The Division of Mission and Ministry and the Center for Sustainability thank you for your participation with our year-long planning process Sustainable SCU: Leading Through Laudato Si'. We’ve spent the year exploring goals and strategies for SCU to build a more humane, just, and sustainable world through 2030, inspired by the Pope's encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home.
As we prepare for next year’s rollout of the strategies ready to be implemented and continue our work on longer-term strategies, we wanted to take a moment to look back at the ways the community has already greatly supported the development of this project:
- More than 35 groups consisting of 440 individuals offered input and ideas to focus on during our fall roadshows (click the link to see what they had to say)
- 50+ people attended our online kick-off event
- 60 faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members from five working groups (Academics, Campus Engagement, Community Engagement, Energy, and Resources) met during four 90-minute sessions to establish the goals / strategies for the next seven years
- Our in-person (and online streaming) Summit event hosted 66 people who provided feedback on on all the working groups’ goals and strategies
- Multiple focus groups meetings - including one during the spring tUrn - offered comprehensive feedback on the action planning process and ideas for working groups to consider
This summer, we are engaging subject-matter experts who are refining the working groups’ strategies in order to determine some rough estimates of costs (which will be further refined as we get into implementation), a general timeline, and additional stakeholders who will be consulted as we commence implementation.
This fall, the SCU community will come together for a celebration and launch of our implementation plan. Sign up for a roadshow for your department or office to learn about this forward-looking plan, sustainability playbooks to catalyze individual and collective action, and the data hub to track SCU’s efforts. We’ll also be working closely with implementation teams to offer a roadmap for the coming years. By spring, our cadence of semi-annual campus-wide and leadership updates on our progress will begin.
On behalf of the Center for Sustainability and the Division of Mission and Ministry, thank you for your continued support for this vital project.
Alison Benders
Vice President, Mission & Ministry