Sierra names top 10 eco-friendly colleges: November 2, 2007.Sierra, the bi-monthly periodical of the nonprofit Sierra Club Sierra Club, national organization in the United States dedicated to the preservation and expansion of the world's parks, wildlife, and wilderness areas. Founded (1892) in California by a group led by the Scottish-American conservationist John Muir, the Sierra Club , last week announced its list of the 10 greenest colleges in the U.S. Topping the list is Ohio's Oberlin, which gets high marks for revamped food services food services Hospital services A 24/7 department in a hospital that provides for the nutritional needs of inpatients–eg, those needing special diets, preparing meals and transporting them to the floor and, through the cafeteria, the hospital staff and that give priority to local producers, the first car-sharing program in the state, and an energy policy that derives half of its campus electricity from renewable sources. Second place went to Harvard University Harvard University, mainly at Cambridge, Mass., including Harvard College, the oldest American college. Harvard CollegeHarvard College, originally for men, was founded in 1636 with a grant from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. , which has more LEED-certified "green" buildings than any other college in the world and administers an innovative $12 million revolving loan fund A Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) is a source of money from which loans are made for small business development projects. A loan is made to one person or business at a time and, as repayments are made, funds become available for new loans to other businesses. that pays for energy efficiency and other environmental improvements around campus that in turn generate enough savings to pay back the loan. North Carolina's Warren Wilson College Warren Wilson is one of only six colleges in the United States requiring students to work for the institution in order to graduate. It is part of the Work College Consortium, which also includes Alice Lloyd College, Berea College, Blackburn College, College of the Ozarks and Sterling , along with the University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). system and Duke University, round out the top five. Vermont's Middlebury College Middlebury College, at Middlebury, Vt.; coeducational; chartered and opened 1800. It is a small liberal arts college noted for its summer language schools, which pioneered in the development of specialized language study. , Kentucky's Berea College, Penn State, Tufts and Carnegie Mellon also made the list, with Arizona State, Bowdoin, Carleton, Emory, Northern Arizona, Northwestern, Stanford and Yale garnering honorable mentions. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With global warming a chief concern among young people these days, forward-thinking colleges are taking sustainability to heart. Sierra reports that 400 college and university presidents have signed a pledge to make their institutions carbon neutral, while students at almost 600 U.S. and Canadian schools are organizing around clean-energy solutions as part of the Campus Climate Challenge, a two-year-old campaign initiated by youth environmental groups. "As the biggest purchasers and employers in many communities, colleges can create demand for eco-friendly services and products," writes Jennifer Hattam, who put together the report for the magazine. "If students start their adult lives in a culture of sustainability, they just might take that ethos with them wherever they go." Source: Sierra Club Reporting by Roddy Scheer |
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