What campus sustainability success are you most proud of?

It is hard for me to choose among the following:
1) Coordinating Furman’s Sustainability Planning Council, which crafted the University’s Sustainability Master Plan (with an embedded climate action plan), and was approved unanimously by our Board of Trustees in November 2009.

2) Chairing the Duke Endowment Task Force on Sustainability, which is providing opportunities for four colleges annually supported by The Duke Endowment (a $3 billion foundation located in Charlotte, NC) including Davidson College, Duke University, Johnson C. Smith University, and Furman University to collaboratively pursue sustainability initiatives.

3) Crafting the strategic plan for the Shi Center for Sustainability, which in less than two years has become the animating hub of Furman’s distinctive sustainability efforts. The Center is an academic, multi-disciplinary, and non-partisan institute that coordinates the university’s sustainability efforts among students, faculty, staff and community partners.

What advice would you give to others in your position who are just getting started?

Always view sustainability as a journey not a destination; enjoy the successes in each moment and follow Caesar’s advice: “hasten slowly.” It is important to create a sense of urgency and energetic activity, but also be aware that every campus culture is inherently slow to change and can be intensely political. So keep moving forward, but with your eyes open to what is humanly possible and financially realistic for your institution.

What campus sustainability initiatives are you working on at the moment?

I am studying sustainability in the context of communities, both on and off-campus. I am looking at how grassroots public perceptions influence the development and success of environmental policies. My research and writing focuses on understanding these community perceptions and dynamics. What do such perceptions reveal about the formation of attitudes, behavior, and policies? What do they mean for efforts promoting habitat conservation/preservation, social justice, and community-building?

In what area(s) do you see the biggest room for growth in the campus sustainability field?

The greatest growth opportunity is helping more people on every campus better understand the meaning of sustainability and how well it relates to the traditional mission of higher education. Sustainability was originally perceived as an emphasis on energy conservation and operational efficiencies. But it is much more than that: it involves virtually every academic discipline; it has both curricular and co-curricular dimensions; and it offers an ideal bridge between campuses and their surrounding communities.

How are you incorporating the social dimensions of sustainability into your work?

At Furman, we view sustainability holistically. My own research focuses on the community-building opportunities afforded by a commitment to sustainability and assessing shifting perceptions of the environment over time. So the sociology of sustainability is a central theme of my work and my research.

How are you tracking your progress toward sustainability?

We are charter members of AASHE’s STARS tracking program, and Furman’s Sustainability Master Plan has over ninety strategies that we are monitoring over time through a sophisticated monitoring and assessment regime. We also create an annual report on our sustainability initiatives.

How are your sustainability efforts funded?

Please see our annual report.

In what ways are students involved in your work?

The Shi Center’s focus on student engagement includes an emphasis on co-curricular programs and community involvement. Through the on-campus sustainability living/learning laboratories, student environmental organizations, and the Center’s appointment of student “Sustainability Fellows,” there are many ways for students to become involved with sustainability activities.

In fall 2009 several biology classes used the Furman Farm (organic garden) as a laboratory for investigating invertebrate populations in organic and conventionally managed landscapes. The sustainability living/learning laboratories also serve as centers for community and student volunteer efforts, as well as engagement with sustainability on campus. A network of community volunteers, the Sustainable Friends of Furman, is being developed by Shi Center staff and students to connect community members with volunteer opportunities on campus. The Shi Center staff and student Mellon Fellows are also working in collaboration with Furman’s Heller Service Corps, the university’s award-winning community service organization that provides student volunteer opportunities with dozens of social service agencies and public schools in the greater Greenville area.

Are you involved in efforts to advance sustainability in curriculum at Furman? How?

In recent years Furman has sought to infuse sustainability and environmental issues across the curriculum. The university offers a wide range of sustainability-related courses at all levels. Our new university-wide curriculum, inaugurated in the fall of 2008, requires all students to take at least one course that focuses on the relationship between "Humans and the Natural Environment." In 2009-2010, 31 courses in 11 departments were offered to fulfill the Humans and the Natural Environment credit.

As a faculty member in the Shi Center, I teach sustainability-related courses. Several of the students in my Environmental Policy course presented their research posters at the AASHE/Greening of the Campus conference in Indianapolis in September 2009.

Increasing student curricular engagement necessarily includes increasing faculty engagement. To this end, the Shi Center conducted a two-day intensive Faculty Workshop for Infusing Sustainability into the Existing Curriculum in April and June 2009. It was funded by a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Applications from seventeen professors were accepted, representing 15 departments. Middlebury College coordinated simultaneous workshops, with each campus following the same format. The workshop participants from the two colleges formed ongoing peer-to-peer collaboration groups to share experiences and ideas across the disciplines and across institutions.

How are you approaching the issues around carbon offsets and or renewable energy credits (RECs)?

Furman believes that offsets are legitimate options in meeting our goal of carbon neutrality, but they should be local projects that ideally involve our campus community (and alumni, if possible). We are also interested in developing a verification process for such idiosyncratic local projects, since many other colleges are equally interested in such initiatives.
We are working with our Duke Endowment sister schools to examine local carbon offset projects.

President Shi is a Signatory to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. What do you feel will be the most difficult aspect of moving toward climate neutrality at Furman?

Transportation is Furman’s greatest challenge, since the Greenville community has only an anemic public transit system and, as a suburban campus, most of our students have cars on campus—and are accustomed to using them for even short trips. Converting more members of the community to walking and cycling is our greatest challenge.
Nurturing sustainability also nurtures our sense of community by focusing attention on a compelling campus-wide goal: to ensure that Furman remains a perpetual landscape of possibilities for generations of students to come. It will take consistent, collaborative sustainable efforts to reach the goal of carbon neutrality. The campus community is justifiably proud of its sense of place, and even prouder of the culture of sustainability that is spreading across the campus and the nation.

How do you spend your free time?

Hiking, kayaking, traveling, reading, practicing yoga, relishing the companionship of my dog Earle, enjoying the company of close friends and family, and spending as much time as possible outside!