Baldwin-Wallace College Seeks to Lead in Sustainability
Baldwin-Wallace College installed an industrial composter that decomposes most of the college’s food waste for use in the campus’ flower beds.
Over the past two years, Baldwin-Wallace College has become a regional academic leader in the field of sustainability. In August 2008, it launched the midwest region’s first undergraduate, interdisciplinary major in sustainability. Now in its second year, the program has attracted approximately 40 majors, with considerable anticipated growth in the future. The program draws upon courses in the sciences, social sciences, humanities and business to provide the student with a breadth of knowledge necessary to understand and help to solve the century’s most critical sustainability problems. The major also includes a mandatory internship, which places students in corporations, nonprofits and governmental organizations engaged in sustainability work.
The college has also worked hard to “walk its talk.” It is the first college in Ohio to provide a geo-thermal heated and cooled residence hall. In addition, on-campus biodiesel fuel production takes used kitchen grease for use in campus vehicles. A large industrial composter takes most of the college’s food waste out of the waste stream for use on flower beds. Its first wind turbine was installed in November. Solar panel arrays are the next innovation anticipated for large scale use on the campus’s newest building which, when combined with geo-thermal heating and cooling, could make the building a net producer of clean energy.
In November, Baldwin-Wallace College installed a Skystream 3.7 wind turbine on campus.
This year, the college will launch a new Institute for Sustainable Business Practice that aims to engage in outreach and education partnerships with local companies. A new MBA in sustainability is in the design phase, with a hoped-for launch later this year.
On March 1-2, the college will host its next Sustainability Symposium on the topic of climate and carbon. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.bw.edu/academics/sustainability/symposium.
For more information on BW’s sustainability major, visit www.bw.edu/academics/sustainability or contact David Krueger at dkrueger@bw.edu or Sabina Thomas at sfthomas@bw.edu.