Mary L Kish, 11/9/2008 · 0 comments
To read Sarah's winning application essay, and listen to a podcast of an interview with her, click HERE.
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has announced the winners of its annual awards, with one of the six honors going to a communication management and design senior. Sarah Brylinsky ‘09 will be presented with the Student Sustainability Leadership Award at the AASHE 2008 conference this month in Raleigh, North Carolina.
This leadership award is presented to an undergraduate who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in promoting campus sustainability. “We had the most applications ever this year, so winning one of these awards is a significant accomplishment,” said Judy Walton, the acting executive director of AASHE.
As resident assistant (RA) of the Sustainably Conscious Living Community, Brylinsky created programs that boosted the popularity of the residence hall. Her efforts prompted the college to require sustainability training for all RAs, training which she designed and implemented herself. She is working with the college to retrofit residence halls with energy efficient lighting, water saving measures, in-house composting, community dining space and shared organic gardens. She also coordinated a new program for first-year students to connect them with important environmental and civic organizations in the local community.
Brylinsky also created a series of online resources such as an eco-events calendar to help students learn about the college’s sustainability efforts and numerous opportunities to get involved. She was the first student to apply for and receive a Sustainable Curriculum Grant from the college, with which she created Ithaca’s first communications course on sustainability. She is currently developing a course combining women’s studies and environmental issues.
Additionally, AASHE each year presents four Campus Sustainability Leadership Awards to institutions that have made the greatest overall commitment to sustainability as demonstrated in their governance and administration; curriculum and research; operations; and campus culture and community outreach. In what AASHE says was the most competitive selection process yet, Ithaca College was recognized as the winner in the category of four-year and graduate colleges and universities with between 1,001 and 7,500 full-time students.
The winners are highlighted in the October issue of “Sustainability: the Journal of Record”; the article can be downloaded at http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/SUS.2008.9933.
Founded in 2006, AASHE is an association of colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada working to promote sustainability in all sectors of higher education — from governance and operations to curriculum and outreach — through education, communication, research and professional development.
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