Augustana Sustainability

10/25/2024

Augustana has been named to The Princeton Review's 2025 Guide to Green Schools! 🌱

The list highlights schools that go above and beyond with their environmental programs and policies.

Learn more ➡️ bit.ly/4febUAe

Sustainability | Augie Green | |

09/26/2024

🍁 Purchase a one-of-a-kind piece of Augustana history during Viking Days!🍁

Sponsored by the Office of Sustainability, the Old Maple Project will be selling charcuterie and cutting boards, bowls, pens and more to support student scholarships.

SELLING:
🔹 Oct. 2 | 5-7 p.m. | Elmen Center
🔹 Oct. 4 | 8:30-10:30 a.m. | Back Alley
🔹 Oct. 5 | 8-10:30 a.m. | Fryxell Humanities Center

06/18/2024

Gonna keep posting these things because the things my cohort and I are working on are worth promoting.

The 2024 Bush Fellows were announced and some of the leaders looking to make a change are from The Black Hills.

08/26/2022

Yes, those hammocks are there for you! Please enjoy the outdoors. And welcome back to campus!

08/24/2022

Our office bought some new hammocks to put on the stand by Tuve and Granskou today. The hammocks are padlocked on one end because we want them to stay there, but the other end is free so that you can wrap them up when you’re not using them. That will help to keep them from getting worn out by sun and wind. We invite you to enjoy them anytime! We have a few more stands and hammocks that we will be putting up around campus this coming week. Let us know if you’d like to help build them! And be sure to follow , who had the idea that we were glad to support!

08/15/2022

We have been doing a lot with the gardens on campus lately — too much for one post! So we will just point out that the Labyrinth beside the Admin building got a new look this week. One of our alums and his work crew added several tons of fresh local stone to give new life to the old paths, and to make them easier to maintain without spraying for weeds.

If you enter the gazebo you’ll see a sign inviting you to help tend the garden, and we are serious about that. Does a stone look out of place? You may move it. We’ve got some basic rules on the signs that we ask you to follow, but we have enjoyed seeing the place change from week to week as people offer small acts of quiet care. It’s good for the garden, for the community, and (we hope) for the gardeners alike.

In the gazebo we have also placed a small rake. Many cultures have traditions of raking pathways as acts of meditative or prayerful tendance. It might be just the thing you need on a busy day: smooth a pathway; clear some leaves; make art with the tines. We want you to feel welcome, and to find this to be a place where you are restored even as you help to attend to the ecology of this place we share.

We look forward to having you back on campus soon!

08/14/2022

Yeah, the students grow a LOT of vegetables, but they also grow stuff just because it is beautiful. And because they understand that they’re not just feeding bodies good food, learning about agriculture and business, practicing regenerative agriculture in an urban environment, and supporting the community. They’re also simply making their campus more beautiful. This is a wonderful group of students!

07/29/2022

What’s this? A new outdoor classroom? Yes!!! Rick Foster does amazing work! For those of you just joining us in this journey, we built an outdoor classroom at four years ago, designed by and Augustana Philosophy students, with help from .tsp and . Since then, we have advised a number of schools in SD and the states surrounding us on how to make their own outdoor classrooms; we have been featured in national and local news; we won an award for beautifying Sioux Falls; and best of all, we have seen four elementary schools in Sioux Falls and Harrisburg build their own outdoor classrooms: Liberty Elementary and Freedom Elementary in Harrisburg, and Pettigrew and John Harris Elementaries in Sioux Falls. We are delighted to have played a small role in each of these, whether through consultation, donations, the work of our faculty like and , the work of our students like .larson and our alums like Chase Kramer, or just through getting the ball rolling through making our own classroom and inviting others to build on our success.

05/06/2022

Just a typical day on campus. You know, the kind of day when you walk out of your building and there you find History Professor Cory Conover planting more trees in the orchard. Those trees will add to the fruit that is used in multiple classes. And the trees? They’re just making the campus a little lovelier every day.

05/02/2022

These two are building habitat for others. What will you do today to improve and conserve the places where others live?

(These birdhouses were a project for Dr. Amy Lewis’ class; one was installed this weekend at the new garden being made by Lookout House, where students and faculty are working together to make restorative habitat for students and birds alike.)