This October, four student leaders from the Hanley Sustainability Institute attended the three-day AASHE Conference & Expo in Minneapolis. AASHE stands for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, and this conference presented the opportunity for HSI student leaders to learn from and network with sustainability professionals and students from other campuses.
The student leaders had the opportunity to participate in the digital poster portion of the conference and chose to highlight their experience in the program. Their poster provides an overview of how HSI’s Student Leader program is structured and how students engage with campus-wide stakeholders on impactful sustainability initiatives.
The Hanley Sustainability Institute also hosted a networking session on sustainability efforts with beverage companies. This networking session was an opportunity to foster dialogue with others working toward sustainable beverage options, whether that’s providing alternatives for students or negotiating contracts for more sustainable packaging.
In addition to our networking session and digital poster, our student leaders attended sessions covering a multitude of sustainability topics. Each of the four student leaders who attended had a particular session that stood out to them, and how it relates to their work here at HSI.
Anne Majka
The session that I found most impactful was a panel and learning lab called “Innovative Campus Thrift Stores.” This session was led by staff from four college campuses and provided insight into how they started thrift stores at their schools. Each staff member discussed their program implementation process; where and how they receive donations; what financial model they use; how they staff their thrift stores; their hours of operation; and what stakeholders are involved.
While they had similarities, each of the thrift stores was unique to its specific campus. I learned that focusing on our campus structure and resources will be crucial when proposing a program like this, especially in finding a permanent thrift store location. I also learned that engaging students and gaining their support and interest is just as important as the actual operations.
As a member of the HSI Circularity Team, the idea of a campus thrift store at UD really interests me. Currently, we focus on implementing circular practices on campus through hosting monthly clothing swaps and recently piloted a pop-up Reuse Hub at the beginning of the fall semester. Implementing a permanent campus thrift or free store would not only further our team’s mission of circularity, but also make clothing and basic college essentials more accessible to students.
Shannon Dennemann
I attended a session called “Not Dungeons, Not Dragons: RPG Quests and Sustainability Outcomes” out of curiosity about how role-playing games and sustainability interact in a higher education context. This session was led by an English teacher who uses a modified game similar to “Dungeons & Dragons” to incorporate sustainability into his lessons.
Students begin by creating characters that go on various “adventures” in which they encounter sustainability challenges and debates. Similar to traditional “DnD” campaigns, the students must discuss with their groups to overcome the challenges or foes. By creating new characters, the groups are filled with students speaking from diverse perspectives, which forces them to encounter and participate in a debate.
The characters are used to separate the student from the challenges; they are speaking as their character in a fantasy world and not as themselves, which reduces personal bias and emotion in relationships, and promotes empathy and understanding of dialogue. They are able to explore the intricacies of sustainability, understanding differing or opposing views, what goes into forming people’s opinions, and the impact of certain decisions. By the end of the semester, students gain a better understanding of what sustainability is, how different people approach it, and how to approach potentially contentious conversations with empathy.
I think this session was very interesting for teaching people who do not know anything about sustainability. Working with residential energy on campus, my goal is to get sustainability and energy efficiency information to people who might not know much or care about it. Through my conversations and outreach, I tend to try to make it applicable to people’s lives and how this can affect them. This activity taught me that sometimes it is better to fully engross a person in a different scenario so they can explore how other people may react. Creating distance between a person and the situation can reduce biased emotions, which can lead to better discussions and learning.
Grace Haas
On the last day of the conference, I went to a session called “Advancing Sustainability from the Student Seat: Student Government and Ecosystem Activation.” This session reinforced the importance of communicating with people who you know are already passionate about what you are trying to accomplish. I learned that we can get much more done together than we ever could separately.
I found this session to be applicable as I joined UD’s Student Government Association as the Co-Chair of Sustainability in the spring of last year. I originally joined SGA to increase my involvement on campus, especially within different sustainability-focused organizations. As I have learned within the past few months, there are some challenges with having so many different sustainability organizations on campus, and having to balance being involved in several of them has proved to be harder than I expected.
The session I went to provided me with inspiration to help reorganize the roles of sustainability co-chairs in student government. We still have a long way to go, but after attending this session, I realized the importance of not reinventing the wheel. As a sustainability committee, I think we need to lean on other sustainability organizations to help us and support them as well, because there are already so many initiatives existing on campus.
Hannah Scheuller
The very first session I attended was also one of my favorites, called “Using Teach-Ins to Spread Sustainability Education Across the Campus.” This panel-led presentation covered the framework of three different colleges’ annual teach-ins focused on sustainability topics. The three colleges were a technology school and a liberal arts school, as well as a large state school, providing an exemplary range of how teach-ins can be utilized in different learning contexts.
The panelists provided examples of events they organized during their teach-in, such as presentations from alumni in sustainability careers, open classes, and even comedy shows. Something that seemed to be emphasized among all schools was that incorporating the identity of your school can provide direction and cohesion to a sustainability teach-in. This gave me a lot of ideas for how a similar event at UD could look. For example, this could mean a speaking session relating Catholic Marianist values to sustainability work, or an activity related to the fact that UD has its own sustainable development goals. Community partners working toward sustainability in Dayton could be invited as guest speakers. There are many pathways to creating an authentic connection to sustainability that might resonate with students.
As a member of the education team for the Student Leaders program, I frequently wonder how to expand conversations around sustainability to more people on campus. Sometimes it feels like there’s only so much scope to be had when connecting with the larger student body on this topic. However, the reality is that so many disciplines are related to sustainability and have valuable perspectives to be shared if given an outlet. There are so many unexpected ways to make learning fun and create new connections to the topic of sustainability. Having never considered a teach-in focused on sustainability, I came away from this session intrigued and inspired by what might be possible at UD.