Professors use 'living lab' model with students to introduce campus upgrades: 'It's a very, very positive step'

Yahoo

27-01-2025

Professors and staff at SUNY New Paltz are planting the seeds of what sustainability-focused education could look like across the country.
Associate professor Michael Sheridan is one of many leading the charge. According to The Hechinger Report, one of his business classes has an emphasis on the environment. It allows students to pitch proposals for green campus initiatives, including solar panels over a parking lot — which are projected to save the university more than $787,000 in energy costs over 50 years.
Sheridan is a major contributor to the process of making New Paltz a "living lab," a new kind of collaborative teaching practice that is blooming on several campuses.
"I think it's a very, very positive step," said senior scholar Bryan Alexander, who authored Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis. "You've got the campus materials, you've got the integration of teaching and research."
Sheridan's business background also proves that you don't have to be fully focused on the environment to be a part of an initiative like this. Anyone can bridge together any number of interests with sustainability. Working toward a cleaner future is open to everyone.
Another staff member leading the charge at New Paltz is Lisa Mitten, the campus sustainability coordinator. Mitten runs a sustainability faculty fellows program that encourages professors to incorporate environmental issues into their classes.
She also works with student sustainability ambassadors. One of her biggest projects involves collaborating with other New York State higher education institutions to use more renewable, non-polluting energy sources on campuses.
One of New Paltz's sustainability faculty fellows, associate professor of theatre design Andrea Varga, teaches an ethical fashion course within the university's honors program.
Varga's students also pitch ideas about how to engage in sustainable fashion on campus and beyond. A couple of her students have even worked on a project to install microplastic filters in campus laundry rooms.
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SUNY New Paltz offers programs focused on environmental science and environmental studies. The former is science-focused, and the latter is interdisciplinary. There is also a sustainability track for business students, and there are classes with a sustainability course designation.
These educational paths exist because faculty and staff members want to support students' interests. Sheridan, Mitten, and Varga are a few of the many people who want to provide valuable, hands-on experience.
While there are several ways to gain an education, their work is making it easier for students who want traditional experiences to learn about and implement sustainability in the world around them.
The initiatives involving solar panels and microplastic filters will not just save communities money and benefit public health, but they will also keep the environment cleaner.
Many students want to act in order to have a better future. Take Madeleine Biles, a senior management major who interned with the Lake George Land Conservancy over the summer.
Biles told The Hechinger Report that she chose New Paltz because of its alignment with work related to the environment. She also hopes taking this action will allow her to process her feelings related to the rising global temperature, which has caused extreme weather to grow more intense, threatened food security, and contributed to disease spread, among other things.
"I think if I have a career in sustainability, that will be my way of channeling that frustration and sadness and turning it into a positive thing," she said.Professors and staff at SUNY New Paltz are planting the seeds of what sustainability-focused education could look like across the country.
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