Randolph College
Contact Information
Education and Research:
Our Environmental Council, consisting of faculty, staff, and students, is charged with coordinating campus sustainability activities. The EC has established many avenues for sustainability education on campus, including infusing “green” principles into orientation, and advising administrative and academic offices on energy efficiency and waste management.
Our Environmental studies program is interdisciplinary, in the best liberal arts traditional. We require internship and research work, service learning opportunities, and field experiences. Across campus, we have active research programs in sustainability and environmental science, including water quality monitoring, lead remediation, sustainable city planning, ecological modeling, alternative fuels, sustainable food systems and community, and more. Our undergraduates are actively engaged in these research activities, and have presented at conferences and other venues.
Faculty are members of AASHE and other professional organizations, and have presented at national conferences such as Greening the Campus, AASHE, ASLE, and EDRA. Faculty and student involvement in the surrounding community is also a hallmark of our college. College community members serve on the City of Lynchburg’s Natural Resources Advisory Committee, Landscape and Storm Water Ordinance Committees, the Planning Commission, and the Greater Lynchburg Environmental Network. We have assisted the city in joining ICLEI and in developing a sustainability plan and an environmental development checklist. Our students have served internships with these organizations. Faculty frequently give public presentations on subjects related to sustainability, such as green urban planning, climate change, and energy. We also are members of environmental education consortiums in the Greater Lynchburg region, and collaborate with nearby colleges on research and curricular issues related to sustainability.
An especially successful program on campus is the Permaculture and Community Development Project (PCDP), which has become a focal point for many sustainability activities on campus. The PCDP’s main vision is the incorporation of permaculture and organic cultivation techniques into a broader goal of sustainability community design and development. The PCDC serves as a living laboratory for applying sustainability principles. We have an internship program, and projects include chicken husbandry (our own flock of organic, cage-free chickens, and a “chicken tractor” for soil tilling and fertilization), organic produce and flowers, composting, water management with swales and retention ponds, and more, both currently and planned. The most innovative aspect of this project is that it is student-governed. The garden has a faculty advisor and an onsite supervisor, but decisions and planning for the PCDP are determined collectively by the students. Leadership positions rotate, and students conduct workshops for the public.
Campus Operations:
Our Environmental Council is committed to incorporating sustainability into campus operations, and we have many activities in this arena that have garnered broad campus support and good success. Our college is a charter signatory of the ACUPCC (the first college in Virginia to sign) and we completed our first GHG inventory last year and are currently developing our Climate Action Plan. We have a well-established recycling program, including not only paper, plastic, and cans, but also computer equipment and supplies, batteries, etc. and more. We have a network of volunteer “bin-divers” who monitor the recycling bins for contamination, and improve the effectiveness of the program. Routine energy efficiency maintenance and upgrades are part of B&G’s operations, including switching out lighting fixtures around campus over the past few years to energy-efficient options. We reduce paper waste in computer labs and the library with double-sided printing, use “ecofonts”, shutting off monitors when not in use, etc. Our students created a successful bike sharing program on campus, and we have ride-sharing, too. We have a biodiesel generator, constructed by faculty and students, which will use recycled dining hall fry oil. We compost produce leftovers and coffee grounds in our organic garden. Dining hall waste is also used as feed for the organic garden chickens. Our dining hall offers local, organic produce when possible, and will incorporate offerings from our own organic garden as available. Our dining hall is also trayless, and uses recycled-content napkins. Our objectives and strategies for overall sustainability is comprehensively detailed in our Environmental Council’s Sustainability Master Plan (SMP), which constitutes our overall vision and plans for incorporating sustainability across all campus operations in conjunction with campus facilities master planning and our CAP. We are in the final stages of development for this plan, and will be presenting it to our Board of Trustees this fall.
Administration and Finance:
For several years we have had a campus policy to purchase only energy-star rated appliances. Building and Grounds also purchases recycled paper products for the restrooms and public areas, and “green” cleaning products whenever possible. The environmental studies program is also endowed by donors who are committed to advancement of sustainability. Our environmental council is considering the establishment of an investment advisory committee for the college, to recommend environmentally and socially responsible investment options. We have several student-initiated and run projects in this arena as well. Two of the most successful are HELIOS, and the Free Store. HELIOS (which stands for Human-Enabled Laundry Initiative for Organized Sustainability) is an environmental laundry program. Students have a small on-campus operation to make their own eco-friendly laundry detergent. They collect used water bottles to package their product, and reclaim the bottles for re-use. The cost for this detergent is less than conventional laundry detergent, and the profits are used to fund other environmental club initiatives. The Free Store is a salvage activity in which discarded items are collected at the end of the school year (everything from fans to bookcases to computers), and redistributed for free to incoming students on an as-needed basis. This eliminates purchase of new items by our incoming students, and also reduces waste of items left by graduating students.
AASHE Bulletin
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