Goshen College
Rieth Village, an ecological field station, has been awarded the LEED Platinum rating by the USGBC. Campus Category
Four year and graduate institutions under 5,000 student FTE
Contact Information
Luke Gascho
Executive Director
Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College
Education and Research
Goshen College educates the campus community about sustainability through the formal academic curriculum and through many informal and co-curricular learning activities.
Curricular offerings include:
1. Major in environmental science with three concentration options: Agro-ecology, Conservation biology and Resource management. Also a minor in environmental science.
2. Master of Arts in Environmental Education (a full cohort of 8 students enrolled in its second year of operation).
3. Marine Biology course at the college’s study station on Long Key, Florida, offered each May term since 1966.
4. Field biology courses in Ecology, Land Management, Ornithology, Forest Resources, and a summer Agro-ecology unit on soils, crops, and small farm management, all based at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center, a 1,189-acre preserve located 25 miles southeast of the main campus.
5. Other courses such as Environmental Education (for all elementary education majors), Environmental History, Environmental Economics, Economic Development, and Camping and Recreation (in the boundary waters of northern Minnesota).
Co-curricular education begins with new student orientation each fall. New students and faculty group leaders spend a half-day at Merry Lea, engaged in community-building and ecological stewardship learning activities.
The “Awareness” sub-committee of the Ecological Stewardship Committee plans special events each semester to raise campus awareness. March 2009 was declared “Go Green” month. A calendar of activities and sustainable living tips was distributed to all via email. The month included:
1. A convocation titled “An Inconvenient Truth: Faith and climate change.”
2. Interdisciplinary forums before and after a public lecture by Bill McKibbin. Professors and students from psychology, physics, and peace studies offered comments, followed by Q and A.
3. A challenge for all employees and commuters to walk, bike or carpool to campus on the first day of spring.
4. Participation in Earth Hour on Sat. March 28. Most campus lights turned off for one hour. A symbolic minute of darkness observed during intermission of the play performed that evening. A graph showing the dramatic dip in campus electrical usage posted on the new ecological stewardship website at www.goshen.edu/gogreen
5. Promotion of the “graduation pledge” for seniors to consider social and environmental concerns in their job search.
Examples of current Research in Sustainability:
1. Faculty and students are investigating prairie and forest management, wetland diversity, curricular strategies for environmental education, and sustainable building design at Merry Lea.
2. Environmental economics students investigated (1) sustainable energy and waste disposal options for a local car dealership and (2) automobile fleet purchase options for the college.
3. Faculty-student projects funded by in-house sustainability grants include ongoing assessment. Current project: biodiesel production from waste cooking oil. Other projects in prairie restoration and solar hot water heating are in process.
Public Outreach
1. 7,000 K-12 students participate in environmental education programming at the college’s environmental center (Merry Lea).
2. Tours of Rieth Village (awarded the LEED Platinum rating) and lectures promoting sustainable buildings (design and construction).
3. Faculty speaking in regional and national venues on topics of ecological stewardship.
Campus Operations
Long before Goshen College signed on to the Presidential Climate Commitment, there was a commitment to energy conservation. Goshen College was an early adapter of computerized energy management, beginning in 1989. Today, 20 years later, 100% of the campus buildings are monitored and controlled through this system. This has allowed for tight scheduling of office, classroom and public spaces, better control of HVAC equipment and reduced lighting loads based upon daylight monitoring.
Other energy conservation practices include lighting conversions, HVAC upgrades, ground-source heat pumps, hydronic temperature setbacks, and extensive applications of variable speed drives connected to fans and pumps throughout campus. All of these applications have taken advantage of the computerized energy management system.
As a result, since 1991, while Goshen College has increased the gross square footage of its facilities by 61 percent, the campus electrical consumption has only increased by 21 percent and the campus gas consumption is actually 5 percent lower then it was at that time. This translates into a Energy Usage Index (EUI) reduction from 114 MBTU/square-foot/year in 1991 to 73 today.
In April 2007, President Jim Brenneman became a charter signatory of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. That year marked the formation of the Ecological Stewardship Committee at Goshen College, chaired by the vice-president of finance. It is comprised of students, teaching faculty, administrators and physical plant staff. Together they have invited, encouraged and enabled several student initiatives, developed a “green” website http://blog.goshen.edu/gogreen/ and worked at promoting sustainable practices on campus.
In December 2007, the Rieth Village buildings received the LEED Platinum rating from the US Green Building Council. This facility at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College serves as an ecological field station for undergraduate work in environmental science and interdisciplinary studies. In addition to meeting the stated programmatic purposes, Rieth Village has been a case study for many visiting groups and has stimulated the enhancement of sustainable design and construction in northern Indiana and beyond.
In the last two years there have been several student sustainability initiatives proposed and implemented on campus. One such initiative is a student-built-and-operated biodiesel plant http://www.goshen.edu/chemistry/Home/biodiesel where waste vegetable oil from the campus dining hall is converted to B100 biodiesel that is used to help power the campus emergency backup generator and grounds maintenance equipment. This form of integrated learning has generated a good deal of excitement and positive interaction between students and physical plant staff. Another proposal was made to start composting garbage at campus small group housing sites and another for the college to make provisions for hanging clothes on clotheslines. Currently under development is another student-led proposal for a one-acre prairie restoration project to be located at the south end of the campus. This will be implemented this fall. Another project in the planning stage is a potential solar hot-water system for heating water for the showers in the recreational fitness center.
Administration and Finance
Ecological Stewardship at Goshen College grows out of the following understandings and commitments:
1. Our Anabaptist Belief System –– As stewards of God's earth, we are called to care for the earth and to bring rest and renewal to the land and everything that lives on it.
2. Our Core Values – As Global Citizens, we state that our responsibility within our global context. Our two outcomes for the “Global Citizen” core value underscore our commitment to ecological stewardship.
- An intercultural openness with the ability to function effectively with people of other worldviews
- A responsible understanding of, and stewardship for, human systems and the environment in a multicultural world
3. Our Strategic Plan – The sixth strategic direction in our 5-year plan is Ensure Operational Excellence, which calls us to strengthen our sustainable and ecological practices.
Goshen College has created two formal administrative structures for the purpose of providing leadership to the institution in the area of sustainability. The first is the creation of the Ecological Stewardship Committee. Chaired by a President’s Council member (the VP for Finance), this committee consists of two teaching faculty members, two students, our Sustainability Coordinator, our Director of Facilities, our Executive Director of our Merry Lea Environmental Center and one other administrator. The second administrative structural commitment is the creation of the administrative position of Sustainability Coordinator, currently filled by Glenn Gilbert. This is a quarter-time load allocation identified specifically for the purpose of leading the college in its sustainability efforts.
Goshen College has for many years been a leader in socially responsible investing. The college’s endowment funds for decades have been invested pursuant to specific written Stewardship Investing Guidelines in six different categories. One of the six categories is ‘Practice Environmental Stewardship’ which reads as follows: “The natural environment is a finite resource, the inheritance of future generations and a gift from God. We expect companies to respect the limits of our natural resources and to work toward environmental sustainability. Companies should ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle’, pursue cleaner and more efficient production methods and bear a deep concern for the welfare of animals, minimizing animal testing, wherever possible. We value a company’s involvement in the environmental technology and services arena. We expect companies to engage in honest transparent environmental reporting, to support respected environmental principles and to publicly promote the value of the environment.”
Goshen College also highly values diversity, evidenced by its student body composition with approximately 6% international students and 12% American students from under-represented (or minority) groups among full-time students. In addition Goshen College is a leader in providing access to higher education and research into success factors for students from a rapidly growing Hispanic population through our Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning, funded by a $12.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc.
The administration, faculty, staff and students of Goshen College are committed to an ongoing engagement with sustainability, social justice and simple living.
