Issue #1 First-Quarter, April 2013 We believe that we can best walk the talk by embracing sustainability broadly (see the University’s Sustainability Charter) – DOWNLOAD PDF. Talk learning chartered by the International endowed and cash-strapped, liberal arts adopting elements of sustainability in and associated “wild” environment; the their connection to nature and the complex interactions of people, laboratory. We recognize the four fundamental resources that both constrain and enable all that we do at Urbana University: human, economic, natural, and spiritual. Our sustainability portfolio includes a continuum from incorporating a sustainability ethic into all that we do to taking tangible steps to ensure learning through action and practice. We’ve hired a campus University Sustainability Coordinator (Dr. Tingting Cai, co-author) to orchestrate sustainability related efforts, ranging from curricular design, teaching, grant-making, and action implementation. For example, we’re creating the John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) Sustainability Project (The Project) at Urbana University. The Project focuses on energy use reduction and alternative energy generation and demonstration. The Project entails significant energy efficiency improvements to the University’s base plant, as well as incorporating renewable energy technologies on campus. These do and will include use of wind energy electricity generation, solar photo- voltaic electricity generation, solar thermal water heating, geothermal heating and cooling of residential space, biogas production and use, and intensive greenhouse production of food stocks. We also envision a green roof retrofit or inclusion of the concept in future construction. We’re developing a major in environmental studies and sustainability-related emphases in multiple degree programs, as well as creating and launching a certificate programs for on-site and online delivery. Investing OPM – We jokingly say that “in 2008 our UU endowment lost $14 billion,” and then after a pause we add, “less than Harvard’s”! Our current endowment is ~$2.5 million, 25 percent higher than before the market collapse. We take light-hearted solace that the period of financial turmoil was a good time not to have any money. The old saying that “Necessity is the mother of invention” applies powerfully to our embrace of sustainability at Urbana University. We’ve watched other deeply endowed universities celebrate (and boast) their sustainability accomplishments (e.g., a new LEED-certified student center; an elaborate and state-of-the-art sustainability classroom and laboratory building; a new sustainability director and a cadre of associated staff; a new endowed chair in sustainability). Here at what I came to in mid-2008 as a university in financial peril we had no resources to redistribute. We had only Dr. Jones’ passion for adopting the tenets of sustainability across campus and a 128-acre, then 158-year-old university. Dr. Jones added Mr. Ron Dodson to the University’s governing Board and together they began the task of walking the talk without benefit of available resources. Instead, we embarked upon seeking partners, champions, volunteers and that wonderful resource we have come to call OPM (Other People’s Money)! Johnny appleseed educational Center and Museum at urbana university – The RENOVATION | PLAY VIDEO Our first step engaged a corps of consultants who shared our passion for finding a way for other cash-strapped institutions (to include universities and other entities with “campuses”) to emulate what we do here. 15