During my presidency, I have maintained that universities and colleges must take the lead in healthy environmental practices. We are, due to our large physical plants and constant need for new facilities and power, "cities within cities" and thus have an enormous effect on our society, both environmentally and ideologically.One would be hard pressed to find a school anywhere in the city of Chicago that has taken as many different steps as Saint Xavier to protect the environment. Just a sample of our accomplishments includes erecting the first University building in the state of Illinois to earn the coveted LEED Gold designation from the U.S. Green Building Council for sustainable building practices, launching the first bike share program of its kind in the country to reduce fuel-burning traffic, and being the first university in Chicago to sign the President’s Climate Commitment. For a more complete list of Saint Xavier’s green activities, please visit http://greencampus.sxu.edu/.
I had the pleasure recently of taking a tour of the University’s new Office of Sustainability located on our Chicago campus. Student employees and interns engage in green projects ranging from searching for grants, maintaining SXU’s new GreenBike program, and collecting information from individual departments across campus for a greenhouse gas audit taking into account all University activities that create greenhouse emissions, including transportation and power use.
The Office of Sustainability serves as a laboratory where students such as SXU senior David Hasty (pictured upper left), who is helping coordinate the greenhouse gas audit, and freshman Angelice Cunningham, who searches for sustainability grants, gain real world experience working on green projects.
If you are interested in learning more about the Office of Sustainability, please contact Sara Patzkowsky at (773) 341-5299 or s.patzkowsky@sxu.edu.
