TBers,

I recently learned of a NYC initiative to reduce the carbon  
footprints of universities in the NYC area.  See:

http://www.stjohns.edu/campus/pr_uni_070607.sju

Anyone know if SUNY is going to participate in this?

In this spirit, the posting below looks at the growth of  
multidisciplinary sustainability programs on college campuses.   It  
is by Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp a freelance writer based in Indianapolis  
and is from the April 2007, Volume 16, No. 8. <http://www.asee.org/ 
prism/>. © Copyright 2007 American Society for Engineering Education,  
1818 N Street, N.W., Suite 600 Washington, DC 20036-2479. All rights  
reserved. Reprinted with permission.


	Live Green or Die - Can Engineering Schools "go  green" Fast  Enough  
to Save Our Planet?

Sustainable: (adj.) using resources so they are not depleted or  
permanently damaged.

Growing up in Oregon, Brianna Dorie never cared about eco-buzzwords.  
But she did treasure the environment-to the point it determined her  
career path. "I actually decided to become an environmental engineer  
after learning about the hole in the ozone layer as a kid," recalls  
Dorie, now a first-year doctoral student in environmental engineering  
at Purdue University, where she's researching the public-health  
impact of fire retardants in electronics and other products. "I  
thought at an early age that it could be fixed."

Dorie, a University of Portland civil engineering graduate with a  
master's in environmental engineering from the University of Arizona,  
is among a new generation of students eager to protect the planet.  
Their favored tool: green engineering. The eco-friendly focus has  
prompted the nation's engineering schools to examine their offerings  
and rethink overall educational philosophies to give conservation and  
sustainability the high priority the public and industry now demand.

Purdue's College of Engineering is a leader in revamping the  
curriculum to emphasize environmental considerations across  
disciplines. The goal is to infuse sustainability principles  
throughout courses and projects. Purdue's dean, Leah H. Jamieson,  
Ransburg Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, sees the  
new eco-focus as "an opportunity for engineering and science to be  
perceived as a profession that is very squarely in the realm of  
societal responsibility and meeting global challenges." Engineers  
have enhanced life with sewer systems and power grids. Now,  
"sustainability is part of the global discussion," notes Jamieson.

Such "grand challenges for humanity" help draw students like Dorie to  
engineering. Her research, for instance, focuses on public policy and  
the life cycle of brominated flame retardants, ubiquitous organic  
compounds that prevent pajamas, electronics and other items from  
catching fire. Elevated levels have been found in mammals, raising  
concerns about their toxicological effects. Some countries and states  
have banned their use. By analyzing the environmental impact of these  
"micropollutants" from manufacture through use, recycling and  
disposal, Dorie hopes to discover ways to reduce their potential harm.

Every year, Jamieson encounters students like Dorie who "want to  
improve the world." Many once hesitated to speak up for fear of  
ridicule. Today's campus, says Jamieson, is far more welcoming.  
Revamped, multidisciplinary courses have made students more aware of  
the role their work can play in tackling global problems. At Purdue's  
Global Sustainable Industrial Systems research center, for instance,  
projects include analyzing the ecological impact of everything from  
manufacturing to political processes.

"There's a real climate of collaboration right now," says Jamieson,  
who cites such factors as the increase in public interest, industry's  
need to meet environmental regulations and concerns over the  
availability and cost of oil and gas. Biofuels research is a prime  
example of this growing cooperation. It not only brings together such  
diverse disciplines as agricultural science, chemistry and  
engineering, but government and industry as well.

To foster collaboration and spur more engineering schools to address  
environmental issues, the National Science Foundation and the  
Environmental Protection Agency have funded research to develop  
benchmarks, methods and other best practices related to teaching  
sustainability. A $2 million federal grant, for example, supported  
the development of Carnegie Mellon University's new Center for  
Sustainable Engineering (CSE)-a partnership with the University of  
Texas at Austin and Arizona State University. The goal: help future  
engineers preserve scarce resources through faculty workshops, peer- 
reviewed educational materials and benchmarks to identify high- 
quality course content at the nation's 1,500 engineering programs.

"We are looking at all sustainable engineering programs to see what's  
out there, which schools have them and to determine best practices,"  
explains Carnegie Mellon civil and environmental engineering  
professor Cliff Davidson, CSE co-principal investigator. Engineers  
can no longer ignore arenas beyond their specialty, he says. Thus,  
CSE's partner institutions push students and faculty to develop  
solutions across traditional department lines. For example, Carnegie  
Mellon recently established a program to work with local leaders and  
businesses to restore abandoned industrial sites and other polluted  
"brownfields."

Part of the difficulty in promoting sustainable engineering, says CSE  
co-principal investigator Braden Allenby, professor of civil and  
environmental engineering and ethics at Arizona State's Ira A. Fulton  
School of Engineering, is that it tends to invite platitudes rather  
than practice. Federal grants, he says, will aid in "figuring out  
ways to do better engineering now and to train our students to  
consider the environmental and social implications of their actions."

Some students already are blazing the way. Carnegie Mellon doctoral  
student Shahzeen Attari, who is pursuing dual degrees in engineering  
and public policy and civil and environmental engineering, is typical  
of these multidisciplined minds. The public knows "something is wrong  
with the current system," Attari says. "The fact that we consume  
resources without taking the impact into consideration, the mounting  
effects of climate change and the fact we are no longer connected to  
the land all start adding up and start people thinking." Attari seeks  
to harness psychology to change behavior by creating messages,  
procedures and incentives that communities could use to persuade  
residents to reduce consumption of materials that emit carbon  
dioxide. Some sustainability messages already are raising public  
awareness, Attari notes, such as "buy local" and consume less.

"People like the freedom to choose their lifestyles, what they  
consume and when they consume it," observes Attari. "However, the  
environment is a 'commons' that we share with other citizens of the  
world, and when individual choices start negatively impacting others,  
we need to understand how to change or alter those behaviors."

Global Greening

Academia's increased focus on environmentalism spans the globe. The  
Institution of Engineers Australia, the country's accrediting body  
for engineering education, has taken the lead in addressing the  
paucity of environmental content. It spearheaded the formation of a  
nonprofit sustainability think-tank called the Natural Edge Project,  
which pools research from myriad engineering-school and environmental- 
group partners and posts relevant textbooks, scientific papers and  
research on its Web site, www.naturaledgeproject.net/. Recently, the  
organization began developing curricula with individual universities.

Although Australia includes sustainability in its national  
engineering graduate competency standards, the accrediting body found  
little to support the concept in the classroom. "Anecdotal evidence  
suggests strongly that the level of integration within Australian  
universities is still marginal, even within the environmental  
engineering degree programs, which have been traditionally observed  
as the leaders in this area," says Natural Edge Project education  
coordinator Cheryl Paten. She predicts demand for environmental  
expertise is bound to surge as the region's population explodes.  
"Australia has a significant opportunity to lead by example," she  
believes, by providing engineering graduates "with the tools that can  
really make a difference."

Closer to home, a dash of internationalism has made a big difference  
for undergrads at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.  
For the past six years, groups have spent one week in Mannheim,  
Germany, touring corporations and local government offices in a three- 
credit course called GO GREEN. (The acronym stands for Green  
Organizations: Global Responsibility for Economic and Environmental  
Necessity.) Germany is a leader in sustainable development, and  
students return from overseas-host partner Berufsakademie Mannheim is  
a cooperative education university-with keener insights into the link  
between concept and commerce.

Most important, the students get to observe sustainability principles  
applied in daily life, from how employers conserve materials to "fair  
trade" products at grocery stores. "Students see how Germans recycle  
because it costs them money to throw things away," explains Patricia  
Fox, associate dean for administration and finance and assistant  
professor of organization leadership and supervision at the Purdue  
School of Engineering and Technology on the Indianapolis campus.  
"They come back asking 'Why aren't we doing this?' " Future engineers  
aren't the only undergrads learning to GO GREEN; the program includes  
majors in interior design, business, public and environmental  
affairs, art and communications.

These summer trips have spawned student as well as faculty reports on  
such topics as green roof designs, renewable energy, sustainable  
adhesives and the differences between sustainability practices in  
America and Europe. Several papers have been presented at the World  
Business Council for Sustainable Development conferences in Geneva,  
and at ASEE meetings.

Mechanical engineering student Michael Reed, a 2006 participant, says  
the Mannheim experience changed his career path. "Before this trip, I  
was certain that I wanted to use my degree for a career in  
manufacturing," he reflects. Reed now aims "to make a difference" in  
manufacturing. "I want to be one of the engineers who helps the  
United States become sustainable, along with the rest of the world."

Overseas travel "has definitely had an impact on the way I perceive  
life here in America and on the way I plan on conducting myself both  
personally and professionally," concurs Alan Benedict, another  
mechanical engineering student in the 2006 group. "I have never  
really considered myself wasteful. However, I have always measured my  
conduct against a very wasteful model. Now that I have been to  
Germany, I see waste in the United States where I did not see it  
before." Such revelations promise to transform engineering education  
even as it propels students like Benedict and Dorie toward greener  
frontiers, primed to protect Earth's future.

Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp is a freelance writer based in Indianapolis.


Respectfully submitted to the TB List by,

Jim Greenberg