The new year will bring new opportunities when recruiting begins for more than 100 undergraduate students a year to participate in a program devoted to sustainable living and education.
The Sustainable Living Experience pilot program, which introduces programming and learning opportunities during the first year of college, will expand to become the Michigan Sustainability Community.
Students living in the Michigan Sustainability Community deepen sustainability knowledge through required coursework, hands-on activities and social events.
Administered by LSA, the residential and academic learning program is open to students from all schools and colleges and acts as a gateway to the broad sustainability opportunities available on campus.
The first cohort of students for the expanded program will begin in the 2025 fall semester. They will live in the Oxford Houses on Central Campus, already home to an innovative student-run sustainable mushroom farm, and soon to be the site of a student-led sustainable flower-growing farm.
The program’s expansion is supported by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer as the university seeks to build learning communities that advance its vision for life-changing education and fostering the campus as a living-learning lab.
“The Michigan Sustainability Community is the sort of experiential, high-impact program that exemplifies our commitment to the Vision 2034 pillars of life-changing education and climate action, sustainability and environmental justice” said Provost Laurie McCauley. “This program spans academic fields and disciplines to push the boundaries of education and blend experiences inside and outside the classroom.”
A required course for the MSC will be Campus as a Sustainability Lab, which allows students to work in teams and engage in hands-on projects. Example projects that were part of the Sustainable Living Experience pilot program this year include maintaining vermicompost bins at Oxford and working to scale the operation to handle all of the food waste from their small dining hall.
Student Life, Housing, the Provost’s Office, and Office of the EVPCFO collaborated with LSA, the School for Environment and Sustainability and the Program in the Environment to create this opportunity for students of all disciplines.
“The Michigan Sustainability Community is rooted in collaboration,” said Martino Harmon, vice president for student life. “Student Life is proud to partner — through Michigan Housing — with the provost, the EVPCFO, and LSA and SEAS to make this transformative initiative possible. In the MSC, students will not only live, learn and grow in a sustainability laboratory — they will thrive.”
“The MSC is one important step among many to promote a campus where students learn about and help create scalable sustainability practices by living them out on campus. It demonstrates the university’s commitment to cultivating the next generation of sustainability leaders,” said EVPCFO Geoff Chatas.
The mushroom farm at Oxford Houses supplies food to the dining hall on site. Students study the carbon footprint of their meals and how mushrooms are a sustainable alternative to beef. They have proposed a scaled operation to offer mushrooms at a campus farm stand.
MSC is possible in part due to the leadership of SEAS Dean Jonathan Overpeck and former LSA Dean Anne Curzan, both of whom provided early support during the program’s pilot phase.
