The Student Sustainability Town Hall touched upon the recent launch of USC sustainability Trojan learning modules and discussion of other sustainability possibilities for the future on Tuesday afternoon.
The town hall meeting, held in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center, was sponsored by the USC Environmental Student Assembly and the Presidential Working Group on Sustainability in Education (PWG). It was co-hosted by two USC freshmen, Jon-Marc Burgess and Sara Eyassu, who were accompanied by six panelists who are part of the PWG.
“It’s an online module … broadly, you’ll see a lot of students’ faces that start in it talking about what sustainability means to them, classes they take around sustainability, how they get engaged with sustainability,” said Ellen Dux, the officer of sustainability of USC PWG. “You’ll hear about global initiatives broadly. What is climate change? How is it impacting?”
The new USC Trojan learn sustainability training modules were soft-launched on Monday and were the main focus of the town hall meeting. The 40-minute training session has been under production for two years and was a major accomplishment for the USC’s sustainability leaders in their mission towards a greener USC.
“It’s had a lot of forums and there’s been a lot of feedback from students every year, from every major, from staff and faculty, and the fact that it was students that put this together is incredible,” said JJ Flores, a sophomore studying international relations.
The sustainability Trojan learning module was developed by students with the goal of educating the student body on the need for greater sustainability implementations on the USC campus. The Student Sustainability Committee has been able to establish 27 goals and initiatives surrounding education, research and wastefulness when moving forward in their push for greater sustainability on campus.
The next goal that the committee will focus on will be decarbonization, a key pillar of sustainability.
Mick Dalrymple, co-chair of PWG, went into detail about partnerships, technical options and budgeting as part of their next plan for implementing greater sustainability on campus. This process could take years to complete along the many other initiates the committee has set, he said.
In the meantime, the committee hopes that the student body will engage in the newly launched Trojan learning modules as it is a widely accessible way for students to educate on how to become aware and involved in sustainability on campus.
“Students like to hear from other students who like to learn from other students,” Dux said. “It’s not necessarily a pathway. It comes down to time. So we welcome everybody into this work together.