2:45-3:45

Track 1 - Marketing and Outreach Tools and Tactics: using social media and other tools for recruitment and publicity

When making great strides in sustainability at your university, how can you get the word out about it?  This session will cover how to utilize social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, etc.) as a tool to promote your institution's accomplishments and engage the community.  Topics will include how to gain fans and followers, encourage engagement in your social media accounts, evaluate the success of your efforts and convert online engagement into real life engagement.

 David Baker

David Baker is Director of the Web Communications office at OSU, which launched, in partnership with University Marketing, the award-winning Powered by Orange campaign. PBO connected tens of thousands of alumni and friends across Oregon and the country through a combination of social media, Web tactics and traditional marketing efforts.

David has spent nearly fifteen years in higher education and corporate communications, including OSU, the University of Missouri and Accenture.

Kelli Matthews

Kelli Matthews has a decade of public relations experience, the last eight as the director of a full-service public relations, marketing and design agency.  As such, Kelli has been directly responsible for high-level communication, strategic planning, budget management and leadership for a wide variety of clients, many of which are nonprofits and community organizations.

Kelli's six years of work with undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism & Communication has required her to stay on the cutting edge of research and practice in public relations.  It’s also given her a chance to work with a talented group of educators and researchers.

Peter Welte

Peter Welte is an environmental advocate who majored in computer science.  While a coordinator for the PSU Bicycle Advocacy Collective, Peter enjoyed using social media tools for outreach and recruitment.  Then over the summer he developed the PSU EcoWiki, the online hub for news, events, and opportunities related to sustainability at PSU.  

Peter plans to continue developing online and mobile applications to help build communities and change the world.

Track 2 - Civic Engagement Part 2: Examples across OUS of successful projects that result from civic engagement programs

This session follows up on Civic Engagement Part 1 with examples of successful green civic engagement projects and programs from PSU, OSU, and UO.  Presenters will describe their initiatives and offer tips and lessons learned for creating and managing intellectually meaningful and personally rewarding experiences.

Steve Cook

Steve Cook has been teaching Geo 300, "Sustainability for the Common Good," at OSU for thirteen years.  About 11,000 juniors and seniors across those years have taken the course.  In 2007 he completely revamped the class, making it broad rather than deep, connecting with students by presenting material from the individual impact perspective - things they can do themselves to reduce their carbon footprint.  At the same time, it became clear that students were yearning to contribute to solving the world's problems, but the big issues facing humanity are so overwhelming that often cynicism or apathy reined.  Consequently he included a civic engagement component for about a third of the course grade. 

Each term students fan out across the OSU campus and Corvallis community in groups of six to perform four hours of fieldwork on a project.  The projects conclude with a Group Presentation and Group Paper.  Students participate in about 50 Group Projects each term, completing about 1100 hours of civic engagement.  Projects range from making a video or program for KBVR to grubbing blackberries for the Audubon Society to searching for incandescent light bulbs on OSU campus.  Feedback from both student participants and recipients is so overwhelmingly positive that it is a joy to behold.  In addition, there is a 5% extra credit component in the course, where students can also volunteer locally as well as attend pertinent lectures and seminars.

 Chris Jones

Chris Jones is one of two Program Managers for the Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) at the University of Oregon. He is the primary coordinator of the Sustainable City Year (SCY) program, a simple and yet radical re-conceptualization of the public research university as catalyst for sustainable community change. SCY is a year-long partnership between the University of Oregon and one city in Oregon, in which students and faculty in courses from across the university collaborate with the partner city on sustainability and livability projects. SCY faculty and students work on real-world projects in collaboration with staff from the partner city through a variety of studio projects and service learning courses. Students bring energy, enthusiasm, and innovative approaches to difficult, persistent problems. SCY’s primary value derives from collaborations resulting in on-the-ground impact and forward movement for a community ready to transition to a more sustainable and livable future.

SCY is unique among service-learning programs around the country. This model combines faculty expertise and research with student enthusiasm to offer cities a vision for the future, and the knowledge and inspiration they need to transform their communities. This year in the City of Salem, SCY is applying 28 courses with 25 faculty across 10 disciplines with more than 500 students for 80,000 hours of work toward 16 city-identified projects.

Heather Spalding

Heather Spalding is the Sustainability Leadership and Outreach Coordinator and manages the Sustainability Leadership Center (SLC) at PSU.  This unique program is funded by the Miller Foundation and works with both the Institute for Sustainable Solutions and the Division of Student Affairs to coordinate student engagement and leadership opportunities for students.  The office manages programs which include the Residence Life EcoReps initiative, the Sustainability Volunteer Program, the Student Sustainability Leadership Council, and the Sustainability Tour Ambassador program.  The SLC also created the PSU’s EcoWiki, a social networking tool focused on sustainability for the PSU community.  The SLC attends new student orientation events to provide information about how students can get involved with sustainability on campus.  They also work to increase collaboration between students, staff, and faculty to invest in the campus community.

Spalding graduated from PSU with a degree in General Science and a certificate in Permaculture and Whole Systems Design in 2009.  She has received a variety of awards including the Oregon Campus Compact Award for Civic Leadership in Sustainability.  Her interests include engaging young people in positive solutions to current social and environmental challenges, improving access to community food systems, creating a "deeper" sustainability movement and infusing hands-on sustainability learning tools into the Oregon education system.

Track 3 - The Food Showcase: campuses show off their best local, seasonal, organic offerings with suppliers on hand to discuss their products

This loosely structured session celebrates and explores OUS' support for more sustainable food systems.  We’ll begin with a short introduction to frame the relationship between large institutional dining programs and local agriculture.  Then participants can enjoy a smorgasbord of local and organic food prepared by OSU Catering.  You’ll be encouraged to engage with fellow participants, dining services staff and local farmers about ways to strengthen these relationships.  It’s a culinary advising, networking, and tasting all rolled into one.  Bon appetite!    

Peter Truitt of Truitt Brothers.