WCU’s 2022 Sustainability Census Graphic, Taken from West Chester University
Last semester, in spring 2023, West Chester University released the results of its first sustainability census as part of the Sustainability Research and Practice Seminar. A survey distributed to students, faculty, staff and administrators during the fall 2022 semester, the census assessed the current state of sustainability around campus.
Now, after analyzing the census responses, the data will be used to identify focus points for the Office of Sustainability and Sustainability Council’s future actions.
Dr. Aliza Richman, a sociology professor at WCU and Chair of the Sustainability Council, helped develop the census. She explained how the idea came out of a desire to identify WCU respondents’ level of awareness in terms of the environment, education and goals and developing a plan going forward to close gaps in those categories.
The survey evaluated a comprehensive array of sustainability habits and knowledge on campus. Composed of four categories of questions, answers indicated respondents’ tendency to engage in sustainable actions, beliefs about climate change and the environment, knowledge of environmental issues and the demographics of respondents.
Over the summer, follow-up analyses were conducted of specifically the student population response. This more in-depth analysis examined student responses to assess disparities in students’ sustainability education before college and establish ways to close that equity gap.
According to the sustainability census, roughly 61 percent of respondents reported that they recall receiving only a week or less of education on topics relating to sustainability and environmental issues prior to college.
“The big takeaway is we need to meet students where they are,” Richman said. “If we know that the formal curriculum prior to students arriving at West Chester is really only providing them with a week, on average, of sustainability education, that is insufficient, so we need to do our job here on campus to make sure that’s ramped up.”
According to Richman, the council was impressed by the amount of feedback received, reigning in 2,228 survey responses in total.
Overall, conclusions drawn from the survey feedback were encouraging, Richman says. According to survey findings presented in an April 26 presentation, 83.9 percent of respondents expressed that they do believe the climate crisis is an urgent issue requiring immediate action. 84 percent of individuals expressed that they believe climate change is largely caused by humans.
These statistics demonstrate a far stronger literacy amongst the WCU population than is the norm and even nationwide. In 2021 the Yale Climate Opinions Map, an annual collection of data from across the country, reported that 72 percent of individuals nationally believed that climate change is indeed occurring, with 57 percent of respondents claiming that climate change is largely caused by humans.
These averages for Pennsylvanians as a whole are slightly lower: 70 percent of respondents answered that climate change is occurring while 56 percent of respondents answered that it is largely caused by humans.
On WCU’s campus, despite a relatively low amount of student education on sustainability prior to college, respondents reported an overwhelming desire to improve their awareness and activity. According to the sustainability census, 89.6 percent of respondents expressed that they wished to better their environmental impact.
Richman emphasized that there are many opportunities already in place to involve students in sustainability education. The General Education Sustainability Pathway Certificate allows students to centralize their general education courses around classes that have an environmental focus. Alternatively, WCU also offers an Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability and Resilience.
In the short-term, Richman says the Sustainability Council is looking into various ways to increase the presence of sustainability education following the data collection, including increasing enrollment in the university’s general education pathway and minor and advocating for environmental interests while the WCU presidential search process is underway.
“We’ve been, as the Sustainability Council, very vocal in terms of expressing our desire for our next president to continue sustainability leadership and to bring sustainability into the highest level of decision-making happening at the university on a regular basis,” Richman said.
They also intend to increase engagement with not only students but also faculty and staff — another population surveyed by the census. They also hope to boost engagement with the Office of Sustainability’s Brandywine Projects. A re-emerging initiative after the COVID-19 pandemic, the projects offer students, faculty and staff educational workshops to learn about sustainability on campus, how to be more environmentally aware and how to infuse class curriculum with environmental topics.
“We want to think strategically about touch-points across the university,” Richman said. “Where we can work with existing structures or create new structures that open sustainability education to everybody, and it’s not necessarily something you self-select into.”
In a more long-term sense, Richman is hopeful that the council will one day implement virtual sustainability training for all members of the WCU community to help level the playing field of peoples’ sustainability knowledge and access.
Emily Miller, a third-year Peer Educator for the Office of Sustainability, is appreciative of how environmental topics have gained a greater presence around campus, especially through student-led efforts on campus like clubs and the peer educator program.
“It’s important to recognize what WCU is doing to move towards greater sustainability — encouraging public transportation, sustainable energy sources, and recycling campaigns are all great examples,” Miller said.
They also emphasized that, in order to improve environmental impact on campus, it’s important to consider the “why” of such environmental issues. The presence of plastic products — like utensils and pre-packaged food — is an “inherent symptom of existence for the majority of students,” since alternatives are not ideal in a dorm or dining hall setting. That, Miller suggests, is a much broader institutional change that must be tackled beyond WCU alone.
Looking forward, the council plans to conduct a sub-sample survey in fall 2024, which will survey a small population of the first sustainability census respondents — specifically, student respondents — to evaluate how their knowledge or habits have changed since 2022. Two years later, in 2026, a full-scale, campus-wide census will be conducted again.
“Sustainability is the issue of the 21st century,” Richman said. “It is not just environmental, but social and economic as well.”
Olivia Schlinkman is a third-year Political Science major with minors in Journalism and Spanish. OS969352@wcupa.edu.