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Please join us for the Sustainability Open House on Thursday, February 10th from 4-7 pm over Winter Carnival weekend! Come learn about our sustainable systems including composting, hydroponics, aquaponics, a solar array, a beehive, energy-efficient appliances, a zero-waste household, and many more. In addition, guests will receive free sustainable swag. 

The Sustainability Demonstration House is located at 21680 Woodland Rd, just down the road from East McNair. Parking is available at East McNair, Hillside, and Lot 10E. Masks will be required indoors. 
Please see the attached flyer for more information. Feel free to email 

sdh@mtu.edu with any questions. We hope to see you there!

We are thrilled to announce the competition for the first annual Frank Chernosky Campus Climate Ambassador Award that will support the development of Michigan Tech undergraduate students into the climate change leaders of tomorrow.  This alumni-funded award is named after Frank Chernosky, a former professor and advisor at Michigan Tech.  Mr. Chernosky was an early advocate for sustainability principles who impacted many students before dying tragically from a rare form of Heart Cancer in 1971.  This award in his name consists of three forms of student support: a partial tuition scholarship, funds for professional development and/or applied work, and a formal mentorship by campus and/or external professionals.  One recipient will be chosen annually.

The award for 2022-23 will be $8,000 – a scholarship amount of $6,400 spread over fall and spring semesters, and a professional development and applied work fund of up to $1,600 to be used by August 2023. Awardees will also receive active mentorship from campus and/or external professionals to help them develop networks and skills for their future work.  The overall timetable for the award is flexible to accommodate opportunities such as a co-op or internship.  Applicants and award recipients will solidify the details on the timing of the award, as well as the nature of mentorship and professional development, through the application process and dialogue with the committee.

To be considered, an applicant must be a full-time undergraduate student at Michigan Tech with the equivalent of at least three semesters of full-time enrollment at Michigan Tech by the fall of 2022. They must also have a minimum of two semesters of coursework remaining, though there is potential for flexibility to accommodate an internship or coop into the award timeframe.

Full details of the award and a link to the application are available in the PDF document below. Please send inquiries to Alan Turnquist at alturnqu@mtu.edu

The Office of Sustainability and Resilience invites you to participate in a public forum as part of a strategic planning process to develop campus sustainability goals that will lead us into the future.

The forum will take place in the MUB Alumni Lounge on January 27th. To maximize participation, there will be two back-to-back “identical” 75 minute sessions, one from 4:00 – 5:15 p.m., and another from 5:30 – 6:45 p.m. Director of Sustainability Alan Turnquist will begin each session with a brief overview of the motivations, process, and the draft framework before facilitating a discussion. Participants will have the opportunity to contribute to broader visioning, as well as provide specific comments on targets and timelines.

There are other opportunities for public input, including a second public forum planned for April 15 from 4-7 p.m. in the alumni lounge. There is also Google Form on the MTU sustainability website where anyone with an @mtu address can comment throughout the semester.

Please send any questions or comments to sustainability@mtu.edu

Call for Proposals: 

Sustainable & Resilient Communities Early Career Award or New Research Directions Award

Summary: The Tech Forward Initiative on Sustainability & Resilience (ISR) invites applications from Michigan Tech faculty and staff for the Sustainable & Resilient Communities Early Career Award or New Research Directions Award. The Early Career Award is intended for early career researchers on campus (assistant professors or research staff in the first five years). For early career faculty and staff who have already used their start-up funding or who have limited access to start-up funds, preliminary work in sustainability & resilience research can contribute to future research leadership. The New Directions Research Award is for established researchers on campus (tenured faculty or research staff who have worked at Michigan Tech for more than 5 years) who are pursuing new ideas or topics in their work. For more established faculty and staff, starting a new research direction to contribute to sustainability & resilience research can be challenging, and this award provides an opportunity to develop new research directions. ISR expects to award 2-4 Early Career Awards and New Directions Research Awards for faculty and staff who aim to make significant contributions to research addressing sustainability & resilience. This is potentially a one time opportunity for researchers to grow their engagement with sustainability & resilience in new ways! 

Objective: The goal of these Awards is to advance new activity associated with research and leadership in sustainability and resilience at Michigan Tech. Sustainability and resilience are grand challenges that require collaboration, engagement across disciplines, and institutional leadership. Through these awards, ISR aims to grow Michigan Tech’s leadership in sustainability and resilience in ways that can be maintained through continued engagement. 

Funding Amount and Funded Activities: Awards are expected to provide $5,000-$7,000, and ISR could support up to 4 proposals at this funding level. In exceptional circumstances,1-2 awards up to $15,000 may be considered, although funding level is expected to be commensurate with expectations for impacts associated with future increases in research activities and impacts. Awards expenditures should be planned for February-December 2022. Funding may be provided for student hourly work, access to or collection of seed data, professional development opportunities, and/or pilot/proof of concept work, etc., that can contribute to future research proposal development. Researchers are expected to build a detailed budget and budget justification explaining why the award is necessary to support the work. All proposals should clearly explain what additional sources of support will be leveraged, if any, and what the expected results from this funding are in terms of value added for the researcher, for ISR, and, importantly, for the broader Michigan Tech community. Most importantly, proposals should explain what kinds of impacts the work will have for the Michigan Tech community and how this award will propel productivity in sustainability & resilience research. 

Mentorship: As part of this award, each awardee will be matched with a mentor/potential future collaborator from Michigan Tech to support development in sustainability & resilience research leadership. Proposers should identify 2-3 potential mentors/future collaborators (Michigan Tech faculty or staff) from across campus. The ISR WG will help to create mentorship/collaborator matches and support the structure of early mentorship discussions. 

Deadline: Submissions via email are due no later than January 10, 2022. A second round of Awards may be available in spring 2022, pending funding availability. Awardees will be expected to complete a post-award report and present to the ISR WG about their work after the award period.

Submission Process: Proposals should include and will be evaluated based on the following: 

• A title indicating whether the submission is to be considered for an Early Career or New Directions award
• Project start and end dates; must be begin after February 2022 and be completed by December 2022

• Project description, clearly explaining the significance of the work for growing Michigan Tech’s leadership in research that addresses grand challenges for creating more sustainable and resilient communities (2 pages maximum; at least 11-point, Times Roman font, 1-inch margins)
• A paragraph that details what kinds of impacts the work will have for the Michigan Tech community and how this award will propel future research productivity in sustainability & resilience research
• Identification of 2-3 potential mentors 
• A detailed budget and budget justification, including details on what additional resources, if any, are being leveraged for the proposed project. These additional resources may include other sources of funding, other data or laboratory needs, etc. 

Proposal narratives, potential mentors, budgets, and budget justifications should be submitted as a single document via email to Chelsea Schelly, cschelly@mtu.edu. Given the flexible nature of this award, potential submitters are encouraged to reach out with questions or to pitch ideas before developing a proposal. ISR looks forward to receiving your inquiries! 

Michigan Tech was highlighted in the Sustainable Campus Index for contributions to the L’Anse Community Solar Project. This work brought together a team of engineering researchers and students from the Alternative Energy Enterprise, advised by Jay Meldrum, to work with local and state partners to bring solar to the Community of L’Anse, while meeting the needs of lower income residents. The project successfully installed 340 panels and had a 100% subscription rate after six months. Read more about the project (see page 55) and other important sustainability milestones from around the country in the 2021 Sustainable Campus Index.

The Sustainable Campus Index highlights innovative and high-impact sustainability initiatives from institutions that participate in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Reporting (STARS) program. Michigan Tech earned a Silver rating in their first STARS submission in October of 2020.

What: Watch party for the webinar, Achieving Drawdown: A Hopeful, Science-Based Approach to Stop Climate Change

Where: Join Campus Climate Corps and other sustainability advocates in Fisher, Room 126, for a viewing party or see details below for information on how to tune in virtually

When: Monday, 11/08 @ 8pm

Details: After a summer marked by wildfires, air quality alerts, droughts, and heatwaves, we could all use a little climate hope. Join Dr. Jonathan Foley and the Central Minnesota chapter at 8 PM EST on November 8, for an inspiring presentation: Achieving Drawdown: A Hopeful, Science-Based Approach to Stop Climate Change. Dr. Foley is a leading climate scientist, sustainability expert, educator, and public speaker. His work focuses on finding solutions to sustain the climate, ecosystems, and natural resources we all depend on.

Feel free to join us in person or you can register for the event here. Please note the confirmation will come from “Plymouth Church Meetings,” the event’s co-host. Make sure to register early – space is limited! If the webinar is full by the time you register, don’t worry – it will be co-broadcast live via YouTube. You can find the livestream here on the day. If you have any questions, feel free to email info@climaterealitymsp.com.

Michigan Tech students and alumni, in collaboration with Colorado State University, will be participating in two virtual “Live From the COP” events at the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP). For an insider’s take on the event and conference proceedings, click on the links below to register for a short report by participants. This multi-institutional, transnational project is led on the Tech campus by PI Sarah Green (CHEM), who is currently in Glasgow for COP26.

November 3rd: 1:00-2:00 EDT

• https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dFe2-yFfRTyjsX6SHiJe_w

November 10th: 12:00-1:00 EST

• https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PR-afLXlTn6gXY8QfybQxw

The Sustainability Demonstration house will host an Open House on Friday, November 12th from 5-7 pm!  Members of the house will have interactive demos of their sustainable systems, fun games, and all guests will receive free sustainable swag. Please see the attached flyer for more information. We hope to see you there!

Michigan Tech is one of the nation’s most environmentally responsible colleges, according to The Princeton Review^®. 

The education services company features Michigan Tech in its website resource, The Princeton Review Guide to Green Colleges: 2022 Edition, released on October 26, 2021. The guide is accessible for free at www.princetonreview.com/green-guide.

The Princeton Review chose the 420 schools in the guide based on its survey of administrators at 835 colleges in 2020-21 about their institutions’ commitments to the environment and sustainability. The company’s editors analyzed more than 25 survey data points to select the schools. 

“It’s great for Michigan Tech to receive recognition for all of the sustainability accomplishments that our students, staff, and faculty have achieved over the years” notes Alan Turnquist, the new Director of Sustainability and Resilience. “Our biggest challenges lie in front of us, though, and the question is how we can turn these early successes into a long arc toward a more sustainable and resilient future.”

“We strongly recommend Michigan Tech to students who care about the environment and want to study and live at a green college,” said Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s Editor-in-Chief. “Michigan Tech offers excellent academics and demonstrates a commitment to sustainability that is exemplary on many counts.”   

Franek noted that The Princeton Review has seen an increasing level of interest among students in attending colleges with green practices, programs, and offerings. Seventy-eight percent of the more than 11,000 college applicants that participated in The Princeton Review’s 2021 College Hopes & Worries Survey said that having information about a college’s commitment to the environment would affect their decision to apply to or attend a school. This was a 12% increase over the 66% so indicating on the company’s 2020 survey. A report on the findings of the survey which also polled parents of college applicants is downloadable at www.princetonreview.com/college-hopes-worries.

The profiles of schools in The Princeton Review Guide to Green Colleges include “Green Facts” sections detailing such matters as the availability of transportation alternatives on campus and the percentage of the college food budget spent on local/organic food. The profiles also provide information about the schools’ admission requirements, cost, financial aid, and student body demographics. 

In its profile, The Princeton Review notes that “Michigan Tech is home to a dynamic range of sustainability research centers, including the Center for Water and Society, the Ecosystem Science Center, the Wood-to-Wheels research project for wood-based biofuel, and the Center for Environmentally Benign Functional Materials.”

The Princeton Review has published its Guide to Green Colleges annually since 2010. The company is also known for its dozens of categories of college rankings in its book, The Best 387 Colleges, and its website resources including The Best Value Colleges.

How Schools Were Chosen for the Guide

The Princeton Review chose the 420 colleges based on its 2020–21 survey of administrators at 835 colleges concerning their institutions’ sustainability-related policies, practices, and programs. The company’s editors analyzed more than 25 data points from the survey to tally Green Rating scores for the schools on a scale of 60 to 99. The Green Rating scores appear in the school profiles on The Princeton Review website and in The Princeton Review book, The Best 387 Colleges: 2022 Edition (published August 2021). 

Colleges that earned a Green Rating score of 80 or higher were chosen for the Guide to Green Colleges. Of the 420 schools selected for the guide, 391 are in the U.S., 26 in Canada, one in Ecuador, one in Egypt, and one in Greece. The schools are listed alphabetically in the guide and not ranked overall from 1 to 420. Twenty-seven of the 420 schools earned a Green Rating score of 99 (the highest possible score). They are also listed in The Princeton Review’s Green Honor Roll (reported August 2021). 

Come check out a school bus converted into a mobile tiny home by MTU Alum, Ryan Thompson between 4 and 7 pm in Lot 14 between Walker Lawn and the Hamar House/CDI.

Ryan received his degree in mechanical engineering and a minor in technical theatre and is now a full-time entrepreneur. His bus is 40 ft long with just over 225 square feet of living space. He designed it to be fully off-grid with solar power, 100 gallons of freshwater, a composting toilet and propane appliances. He started this project after he was laid off due to the pandemic. He wanted to cut down on living expenses and be able to travel the country. He ended up purchasing his bus back in December of 2020 and is now documenting his entire bus conversion process on social media. He can be found at seekingdiscovery.com, @seekingdiscovery on TikTok, Facebook and Youtube and @seeking_discovery on instagram.