Plenary and Keynote Speakers
Keynote Address, Monday at 12:30 pm
Who Are the Change Makers?
Leith Sharp, Chair, Sustainable Futures Academy
The last two decade of effort and progress achieved by the higher education sustainability movement has revealed several key insights into how we can unleash a profound acceleration of the transformation process, driving sustainability into the core business of higher education. This plenary will share several of these insights with attention given to the day-to-day reality of how our organizational function and how the individual can be a change maker.
Afternoon Plenary, Monday at 5:00 pm
The Journey to Transform the Built Environment
Brendan Owens, Vice President of Technical Development, USGBC
Eighteen years ago the founders of USGBC set out on an incredible mission – to realize a future where resources were abundant, individuals were healthy and communities were flourishing. The tool for this transformation was the LEED Green Building Rating System and the goals established were ambitious. Brendan Owens, vice president of LEED technical development, will present the next chapter of LEED and the efforts underway at USGBC to transform the built environment into a future state where buildings restore the environment improving the quality of life for all people.
Student Plenary Panel, Tuesday at 9:00 am
Students Leading Campus Projects
Manuel Abarca, Graduate Student, University of Central Missouri; Johnathan Glencross, Undergraduate Student, McGill University; Rebecca Schroeder, Undergraduate Student, University of Pittsburgh
Students are often catalysts for short-term or new sustainability projects on their campus, and the voices for innovative change. But they can also be drivers of long-term strategy, comprehensive behavior change, campus-wide initiatives, and peer-to-peer educational programming which successfully transform campuses to a more sustainable community. Learn more about the ways in which students are leading institutional change on campus.
Afternoon Plenary, Tuesday at 12:30 pm
Fostering Sustainable Behavior on Campus
Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr, President, McKenzie-Mohr Associates Inc.
How is community-based social marketing being applied throughout the world to foster sustainable behavior? Dr. McKenzie-Mohr introduces the five steps of community-based social marketing (selecting behaviors, identifying barriers and benefits, developing strategies, conducting a pilot, and broad scale implementation) and illustrates how they can be applied to foster sustainable behaviors on university campuses.
Closing Ceremony, Tuesday at 3:30 pm
Change Management - The Musical! An Open Mic Surprise Tribute to the Arts and Transformation
Leith Sharp, Chair, Sustainable Futures Academy
Conferences do content well. We get important information, ideas and inspiring examples. But where do we go to advance our creativity, spontaneity, risk tolerance, good will, collaboration, vitality and wholeness? There is a growing understanding that we need these attributes more than ever to be effective change makers. That's why our closing plenary invites you to co-create an experience that goes beyond our professional roles to reach the whole person and to fuel insight, humor, emotion, compassion and connection so that you leave us energized as well as informed. We are looking for collaborators that share our interest in this creation. We invite you to join - you will all receive an email invitation to innovate with us. If this sounds too fluffy, consider this - the neuroscience is out. The closest distance between us is humor. Our greatest insights arrive not from focusing on specific details but on dancing between contradictions and diverse information. Experiences of music and compassion ignite more of the brain than most other experiences. The brain is first and foremost a social organ. We live to connect and emotions are contagious. (Neuroscience Sources: David Rock, Daniel Goleman) So of course we need a musical!