Partnership Building
In the early design and development stages of a new program, smaller groups of committed, strategically selected supporters are likely to be more effective than lots of scattered participants. Your ideal partners will be a mix of people who have access to funding and high level managers, and who know how things work around the college or university.
Avoid making presumptions about potential partners, especially in terms of the types of persuasive arguments you should use. Enter meetings with an open mind and broad set of arguments about the environmental impetus, economic advantages and student benefits of the program you have in mind. As you get to know key individuals, be adaptive in your position, arguments and role.
You should learn to distinguish between theoretical and applied support. The latter is what you want—applied support is what will translate into funding, office space, organizational structure, partnership and legitimacy. Theoretical support is mildly helpful in the sense that it can facilitate corridor conversations and political legitimacy, but your time is best spent with those people who can help in concrete ways. To get to the people who can provide applied support you must understand your organization, as discussed in the last section.
Because students are key personnel in internship and green living programs, it is important to demonstrate their interest in participating. Administrators place great stock in student participation and leadership. The direct involvement of a few key student leaders in the design and development of new programs can greatly improve the effectiveness of the effort. For this and many reasons, it is important that students be engaged in designing and developing new programs.
Faculty Involvement
The Harvard Green Campus Initiative experience is that faculty members rarely have time to dedicate to program development. You may have better luck, though, especially if you attend to these basic principles:
- Faculty need to know their time is well-used, so ask them to make a relatively brief commitment to high-impact activities.
- Faculty will respond best if they have a connection with students involved in your program.
- Be open to faculty members proposing alternative ways to help your efforts, such as through a class project on a related topic.
- Try to secure grant funding to cover faculty members' time.