The legacy of the seminal environmentalist Rachel Carson, class of '29, continues to shape Pittsburgh's Chatham University and its commitment to environmental sustainability.
Now the school has received its largest gift ever, $15 million from the Falk Foundation to support academic programs at Chatham's interdisciplinary School of Sustainability & the Environment (to be renamed the Falk School of Sustainability) and to help fund construction of the school's green Eden Hall Campus.
Chatham made a formal commitment to environmental education and advocacy in 2008, pledging to integrate “sustainability into the fabric of the University through a coordinated and sustained effort of a kind rarely seen before.”
“Sustainability at Chatham is many things,” says President Esther L. Barazzone. “A way of institutional living that in itself educates students and all who come in contact with us; a commitment to living respectfully upon the land; a body of educational content and practice that is offered in courses and degrees; and a substantial and important repositioning of the entire institution around urban sustainability transformation – one of the most critical and transformative issues of modern society and within the higher education industry.”
The first phase of Chatham's branch Eden Hall Campus, which it claims will be “the world's first fully sustainable campus in higher education” is set to open by December 1. The 338-acre campus in Pittsburgh's North Hills, originally home to an early Heinz company executive, will eventually serve 1,500 students while emitting zero carbon emissions, producing more energy than it consumes and managing all storm and waste water on-site.
Source: Bill Campbell, Chatham University
Writer: Elise Vider