Sustainability at LVC

Mission

As a learning institution, Lebanon Valley College embraces the goal of environmental sustainability and commits itself to efforts that will ensure sustainability for our local and global community. To this end, the College, with the direct support of the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee, will work to:

• Facilitate the establishment of academic courses and other curricular and co-curricular programs related to environmental sustainability.
• Offer advice and have a seat at the table regarding the planning and implementation of environmentally sustainable practices in our facilities, operations, and capital projects, and in the campus master planning process.
• Work to raise the environmental and sustainability awareness of all members of the campus community through the curriculum, programs, special events and initiatives, and through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information on the College's energy and resource use and overall carbon footprint.
• Foster environmental stewardship and encourage responsible consumption. 

 

Curriculum

In recent years, Lebanon Valley College has developed a range of new programs and courses that speak directly to issues of environmental sustainability - most notably, our Environment Sciences Major and Environmental Studies Minor. These programs and courses are intended to serve the core mission of the College and values it espouses through its curriculum as articulated in the College's Strategic Plan, Envision 2020: "We are committed to service, sustainability, and civic engagement." Several of Envision 2020's Strategic Focus Areas are served directly by these new curricular offerings relating to environmental sustainability, including "graduating world-ready students" and "delivering educational excellence and engaged learning." In addition to specific courses focusing on various aspects of environmental sustainability, LVC faculty continue to work to integrate issues of environmental sustainability into their courses in disciplines as diverse as sociology, physics, chemistry, art, economics, and history. 

 

History

At the start of the 2008-2009 academic year, President MacDonald authorized the creation of a new Sustainability Task Force (STF), and they spent years working on initiatives that tackled problems involving recycling and other ways to improve campus sustainability, drafting up annual reports of its progress.

In March 2012, to reinforce the College's long-term responsibility to plan for and commit to sustainability, the Sustainability Task Force was transformed into the Sustainability Advisory Committee, a special-purpose committee of the College. And since then, the committee has grown and has made great strides in campus sustainability, helping the College transition to 100% renewable energy, implementing a recycling program, and more. In September 2018, the Committee's name was changed to the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee (ESAC).

Today, campus initiatives include campus-wide recycling, E.A.T. Initiative, Dining Services efforts, various student projects, and work through the College's Environmental Club, as well as new initiatives surrounding the recently signed President's Climate Commitment, pledging the College to go carbon neutral in the future.