The purpose of the Sustainability Subcommittee is to support Dominican University of California becoming an environmentally sustainable campus. Its role is to serve as a resource to the University’s governance system by assessing environmental policies, procedures and practices leading to the development of plans of action that will lead to Dominican as a progressive green campus that is a model of an environmentally sustainable campus. The subcommittee is a recognized subcommittee of the University’s Space and Facilities Committee. It has one voting member on the Space and Facilities Committee.

It is charged to:

• draft, promote and integrate a “Green Philosophy Statement” for the University

• assess current sustainable practices,

• assist the campus leaders in communicating Dominican’s existing green practices to our campus and the local community

• draft both short and long term plans related to the following areas.

Components of an integrated plan will include such areas as:

• • educating the campus community to being environmentally aware and responsible

  • recycling paper, cardboard, cans, plastic, glass, batteries, inkjet cartridges

  • waste management

  • environmental awareness and education

  • purchasing practices that give preference to recycled and fair trade products

  • landscape and grounds

  • energy efficiency and use

  • organic and local buying

  • transportation and parking

  • hazardous waste minimization

  • connecting this project to our mission and strategic planning

  • building and remodeling practices

A brief history of the subcommittee as per the previous Chair, John Duvall:

The Greener Dominican Task Force was formed in 2006 as a sub-committee of the Campus Utilization Policy Committee (now called Space and Facilities Committee) by Dr. John Duvall, Dr. Coelho, Dr. Denise Lucy and Sister Carla Kovack from Spring 2007 until its incorporation into the committee in 2010.

The Greener Dominican Task Force moved forward with some meaningful initiatives and activities. In Spring 2007, it produced a mission/vision statement and Environmental Sustainability Plan for the university and many other concrete achievements, including:

• a survey of student attitudes towards recycling

• the establishment of an indoor recycling program

• an energy audit of electrical lighting usage in Bertrand and Angelico, and replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFL bulbs

• a campus Transportation Project by a Green MBA team and an accompanying campus/neighborhood workshop

• an Earth Day Fair (2008) outside Caleruega Dining Hall including around a dozen local sustainability groups;

• an Earth Day Forum (2009) in Angelico called Going Green in Marin: Land, Water, Food and Sustainability, focused on regional sustainable agriculture

• a survey of campus water usage, followed by a proposal to discontinue bottled water deliveries to campus offices (passed from CUPC to the AEC in 2009).

Thanks to a Strategic Initiative Grant from President Dr. Mary Marcy for 2011-2012, faculty members Dr. Vania Coelho, Susan Briski and Dr. Jacob Massoud (with assistance from two graduate student assistants) conducted a survey of Dominican’s sustainability performance in the areas of Education and Research, Operations, and Planning, Administration and Engagement, as defined by the AASHE STARS program. The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education is the prime national organization for rating the sustainability performance of American universities, and Dominican’s submission earned a rating of Bronze.

The Dominican Sustainability Webpage has information about some of the university's more recent sustainability accomplishments: