True to its green goals, Furman University is the proud recipient of several recent awards for the institution\u2019s sustainable practices. On October 9, Furman was named the 2016 winner of the Campus Sustainability Achievement Award by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). This prestigious award, presented at the AASHE Conference & Expo in Baltimore, Maryland, honors higher education institutions for successfully implementing projects that advance sustainability.<\/p>\n
Accepting the award at the opening ceremony of the conference were Weston Dripps, Ph.D., executive director of the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability<\/a>; Joey Espinosa, program coordinator of Furman\u2019s Community Conservation Corps; and Kelly Grant Purvis, assistant director of the Shi Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe won for the best case study for an institution with 10,000 or fewer full-time students,\u201d reports Dripps. The award was based on Furman\u2019s Community Conservation Corps (CCC), which provides free home weatherization to low-income homeowners in the greater Greenville area, and weatherized its 100th home in August. \u201cIt was great press for Furman,\u201d Dripps continues. \u201cAnyone who is involved in sustainability was at this conference, so among our respective peers, it was great exposure for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Furman garnered more exposure at the seminar on the CCC that Espinosa and Yancey Fouch\u00e9, former director of sustainability integration for the Shi Center, led during the conference. \u201cIt was great to be recognized before the nearly 2,000 AASHE members who attended the conference, but even better was the opportunity we had to present the CCC to a group of people who wanted to learn more about it,\u201d Espinosa says.<\/p>\n Furman was also recently listed among the \u201cTop 50 Green Colleges\u201d by the Princeton Review. Appearing in the Review\u2019s annual 160-page Guide to 361 Green Colleges: 2016 Edition<\/em>, Furman was selected out of a group of 640 colleges surveyed. The guide profiles colleges with the most exceptional commitments to sustainability, and its \u201cGreen Rating\u201d score measures universities\u2019 sustainability-related policies, practices and programs.<\/p>\n