Finding a Home
Finding a physical base for your green living program (GLP) is a critical early step. The ideal location is an existing sustainability office, where staff members would be able to provide insight into other campus greening issues. Few schools have such offices to date, but other departments may have missions tangential to your own and would be able to provide basic administrative support for your program.
Consider your partners when choosing a home. If one of your partner departments offers a base location, other partners could become concerned about the host department dominating the direction of the program and distracting from the others' interests. In this case, it might be worth considering a neutral home base.
When looking for a suitable home for your GLP, consider these questions:
- Do departmental staff share your vision of a sustainable institution?
- Can the group provide payroll, financial and administrative support?
- Is the office willing to set up a financial account for the GLP to house its funds?
- Would any staff members make suitable mentors or managers for the GLP?
- Does the department oversee an area of campus operations, such as recycling, facilities or dining?
- Would the department benefit from the GLP's activities?
- Is there physical space in the department that the GLP could occupy?
- Is the location student-accessible and student-friendly?
The following pages provide more information on logistics (including payroll, office space, computers and phones) and mentoring and management.