A $230,000 grant received from the McGregor Fund, of Detroit, in June 2009 will be used to further sustainability initiatives at Baldwin-Wallace College in the areas of student internships, faculty and course development, and the creation of an Institute for Sustainable Business Practice.

"We are grateful to McGregor Fund for this wonderful endorsement of the work being done at Baldwin-Wallace College," said B-W President Dick Durst. "Over the past few years, we have made substantial, incremental efforts to both understand and to reduce our environmental footprint. As we have worked to further our commitment, through the offering of Ohio's first undergraduate major in sustainability as well as through other programs, we aim to become regionally and nationally recognized as being a collegiate leader in sustainability.

"Through the generous support of the MGregor Fund, we believe Baldwin-Wallace College can present a model program other schools can draw upon as more institutions begin to look at sustainability as being a requisite component of a liberal arts education."

The grant, which was awarded to B-W in May, will be used to fund:

• Student internships in sustainability with nonprofit and governmental organizations.
• Faculty development for enhanced and new course development for the Sustainability major and minor.
• The creation of an Institute for Sustainable Business Practice (offered through the Division of Business Administration).

“This will be an important new endeavor that will help bring our business faculty up to speed on developments in sustainability within business practice and also will provide programs and resources for the region's business community,” says David Krueger, director of the sustainability program at B-W. “I hope the development of this institute will take shape over the next several months and we will need to wait to see how Dr. Wayne Cunningham, head of the Division of Business Administration, will want to shape its direction and select its leadership.”

B-W secured the grant via a highly competitive process. According to the McGregor Fund, the grant program aims to support institutions of higher education by: *recognizing and encouraging excellence in private liberal arts education, and *supporting projects or activities that will have a significant positive impact on the quality of the liberal arts education provided by the institution.

Sustainability initiatives at B-W are ongoing and range from the College having the first geo-thermal heated and cooled residence hall in the state of Ohio to the formation of a campus-wide sustainability committee comprised of administrators, faculty and students who coordinate and implement "green" practices across campus. Recent efforts have included:

• More than 40% reduction in campus paper consumption.
• Installation of a composter that takes almost all campus food service-generated food waste out of the waste stream.
• Installation of energy conservation technologies to reduce electricity consumption.
• Use of biodegradable disposables in the area of food services.
• Enhanced recycling system that has increased recycling content by at least 500% in the last two years.
• Commitment to high performance, green building design in all future college building projects.
• Experimentation with conversion of used kitchen grease for the production of bio-diesel fuel for campus vehicles.
• Adoption of "green" cleaning products for all campus buildings.

Most recently, B-W spearheaded sustainability efforts in the area of higher education by offering Ohio's first undergraduate major in sustainability-an interdisciplinary major that includes study in the natural sciences, humanities and business administration. This blending of courses provides B-W students with a distinctive education in which they can become flexible, literate problem-solvers who can create real change for the pre-eminent social issue of the 21st century-the environment.