Delta College

Delta College Campus

Campus Category

Community colleges and other two-year institutions

Contact Information

linda petee
Sustainability & Risk Management Coordinator
Facilities Management

Education and Research

Delta College recognizes the most significant impact toward the evolution of sustainable communities is to ensure our graduates are equipped to find 21st century solutions. They need the knowledge, skills, and resources to address complex regional, national, and global issues.

Academic Progress

  • Our goal is an integrated, planned approach for the inclusion of sustainability in the curricula
  • Formation of a 21st energy committee to explore alternative energy curricula
  • Academic Sustainability Team (AST) whose goal is to create a plan for integrating sustainability into the curriculum. This includes developing a mechanism to identify sustainability-related and focus courses and a format for both a certificate of achievement and an advanced certificate in sustainability.

Curriculum

  • Fall 2009 - Wind Energy Technician
  • Winter 2010 - Sustainable Building Principles
  • Winter 2010 pilot - Introduction to Sustainability
  • Energy Audit training to be utilized for developing weatherization course
  • Over 20 departments and 60 courses offering sustainability related or focus courses
  • Teaching sustainable concepts in alternative energy, green building, and efficient heating & cooling
  • State-wide recognition for the Science Division small scale chemistry program
  • Environmental art student work featured in community and campus events
  • Science curricular that introduces eco-tourism, national park projects and pollution prevention
  • 3000+ students engage in Service Learning courses in a single year by partnering with social and environmental businesses
  • 400,000+ student hours in a single year contribute to sustainable community services
  • Learning community courses connecting disciplines for collaborative sustainable study
  • Labs collect materials for recovery and recycling including wood, metals, wire, copper, refrigerants and oil.

    Classroom Delivery Practices

  • Educator delivery & receipt
  • E-Ballot voting
  • Archived digital files
  • Wireless Classroom
  • On-line Assessment
  • Double-sided printing
  • Title page elimination
  • Class-to-Class handout sharing

Professional Development
Outreach conducted via public presentations, displays, and demonstrations. Training sessions include ‘Building Campus Sustainability’ and ‘Greening Your Lifestyle’. Fall orientation sessions assist faculty tailor in tailoring courses to become a sustainability-related.

Funding

  • Michigan DEQ grant ($50,000) has allowed the development of a large scale solar photo-voltaic demonstration project. The array is used as an educational resource to demonstrate solar generated electricity and to reduce campus electrical usage from the power grid.
  • Intermediate School District grant allowed faculty to participate in the examination of alternative energy teaching aids and a wind energy program.
  • Partners in a National Science Foundation grant proposal currently under review. Faculty will attend workshops with partner institutions, design teaching modules on sustainability, and develop a matrix to identify the sustainable content in a course. If funded, Delta College will receive up to $40,000 ($2500 each for up to 16 educational modules).
  • Special Projects Grant purchased CAD/CNC software to create projects with wood reclaimed from bleacher replacement. Projects included crafting peace poles in collaboration with Global Peace Studies and plaques in recognition of the 20 year relationship between Delta and its sister institutions in Kenya.
     

Campus Operations

Delta College has an impressive record of responsible compliance with environmental and safety regulations, renovations that address energy conservation, and our award-winning green cleaning practices and paper recycling programs.

  • Chilled water plant
  • Low flow toilets
  • Natural fertilizing products
  • Barley straw substituted for chemical chlorines
  • RetroPlate flooring
  • White roofs
  • Argon low-E windows
  • Heat recovery systems
  • Low mercury fluorescent lamps
  • T12 fluorescents switched to T8's electronic ballasts
  • Light and occupancy sensors
  • Solar power pedestrian crossing signs
  • Global Electric Motor car
  • LED parking lot lighting
  • Batteries, transparencies, paper, cartridges, phones, iPods, pagers, construction materials, computers, metals, and wood recycling
  • Office paper recycling, started in 1992, recipient of state-wide recognition, collected 2,000+ tons, $200,000 cost savings.
  • Campus center recycling collected 2,000+ gallons
  • Classroom paper collection program installed in 2008
  • Junk mail reduction program has returned or eliminated over 1,400 pounds

Other Projects

Green cleaning program received the 2007 American School & University Green Cleaning Award. Delta College is the nation’s first community college to receive this recognition.

Our Building Master Plan and Landscape Master Plan address sustainable design and goals by including land distribution, vehicular and pedestrian circulation, building expansion, reforestation, courtyard development, wetland research, watercourses, and stormwater management.

Stormwater management collection takes proactive measures by adopting new approaches to collecting, cleaning, and returning the runoff water to the natural environment. The tops of existing trees were removed and reused as natural mulch bedding. The remaining tree stumps were lifted and driven into the bottom of a new drain watercourse where the anchor root acts as a natural deflector to slow the stream flow. Rainwater is conveyed from parking lot bioswales into detention ponds to eventually flow into wet meadows before discharge into the regional drainage system. Widened stream channels and softened bends increase the drain’s holding availability and alleviate flood conditions. Existing asphalt was ground and reused in the construction of new, expanded lots. Project areas will be utilized for field observation and laboratory study of various aquatic habitats and micro systems.

  • Bookstore: Plastic bag consumption reduced 25% through "no bag" token donation program. Partnership with World of Good®, a fair trade organization with a vision to alleviate poverty, to sell products sourced from a global network of more than 6,000 artisans in 34 countries.
  • Printing Services: General stock and convenience copiers stocked with post-consumer recycled content papers. Press jobs utilize vegetable-based ink. Software allows electronic submission of print jobs eliminating hard copy print orders or original document reproduction.
  • Runner Service: Provides environmentally conscious way to move packages and documents to and from main campus, campus centers, and local communities.
  • Food Services: Offers refillable mug program, organic / fair trade coffee and fruit smoothies (smoothie containers are100% renewable resources), unbleached, chlorine-free napkins, biodegradable utensils,
  • Shipping & Receiving: Packing material reuse program

 

Administration and Finance

Long before greening and sustainability were buzzwords, conservation, efficiency, and recycling were standard operating practices based on efficiency, cost savings, and environmental awareness. Our goal is to systematically incorporate sustainable practices and decision processes throughout our campus and to serve as a catalyst for awareness and education in our communities.

2007

  • Sustainability Task Force established resulting in 26 recommendations
  • Signatory of ACUPCC and submission of building and purchasing policies
  • Diversity Task Force established
  • Green Summit engaged campus community to adopt sustainability as a lifestyle. Hundreds of suggestions were gathered to be used to develop plans and priorities.

2008

  • Office of Sustainability established to include two positions (administrative and academic) and a formal budget
  • Completed STARS Pilot program
  • Sustainability targeted as a college Strategic Plan
  • Sustainability targeted as AQIP Innovative Practice
  • Completed comprehensive campus-wide GHG inventory (cumulative effort of seven months of data gathering and compilation for 1999-2008--a total of nine years.)

2009

  • Sustainability adopted as a College Guiding Principle
  • Developing Implementation Plan to be presented in Dec 2009
  • Major partner with Great Lakes region ‘Vision of Green’. Hosted stakeholder’s summit to coordinate local and statewide efforts and to expedite project funding. Collaborating with local conservation groups to create plan to preserve natural corridors between tri-county recreation areas.

Memberships

Memberships maintained with several organizations specifically focused on sustainability in higher education (ACUPCC, AASHE, MBP3, USGBC). With more organizations incorporating sustainability into their existing structure, many of the College’s memberships have elements of sustainability including APPA and NACUBO.

Major Initiatives

Presidents Speakers Series engages community in sustainable change, diversity, and social activism. Past speakers have included Tzepora Berman and Kenneth Miller. Free to the campus community and general public.

Green Fridays – (piloted in 2008, full implementation 2009) Adoption of a four-day/10 hr work week to reduce our campus carbon footprint by keeping energy and the emission of pollutants to their lowest possible levels, most specifically utilities and commuting, without decreasing the level of education and services provided.

Marketing

An aggressive marketing campaign including exterior banners, new website, poster and print materials, and major interior displays and informational tables has been ongoing. Students are encouraged to sign a Sustainability Pledge and to complete annual surveys. Additionally, the college has been featured in several publications including:

  • The Green Campus (Environmental Protection Jun 2009)
  • Grow Your Own Campus Organically (Campus Technology Magazine May 2009)
  • Put Some Wind In Your Career (Career Focus Spring 2009)
  • Delta College Performs Greenhouse Gas Inventory (Bay City Times Feb 2009)
  • Park Those Commuter Blues (Career Focus Winter 2009)
  • There & Back Again: Recycling Programs (Sustainability: The Journal of Record Feb 2009)
  • Sustainable Transportation (Sustainability: The Journal of Record Aug 2008)

 

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