Mennonite Higher Education Sustainability Summit
GOALS
This summit brings together key sustainability leaders from each Mennonite campus, focusing on sharing 1) how institutions have and can incorporate sustainability in their mission statements and other foundational documents, 2) best practices on a variety of practical steps institutions can take, and 3) discussions about the critical role of student initiatives, while balancing the differing perspectives of a campus community’s members (e.g. faculty, staff, administrators, students).
The overall goal of this summit is to use participatory dialogue to spark further actions on individual campuses, and further collaborations between our institutions. Specifically:
- Share stories of success and failure in sustainability on campus
- Compare approaches to sustainability in institutional documents and plans, curriculum, and student initiatives
- Identify specific ways that institutions can collaborate; plan next steps for collective actions
- Create a collective sense of support for sustainability in Mennonite Higher Education, with a focus on actions which address the climate crisis.
Thus, this summit of Mennonite colleges and universities recognizes our common mission to care for creation, and the role of higher education as a key force for change in the church. In particular, the church and its associated institutions are increasingly called to lead a moral response to climate and other crises based on principles of creation care and a call for justice for people who are most affected. Further, Mennonites and other Anabaptists can and should offer a distinctive voice on these issues. We believe our colleges and universities are critical players in this calling of the church, and that there is a particular need at this time to coordinate our activities.
This is a working conference, focusing on input from all participants and group work which identifies actionable steps for follow-up. As such, participants will be asked to complete ‘homework’ prior to arriving. Each institution will be asked to be able to represent/present their 1) key documents (strategic plan, etc), 2) case studies of sustainability actions, and 3) examples of sustainability in the curriculum.
We anticipate participates from each of the following Mennonite Higher Education institutions:
- Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
- Bethel College
- Bluffton University
- Canadian Mennonite University
- Conrad Grebel University College
- Eastern Mennonite University
- Fresno Pacific University
- Goshen College
- Hesston College
- Tabor College