Sophomore attends Sustainability in Higher Education conference

Samantha Futrell, sophomore environmental science major from San Angelo, Texas, attended the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference at the Denver Convention center. Leading up to the conference was a half-day student summit with 600 students from colleges across the country.

Conference sessions ranged from how to write and propose a sustainability plan to school administration to how to get students to attend functions held on the topic of sustainability.

“The networking opportunities were awesome and I came back to campus encouraged, empowered, and full of amazing ideas and armed with great case studies,” Futrell said.

She attended a session and a luncheon directed at networking between faith-based schools.

“I was able to trade ideas and gain a lot of knowledge on how schools like Pepperdine and Texas Tech have gone towards taking better care of our creation,” she said.  “The most important tools I came away with were the idea of a three-pronged approach to sustainability: environmental, economic, and social equity. Any approach you take that is too focused in one area will not be successful in the long term- because it is not truly sustainable.”

Futrell brought these ideas back to campus and is working on making presentations to different groups at ACU to share her knowledge.

“Next year's conference is in Pittsburgh from October 9-11 and I hope that ACU will send some more people along,” Futrell said.

Futrell received her funding to attend the conference from A&E, the CAS Dean's Office, Dr. Schubert's Office, and the ACU Students Association.