Date and time: April 10 at 2:00–3:00 PM ET

Presenter: Kim Hankins, Director of Sustainability, McHenry County College

I am also a full-time sustainability professional at a community college where I am the creator and director of the college’s sustainability program. This is where my research is founded. I found myself a bit stuck as I could not move initiatives forward at my institution. In the past I have found inspiration through national conferences where I can hear from other sustainability professionals about their strategies and accomplishments and adapt those successful ideas back to my own college. Covid had a profound effect of this networking and many of my colleagues found ourselves in a similar positions. I saw an opportunity to research and share information through this program.

I conducted and analyzed interviews with sustainability professionals at community colleges, specifically those with enrollment under 10,000 students in the Midwest. Targeting this enrollment ceiling specifically because I want to compare apple to apples. Larger community colleges are often well funded with multiples staff members. Colleges with smaller programs are usually one staff member with the occasional student worker. By talking with other sustainability staff, collecting information, and sharing some of the approaches that work (and didn’t) I hope to help community colleges of the same size meet their sustainability goals.