Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 63.30
Liaison Emily Vollmer
Submission Date March 19, 2013
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

Virginia Tech
ER-T2-8: Themed Semester or Year

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.25 / 0.25 Dennis Cochrane
Director, Office of Sustainability
Division of Campus Planning, Infrastructure and Facilities
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

None
Has the institution chosen a sustainability-related theme for its themed semester, year, or first-year experience during the past three years?:
Yes

None
A brief description of the themed semester, year, or first-year experience:
The Common Book Project at Virginia Tech was established in 1998 as a means of enriching the first-year experience and creating a sense of community for undergraduate students. Since the first full-scale distribution in 2000, all incoming first year students have been given a book to engage them through the lens of shared reading and to provoke conversation among students and their professors. The 2010 - 2011 selection was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, "the tremendously popular, best selling narrative that tells the story of how the author’s family was changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where they live." The 2009-2010 selection was Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything by Daniel Goleman. In this book Goleman challenges the hype of sustainability with a call to informed action.

None
The sustainability-related book that was chosen, if applicable:
1. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver; 2. Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything by Daniel Goleman

None
The website URL where information about the theme is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
---

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.