The Princeton Review’s GUIDE TO 322 GREEN COLLEGES Presented in partnership with the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council 2013 Edition Learn how the top 322 green colleges are raising the bar on sustainability and preparing students to be global leaders in a new paradigm of people, planet and prosperity. THE PRINCETON REVIEW’S GUIDE TO 322 GREEN COLLEGES 2013 EDITION PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CENTER FOR GREEN SCHOOLS AT THE U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL 1 THE PRINCETON Review’s Guide TO 322 GREEN COLLEGES 2013 by TPR Education IP Holdings, LLC The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University. This is for personal use and not for reproduction or posting. Senior Vice President, Publisher: Robert Franek Content Director: David Soto Account Manager: Stephen Koch Editor: Kristen O'Toole Production: Best Content Solutions, LLC Production Editor: Lee Elder Item Number: 19-TB1577 CONTENTS Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................................................5 About This Book ..................................................................................................................................................................5 How We Produced This Book .............................................................................................................................................6 Why Sustainability On Campus Matters .......................................................................................................................10 Getting Into College ..........................................................................................................................................................12 Getting Involved ...............................................................................................................................................................14 How This Book Is Organized ...........................................................................................................................................15 Glossary ...............................................................................................................................................................................19 The Schools ............................................................................................................................................................................22 School Says ...........................................................................................................................................................................187 Index ......................................................................................................................................................................................207 Alphabetical Index ...........................................................................................................................................................207 Index by Location ............................................................................................................................................................213 3 THE PRINCETON Review’s Guide TO 322 GREEN COLLEGES SPONSORED, IN PART, BY UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION INTRODUCTION ABOUT THIS BOOK When researching colleges, it is important to remember that you should be trying to figure out more than “What college is best, academically?” The thing is, it’s not hard to find academically great schools in this country, but you should really focus on finding a college that suits your academic goals as well as some personal pursuits. Over the past 20 years, it has been our mission to provide students with savvy and sometimes hard-to-get informa- tion about colleges so that they can find and get in to their “best fit” schools. To do that, we have authored over 200 college guidebooks, most notably, our Best Colleges guidebook series, which provides statistical data and nar- rative descriptions of the most academically outstanding institutions in the United States and Canada. You may be wondering how this guide is different. This is a guide to 322 colleges and universities that have dem- onstrated a notable commitment to sustainability. While it differs from our Best Colleges guidebooks in that it does not report information based on our surveys of students attending the schools, it very much embodies our phi- losophy that finding your “best fit” school means looking at everything from the school’s academic offerings to its extracurricular options and, here, its commitment to going green. We recognize there is a rising interest among students in attending colleges that practice, teach, and support environmentally responsible choices. Among the more than 7,000 college applicants The Princeton Review surveyed for its 2012 College Hopes & Worries Survey, 68 percent of respondents said they would value having information about a college’s commitment to the environ- ment, reflecting a steady increase since we began asking this question in 2008. (PrincetonReview.com/college- hopes-worries.aspx). There is a sincere and growing interest among students in identifying and Did You Know? applying to colleges where there is a demonstrated commitment to sus- Middlebury College became the first tainability. But what exactly does this commitment entail? Why should it institution of higher education in the matter whether a college has practices in place that support green living? United States to offer an environmental And how can you determine whether a school is committed to going studies major, establishing the major in green? 1965.* While you might be able to do some online research and come up with independent evaluations of the school’s commitment to sustainability, The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges differs in that it’s not about grading schools. Nowhere in this book will you find a hierarchical listing of the “greenest” colleges or the ones with the “best” sustainability practices. The point begs repeating: THIS BOOK IS NOT A RANKING. Rather, our aim is to highlight 322 campuses which, based on our survey of their school administrators, demon- strate a strong commitment to sustainability. Some of them are just in the beginning stages of defining sustain- ability priorities while others are reaping the rewards of a long-term commitment to green. A holistic approach to sustainable living on campus binds these schools together, covering everything from procurement and building guidelines to green academic programs and preparation for sustainable careers, and a willingness to be account- able for their green commitments. Just as there is no such thing as a perfect college (just a perfect college for you), there is not one way to be green; a school surrounded by a wildlife reserve will have different sustainability pri- orities than one in the middle of a giant metropolis, and what is actually achievable for each may not be the same. That’s why, in this book, we take both a quantitative and qualitative look at a school’s sustainability efforts in areas we’ve identified as most important to students: 1) whether students have a campus quality of life that is both healthy and sustainable 2) how well a school is preparing students for employment in the green economy 3) how environmentally responsible a school’s policies are. We invited 2,000 schools to take our survey in order to come up with the 322 profiled here. In addition to earning the highest Green Rating (which you’ll learn more Did You Know? about later), the green initiatives of these institutions enhance students’ UCLA's hospital cafeterias replaced all academic experience and quality of life in ways that truly merit Styrofoam cups with biodegradable, recognition. paper-insulated cups, which will save hundreds of thousands of pounds of waste material every year.† *. Source: http://community.middlebury.edu/~enviroc/aande.html † Source: http://www.sustain.ucla.edu/campus/ 5 THE PRINCETON Review’s Guide TO 322 GREEN COLLEGES More and more students are going to college now than ever before, so educational institutions are busy accom- modating this growth with new academic buildings and dorms while ensuring that existing facilities are running efficiently. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) helps provide a layer of accountability for college campuses seeking ways to make their green building projects, both old and new, as environmentally responsible as possible. USGBC’s LEED® green building rating system is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of green buildings. Many of the schools profiled in these pages have LEED-certified buildings on campus or a commitment to future LEED projects, but that was not a criterion for inclusion in the book. All of the schools in this guide, whether or not they are profiled in our annual Best Colleges book, are exemplary institutions that address the balance of people, planet, and prosperity in fascinating ways. Our hope, in coordinat- ing with the USGBC, is to break down what green looks like across different campuses in a way that will help you to choose the right school to live sustainably. HOW WE PRODUCED THIS BOOK The story of how we produced this book needs to begin with the story of how our “Green Rating” began. That’s because our criteria for the selection of schools in this book and much of the data we report in their school write- ups