Sustainability at SAU
At St. Ambrose, we believe sustainability is more than a cause; it is an individual and collective responsibility.
Our commitment to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and social justice requires each of us to examine the use of natural, social, and economic resources, as well as seek solutions and adopt stewardship practices that will sustain our world today, and allow it to thrive for the generations of tomorrow. It is a commitment reflected in our actions, academics, and goals.
Building on What We've Started
- On all campuses, we've planted pollinator gardens, installed water bottle filling stations, prioritized energy efficiency in new construction, purchased food from local growers to serve in our tray-less cafeteria, plentiful recycling containers, and established a Sustainability Committee to lead new initiatives and promote stewardship of the natural environment.
- In academic programs such as Biology, Environmental Studies, and Public Health we provide students with the tools to become sustainability champions.
- Student clubs Green Life and Enactus consistently educate their peers and launch new earth-friendly initiatives.
- By opening guest lectures and roundtable discussions to the community, we spark greater collective action.
- Through undergraduate research, our students address environmental issues hands-on, whether studying a nearby urban wetland or discovering a way to clean sediment in rivers and lakes.
Our mission and shared values of academic excellence, the liberal arts, social justice, and community service require Ambrosians do more than simply advocate for sustainability; we must also challenge ourselves to do more – on campus, in the world, and for our future.
Demonstrate your commitment by signing this Sustainability Pledge and learn more about our work below.
"From physical plant practices that include the use of biodiesel-fueled vehicles and the creation of stormwater retention tanks to a food service commitment to using local food, St. Ambrose very intentionally nurtures our common home."
–Sister Joan Lescinski, CSJ, PhD, President Emerita of St. Ambrose University
"As a future healthcare worker, I see how the changing climate is changing the lives of individuals and their livelihood. It is impacting the environment and the health of others. I feel a calling to that, and I want to make it better for those people."
–Green Life President and Nursing student Anna Schmidt
Green Life Student Club Enactus Student Club
Our Mission
Consistent with our Catholic heritage and Catholic Environmental Teaching, St. Ambrose University commits to stewardship of our natural resources and protection of the rest of Creation.
Initiatives will be fiscally prudent, critically thought out, educational, and potentially require difficult behavioral changes to reduce our impact on the environment.
We will collaborate with appropriate campus, local, state, and broader constituencies to share ideas, resources, and solutions to meet our goals.
Our Collective Impact
"It's easy to think I am only one person, and this is only one plastic bottle – how will that make a difference? But if we all start making small changes to become more sustainable it will add up and lead to bigger changes. It starts with the individual."
–Kristina Shelman '20, former Green Life student leader
Start today. Choose from the list of tips below and collectively, we can make a difference on campus, in our communities, and across the world!
More Information
Committee Chairpersons
Amy Blair, PhD, Biology Professor
Dennis Tarasi, PhD, Biology Asst. Professor
Faculty, staff, students, and university administrators lead SAU's sustainability initiatives and promote stewardship of the natural environment.
The Sustainability Committee's research and recommendations – whether focused on solar energy or a campus energy and savings analysis – aims to decrease the university's environmental impact. The committee is igniting discussion and action by hosting projects and events, and it encourages each student and employee to commit to reducing their impact on the environment by signing the Sustainability Pledge.
Ambrose students and employees who want to participate in the discussion and planning of future sustainability initiatives are welcome to join the committee. Contact Professor Amy Blair, PhD, or Assistant Professor Dennis Tarasi, PhD, co-chairs of the Sustainability Committee.
Green Life, our student environmental club, educates and encourages the campus to adopt practices that will protect and support a thriving Earth for generations to come.
Here's a sampling of their contributions over the past couple of years:
- Members built beehives, planted multiple pollinator gardens, and a vegetable garden used by campus food service. They've organized litter clean-ups, labeled recycling bins (to reduce waste contamination), led efforts to reduce food waste, and coordinated an end-of-semester food drive in each residence hall. Last academic year, Green Life collected more than 1,200 pounds of food that did not go to waste. Instead, it was donated to the Riverbend Food Bank to help feed families throughout the region.
- In fall 2020, Green Life worked with leaders of the Hilltop Campus community to maintain and nurture community gardens. These outdoor spaces provide produce throughout the growing season at no cost to all members of the public. Across several weekends, Green Life members weeded garden beds, pruned and tied up plants to prevent rot, and distributed food boxes.
- In 2019, Green Life organized and moderated a roundtable discussion on climate change after a public screening of the film Paris to Pittsburgh. More than 120 community members, local leaders, and environment professionals attended, elevating Green Life as a leader on environmental issues.
- Green Life members make a difference. In the spring of 2020, two of its student leaders, Kristina Shelman '20 and Anna Schmidt '21 were named "Future Leaders of Conservation in the Quad Cities," received the Oberholtzer Award, and a $1,000 scholarship each from the Nahant Marsh Education Center.
Anyone from campus, including faculty and staff, is welcome to join and support Green Life initiatives. Contact us by email at beegreen@sau.edu
The SAU Enactus team empowers the community through entrepreneurial action and improving the lives of those around us in a manner that is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.
Students have developed a recycling plan for area parks, helped regional companies boost their social media marketing, worked with Main Street Iowa, and designed and remodeled local special needs classrooms. The team is currently gathering donations and coordinating a campus bicycle rental program.
SAU Enactus partners with the SAU Engineering Club in a unique business called Design Hive, a laser-engraving business that designs, creates, and sells items. It also partners with other student clubs on projects and organizes a virtual career fair each semester.
Enactus is an international organization that connects students, academic, and business leaders through entrepreneurial-based projects. Its goal is to empower people to transform opportunities into real, sustainable progress for themselves and their communities.
The SAU Enactus team invites all students to take part. For more information contact Professor of Marketing Jason Senjem, PhD.
Academic programs such as Biology, Environmental Studies, and Public Health provide our students with the tools to become sustainability champions.
Through undergraduate research, our students are hands-on in addressing environmental issues, whether studying a nearby urban wetland or discovering a way to clean rivers and lakes. Learn about some of your opportunities below.
This interdisciplinary minor encourages students to explore the physical environment from various perspectives, including literature, theology, biology, and art.
Students learn diverse approaches to understand, relate to, and responsibly manage the natural environment. All students complete a capstone project that provides hands-on experiences in conservation, preservation, and restoration.
Learn about the Environmental Studies interdisciplinary minor
Our field Biology research Learning Community, Inquiry In Action, takes lab students to Nahant Marsh, one of the few remaining urban wetlands near the Mississippi River.
Students then present their research to the university at the end of the semester.
The 2020-21 College of Arts and Sciences Project Series, Changing Climates: From Rising Seas to Societal Needs, sparked reflection and discussion across campus and throughout the region.
Programs and departments across the university hosted lectures and events tied to the theme, as well as created coursework and service opportunities. The SAU and Quad Cities community explored this topic through inquiry, listening, and discussion.
Interwoven through courses and various opportunities is our commitment to environmental stewardship and the constant challenge to do more.
Whether it's taking a class in Environmental Ethics, Social Entrepreneurship, or Socially Conscious Design; jumping into an undergraduate research project; completing an internship or field placement; or participating in service learning, SAU students examine the use of natural, social, and economic resources and seek solutions to help communities thrive.
Conserving resources and reducing our environmental impact is a long-standing priority at St. Ambrose.
In the spring of 2021, SAU became a certified Bee Campus USA® affiliate, making it one of only three colleges in Iowa recognized by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation for taking steps to protect and conserve native pollinators. Read this story about becoming a Bee Campus.
In past years, we've created pollinator gardens, renovated the Lewis Hall greenhouse, installed water bottle filling stations, and renovated and constructed energy-efficient buildings, including the Wellness and Recreation Center and McMullen Hall. There are no trays in our cafeteria, and students take to-go meals in a returnable and reusable container.
There are recycling bins in every residence hall and building. We recycle carpet when it is removed, and if we demolish or renovate a building, anything that can't be reused or repurposed is donated. For instance, before demolishing five nearby homes in 2017, we invited the nonprofit Gateway Redevelopment Group to salvage anything it wanted. The all-volunteer group removed trim, windows, kitchen cabinets, wood flooring, doorknobs, and more. Gateway then sold what it salvaged, using the money to restore abandoned homes in the Hamburg Historic District, just south of campus.
We've found new ways to conserve resources. Storm runoff is now stored within 19 underground retention tanks around campus that, at surface level, are masked as aesthetic rock gardens. During the summer, groundskeepers pull as much as 1,500 gallons weekly from the tanks to water flower beds and plantings.
Other efforts on campus, while basic, have cumulative effects, saving St. Ambrose thousands of dollars annually: low-flow showerheads in residence halls, low-energy light bulbs replacing regular bulbs, and energy management systems on many facilities' heating and air-conditioning units.
Finding ways to conserve energy and shrink St. Ambrose's carbon footprint – even as the campus grows – are being implemented every year.
What You Can Do
Sign the Sustainability Pledge and commit to reducing your environmental impact as a member of the St. Ambrose community.
Those who complete the pledge form will receive a placard signifying their commitment to environmental stewardship!
Do you have an idea to share or a topic or project you'd like explored further?
Contact Professor Amy Blair, PhD, or Assistant Professor Dennis Tarasi, PhD, co-chairs of the Sustainability Committee.
Here are a couple ways to get started:
- Join a student club or organization focused on sustainability, such as Green Life.
- Instead of throwing away clothes you no longer wear, donate to the annual Campus Ministry Clothing Drive.
- Take part in Bee the Difference Day, and with your peers, help campus neighbors tackle outdoor projects.
- Or volunteer on a Campus Ministry spring break service trip. Past trips have included cleaning trash and debris from the Mississippi River, renovating and upgrading homes for people living in poverty, and helping build a school in Kentucky.
Learn about our student clubs and organizations
Learn about service opportunities
Learn about upcoming campus events
Here are some of the small changes you can make, as recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that collectively can make a big difference:
- Nutritious, safe, and untouched food can be donated to help those in need. (Consider donating it to the Green Life end-of-the-semester food drive or directly to the River Bend Food Bank)
- When buying meals, grab only what you need. Too often extra ketchup packets and napkins go to waste.
- Change your printer settings to make double-sided pages. Use small point fonts when possible and use the "fast draft" setting when possible to save ink
- Turn off or unplug lights during the day to save energy and help lights last longer.
- Donate used (but still operating) electronics for reuse. This extends the lives of valuable products and keeps them out of the waste stream for a longer period of time. Recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 US homes in a year. (The Waste Commission of Scott County offers an Electronic Waste and Electronic Reuse Program.)
- For every one million cell phones recycled, we can recover 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium.
- Buy used instead of new. Find everything you need from clothes to building materials at specialized reuse centers and consignment shops. Often, used items are less expensive and just as good as new.
- Look for products that use less packaging. When manufacturers make their products with less packaging, they use less raw material
- Show your commitment to a clean environment by volunteering in a cleanup effort in your community. (Join us each year for Bee the Difference day.)
- Share the ride and the road. Public transportation and carpooling reduce pollution.
Source: EPA website
Contact
Amy Blair, PhD and Dennis Tarasi, PhD
Committee Co-Chairs
Lewis Hall
518 W. Locust St.
Davenport, IA 52803