Sustainability at the University of Maryland
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Pre-Conference Workshop

Professional Development for Campus Sustainability Practitioners

Sunday, April 15, 2012

9:00 am – 4:30 pm

This full day workshop is designed to build the capacities of participants to engage in successful change management for sustainability. Emphasis is on providing new conceptual frameworks, key insights, information-sharing, fellowship, mentoring, and problem-solving through a variety of activities, which will also build relationships for the future.

Content presentations and discussions will address a variety of key areas of interest including:

  • Understanding your role
  • Managing institutional change
  • Sustainability strategic planning, metrics and reporting
  • Systems thinking for campus sustainability
  • Executive leadership
  • Finance and Accounting
  • Social dynamics

Time together will also be spent using collaborative coaching and open space technology formats to guide open discussion, fellowship and mentoring.

Participants will:

  • Be equipped with new frameworks to help them to achieve short, medium and long term strategic change management success
  • Explore issues that are critically relevant to their unique role on campus and are not otherwise covered in the general conference; Change management, systems thinking, social dynamics etc.
  • Gain specific skills/knowledge that are essential to their work
  • Hear and share best practices and ideas in a peer-to-peer format and space that allows for open and frank discussion in a way that the rest of the conference sessions do not
  • Have the opportunity to serve as mentors and mentees and engage in dialogue with fellow sustainability practitioners
  • Improve literacy relevant to the skills/knowledge needed for sustainability professionals

This professional development workshop is designed for campus sustainability professionals - i.e., paid professionals on campus whose positions are either partially or entirely dedicated to advancing sustainability across campus in multiple sectors. Job titles include sustainability coordinator, sustainability manager, director of sustainability, chief sustainability officer, facilities personnel or faculty with campus sustainability responsibilities etc.

The Facilitators

Leith Sharp has spent 20 years working to drive sustainability into the core business of the higher education sector. Leith began her career by establishing one of world’s first campus sustainability programs at the University of New South Wales, Australia. For her innovative work in Australia, Leith received numerous awards including a Churchill Fellowship and Young Australian of the Year (Environment Category).

In 1999, Harvard University recruited Leith to be the founding director of Harvard’s Office for Sustainability. Under her leadership, Harvard came to have the largest green campus organization in the world, becoming a recognized global leader in campus sustainability. For her work at Harvard Leith received numerous awards from the EPA, the City of Cambridge and the Boston Society of Architects.

In 2009 Leith was recruited to be the start-up Executive Director for the Illinois Green Economy Network, a partnership of 48 community college Presidents working together to drive green economic growth across Illinois. Leith is currently the founding Chair of the Sustainability Futures Academy, an international collaboration between developing and developed countries.

Leith has a bachelor of environmental engineering from the University of New South Wales and a Master of Education (human development and psychology) from Harvard University.

Aurora Winslade has been involved in sustainability in higher education for the past nine years. She currently directs the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Sustainability Office, which she founded in 2007. Aurora specializes in sustainability assessment, planning, and facilitation for community engagement.

Aurora has served on the Advisory Board for the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology Program, was a founding member of the Energy Action Coalition, and has helped organize events for sustainability professionals in higher education for the past four years, including AASHE’s first national retreat for sustainability officers in 2011. She advises higher education institutions nationally and internationally in establishing successful sustainability programs.

As an undergraduate, Aurora helped establish several local and statewide initiatives including the California Student Sustainability Coalition and the Education for Sustainable Living Program, for which she received the Oikos International award for Student Entrepreneurship in Higher Education.

Aurora completed her B.A. with highest honors in “Agriculture, Ecology, and Political Economy” at UCSC and holds a certificate in counseling. She is a Fellow of the Strauss Foundation and Humanity in Action.


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