Office of Sustainability

The Brandywine Projects, held throughout the year, are a wonderful way to for WCU community members to engage in conversation and learn more about campus sustainability.  The Brandywine Projects are organized as half day sustainability workshops for faculty, staff, and students with the ulitmate goal of incorporating sustainability into every aspect of campus life.  These workshops generally include presentations about what West Chester has done in the past to reach their sustainable goals as well as what plans are set for the future.  Interactive breakout sessions occur throughout the workshop to get participants networking, brainstorming, and discussing different topics that are directly relevant to our local campus community and environment, integrating the local and the global.  In January of 2019, the very first Brandywine Project Alumni Summit was held, bringing together a collection of past participants to work together on a collective project.  Find below the dates for upcoming workshops and register!

Brandwyine Project Staff Workshop in Sustainability

Live Webinar

WCU staff members, mark your calendars for the second virtual Brandywine Project Staff Sustainability Workshop, to be held via Zoom over the course of two mornings: Thursday and Friday October 29 and 30, 2020 from 8:30am to 11:30am.  Depending upon your interest, previous attendance of Brandywine workshops, and availability, you’re welcome to sign up for either or both days.

• Day 1 will feature introductions to the concepts of environmental, social, and economic sustainability and to the past, present, and future of sustainability efforts at WCU.
• Day 2 will focus the connections between sustainability and social equity, specific WCU sustainability initiatives and objectives, and the role of WCU staff in achieving them

All WCU staff members – from any office, department, or division on campus – are encouraged to participate.

The workshop will be facilitated by WCU staff and faculty, the program will include interactive workshop sessions, networking opportunities, a virtual campus sustainability tour, and time to socialize in the morning and when each day’s sessions end. Faculty and students are welcome too!  

Register

Integrating sustainable theories and practices into the curriculum at WCU is critical to expanding sustainable practices. Investing time into educating students, faculty and staff will produce long-lasting results long after alumni have left the campus.Below are materials for teaching about sustainability that have been developed by WCU faculty, staff, students, and affiliated community members.

Written Materials

• Richard Whiteford, Climate Reality Project and community member of the WCU Sustainability Advisory Council, on the urgent need to address rising carbon dioxide levels in the Journal of Earth Science & Climate Change, “Why CO2 Levels should be the Issue of Critical Concern as Opposed to Putting Economic Concerns at the Top”

• WCU Research Guide: A research guide for Environmental Sustainability from West Chester University Libraries

• Dr. Paul Morgan, Professional & Secondary Education, Speeding Toward Paris, Emissions Accomplished?

  “This may be the last best chance to reach a global agreement to reduce emissions enough to avoid overshooting the target of a two degrees Celsius average rise in global surface temperature above preindustrial levels. Beyond that number we invite ‘climageddon.’”

Videos/Films

• TEDx Talk by Dr. Paul Morgan, Professional & Secondary Education How Postmodern Humans Can Wake Up and Find Their Groove.

Interested in learning more about sustainability? Students have a wide variety of options to choose from at WCU, ranging from formal degree programs to general-interest courses. Sustainability is not centralized in one academic department on campus, so students are encouraged to contact the specific department offering the program of particular interest.

Sustainability Courses

View a full list of all of the sustainability courses that West Chester offers.

Sustainability Programs

• Biology - Ecology and Conservation
• Education for Sustainability
• Environmental Health
• Nutrition - Sustainable Food Systems Management
• Geography and Planning - Environmental Geography
• Minor in Sustainability and Resilience

Additional Programs for Students Interested in Careers in the Environmental Field

• Earth & Space Sciences
• Physics
• Political Science
• Chemistry

Faculty Research on Sustainability-Focused Topics at WCU

Below you will find a link to an inventory documenting full and part-time faculty members at West Chester University who conducted research related to one or more of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals between the fall semester of 2018 and the end of summer sessions of 2019. These 73 faculty members represent 29 separate academic departments on campus and collectively are addressing research questions related to most of the 17 SDGs. Information for this inventory was collected by an electronic survey distributed to all 980 full‐ and part‐ time faculty in September 2019 by WCU's Office of Sustainability working in collaboration with Professors Lisa Calvano (Management) and Joan Welch (Geography & Planning).

Find the full list of faculty research projects addressing the UN SDGs here .

Digital Commons - WCU Campus Sustainability Initiatives

Passionate faculty and students at WCU seek to use their research to understand and appreciate how the natural world and humanity can co-exist.  A collection of reports, presentations, and surveys can now be found on the Digital Commons Sustainability Research and Creative Activities page, showcasing their hardwork and dedication.  You can access the 2018 Commuter and Parking Survey, previous proposals for the Sustainability Research and Creative Activities Grant, The WCU Landscape Master Plan, as well as data from a mapping project on the invasive species, the Spotted Lantern Fly, in the Gordon Natural Area.  If you have a report, poster, or presentation you would like to add to this collection, please contact Walter Cressler, Department of University Libraries.

WCU Campus Sustainability Research and Creative Activities Grant

The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at West Chester University sponsors a Campus Sustainability Research and Creative Activities Grant each year with a Request for Proposals released in the early Spring semester with the Award Cycle extending from March 1st to June 30th of that same year. In the most recent grant application cycle, accessible through WCU’s InfoReady website, grants of up to $2,000 (a total $8,000 available) were solicited. Notice of the release of the annual Request for Proposals is made via email messages to all faculty and via Office of Sustainability email bulletins.