The sustainable campus

Institutions of higher learning are dynamic and ever changing places. My thesis states that higher education is experiencing change similar to the changes that took place after other historical events such as the pedagogical shift from the Socratic Method to the elective curriculum, the industrial revolution, the GI Bill or the introduction of computers. Campuses are vehicles of change. The current change agent to impact to college buildings, grounds, and curriculum is the sustainability movement. The adoption of sustainable development principles to the curriculum and facilities is becoming increasingly accepted throughout college campuses across the country and world. This study looks at the planning efforts of Zamorano University and Eckerd College that resulted in a redirection of these institutions to ecologically informed planning and decision making processes that transformed the campuses. I interviewed key decision makers to better understand the process that brought them to except the sustainable principles that are now guiding their institutions of higher learning.