Auburn University
AC-10: Support for Research

Academic Sustainability Programs provides support and coordination for faculty research in sustainability on campus. The program maintains an inventory of all faculty on campus who conduct research relating to sustainability, and has posted this inventory online as a faculty resource. Faculty use this inventory and referrals from Dr. Chadwick, the Program Director, to locate and connect with faculty collaborators and consultants about their projects, who are outside of their home departments or colleges. Dr. Chadwick also writes letters in support of multidisciplinary research grant proposals on sustainability, which are submitted to outside funding agencies. She serves on faculty search committees in diverse programs across campus, to provide a context and expertise for recruiting faculty with sustainability research expertise (ie: multi-college hire in Disease Ecology, multi-college cluster hire in Climate, Human, and Earth System Sciences [CHESS], etc.). The Program also provides occasional one-time funding support for travel by faculty to conferences to present sustainability-related research, and for supplies for pilot research projects by faculty.

Auburn University employs a dedicated librarian to support sustainability research and learning, Mr. Greg Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt maintains a Library Guide website that connects faculty and students with important books, journals, recent scholarly articles, organizations, and other resources that support scholarship in sustainability. He has developed a different website relating to each of the major systems considered in sustainability: food, water, transportation, energy, built environment, green business, etc. Mr. Schmidt also offers individual consulting services to faculty and students to support their specific projects, as well as regularly presenting about library resources to students doing research projects in sustainability courses, and groups of professors in our faculty sustainability training workshop.