Award for Student Research on Campus Sustainability

This award recognizes outstanding student research that advances the field of campus sustainability. Students are invited to submit research papers of any length on campus sustainability that have not been previously published, are written in English, and were completed within the 12-months prior to the application deadline. A version of the winning paper will be published in Sustainability: The Journal of Record (subject to editorial review). Longer papers will be edited to meet the Journal's length standards.

Examples of research topics that could merit an award include:

Best practices for a specific type of campus sustainability initiatives.

Costs and benefits of campus sustainability efforts.

Relationships between campus sustainability and other indicators such as number and/or quality of applicants for admission, alumni donations, number and/or quality of job applicants, campus employee satisfaction, etc.

Case studies of campus sustainability programs.

A comparative evaluation of different approaches to campus sustainability.

An assessment of the effectiveness of strategies used to foster sustainability on campus.

Applicants may submit as many papers as they wish. AASHE will post selected submissions on its website to help build the field of campus sustainability.

Eligibility: Any undergraduate or graduate student currently enrolled at a US or Canadian institution of higher education who has written a paper on campus sustainability is eligible for this award. Groups of students who have written papers on campus sustainability are also eligible for this award.

Application Process

To apply for the Award for Student Research on Campus Sustainability please email your paper, a brief abstract (~100-250 words), and a short bio to awards@aashe.org by August 1, 2008. By submitting a paper, applicants grant AASHE permission to post it publicly on AASHE's website. Please do not submit papers that include information that cannot be shared publicly.

Applicants will receive notice of the award decisions in August. The award will be presented in November at AASHE 2008 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Tufts University (Medford, MA) is our current spotlight campus! At Tufts, GHG emissions have been reduced to close to 1990 levels, dining services offers organic and local foods, an electric tractor mows the organic baseball field, several buildings have PV and solar thermal installations, and its newest residence hall received LEED Silver certification. Learn more

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