Campus Sustainability

Ripon College aims to work sustainability into its curricular and extracurricular programs. Sustainability broadly incorporates concern for environmental health; intergenerational, intragenerational, and participatory equity; and the availability of and power over resources.

Our sustainability programming is facilitated by a generous grant from the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies that allowed the College to hire its first Director of Sustainability in May of 2018. While young, our program has celebrated multiple successes including the incorporation of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into the Catalyst curriculum. Several students, staff, and faculty benefited from internal sustainability grants including a Health and Wellness Seminar series, Community Health and Wellness Fair, and AWAKE! Documentary viewing. Sustainability at Ripon College also means connecting and collaborating with our greater community. In 2019, we are hosting the first annual Power to Pollinators festival in collaboration with the Ripon Public Library.

Through ENV 210: Sustainability Lab and Sustainability Fellowships, students have engaged with Ripon College operations. We are looking forward to seeing more on-campus projects this Spring including a new pollinator path to celebrate our connections with the prairie, student-run campus garden, and a sustainable arboretum!