Just a short note here to acknowledge what was a very productive day yesterday at Roosevelt. Several faculty, staff, and students gathered in WB 1017 to celebrate the completion of the university’s first-ever Strategic Sustainability Plan. We went over the plan’s highlights, discussed a communications strategy to coordinate our follow-through on initiatives the plan’s major goals map out, share conversation about our personal interests in contributing to this ongoing work, and ate a delicious lunch.

This was the third and final planning workshop in a series of three half-day sessions that started on Sept. 26th. In less than two months, we collaboratively drafted a 30-page strategic plan that sets the stage for RU’s sustainability work the next 2-5 years! That’s a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.

The Plan still requires final proofing as well as official endorsement from the upper administration, and we hope to have that in hand soon so we can release the final version to the university community. In the meantime, you can read Friday’s draft here as a pdf document.

I want to acknowledge the co-leaders of this planning process — Paul Matthews, Assistant VP of Physical Resources; Tom Shelton, Sustainability Coordinator in Physical Resources; and MaryBeth Radeck, SUST major and Independent Consultant/Facilitator — for their work in this endeavor . . . particularly MaryBeth, who organized led the workshops and took the lead in project communications and document editing. Also worthy of praise are SUST majors and Physical Resource sustainability associates Beeka Quesnell and Mary Rasic, who helped immensely with the workshop organization and set-up; and the many students, faculty, and staff who participated in the workshops. (Their names are in the draft plan!)