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Cloud 37: Lessons from LEED
Last week, one of my colleagues exclaimed that she was on Cloud 9, or rather, Cloud 37. She’s not come down since.
Over the last several years, Rice has undertaken an ambitious $1 billion construction program, and the bulk of these facilities are now open. We’re in celebration mode. Almost all of our new buildings will [...]
In 100 Years (Your Campus May Resemble Venice)
Earlier this week, the tides of the Adriatic Sea submerged the Italian city of Venice. The New York Times published an astonishing set of photographs of Venetians and tourists attempting to go about their days, seemingly defiant of the flood. One picture captured tourists thigh-deep in water in Saint Mark’s Square, another showed fashionably-dressed teens [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )The Start-Up Guide for the Campus Sustainability Professional
We’re now over a week past the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE’s) 2008 conference and my mind has not stopped racing. With numerous presenters providing ideas, insights, and lessons from leading campus sustainability programs, I feel like my to-do list doubled in three short days. We’re understaffed and overworked, right? [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 6 so far )A Movement Reaches Adulthood (AASHE 2008, Opening Night)
In the spring of 1990, Oberlin College Professor David Orr launched a movement.
Students graduating from Arkansas College (now Lyons College) in Batesville, Arkansas in 1990 may never know that their commencement speaker that year delivered an address that literally changed higher education. Dr. Orr, in posing the provocative question “What is Education For?”, challenged the [...]
Post-Storm Lessons in Energy Planning (The Hurricane Ike Edition, Part 2)
Today marks the one month anniversary of Hurricane Ike. In Houston, the tree canopy is noticeably thinner, tarps still cover many roofs, and certain city services have been suspended to enable workers to focus on debris collection. However, life for most in this city is returning to normal. Galveston is another story altogether. To paraphrase [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )How Twenty Miles Saved a City (The Hurricane Ike Edition, Part 1)
While people in most parts of the United States welcome the arrival of summer, those of us living along the Gulf Coast and in the coastal communities of the Southeast note the season’s arrival with a certain amount of anxiety, and mark its passing with a sense of relief. It’s not so much the heat [...]
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Questioning Assumptions
There are times when we stumble into our lessons.
A few years ago, when I was first getting my feet wet as a campus sustainability professional, I was unexpectedly called upon in the middle of a design meeting for a new building and asked to lead a conversation about energy efficiency. As my mind began to [...]
Oil on the Brain
Summer is a time for vacations and reading lists. Certainly if you live in a hot and humid climate as I do (Houston), the thought of not escaping at least for a few days with a pile of books to a place with cool breezes would be soul-crushing. This summer, one of the stops on [...]
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