Business View - August 2015 31
students, and ultimately our community, to take a long
view and to understand the systems in which we all
operate and to make them better, more efficient, and
stronger.”
In addition to being one of the country’s most beauti-
ful college campuses, and South Carolina’s oldest pri-
vate institution of higher learning, having been found-
ed in 1826, according to Halfacre, “Furman has one
of the longest histories with sustainability of any col-
lege campus in the country. Our efforts can be dated
back at least a quarter century with a whole host of
individuals on our campus, faculty, as well as the ad-
ministration, being very interested in identifying sus-
tainability as a strategic goal. There was a real strong
push by faculty, as well as our president at the time,
David Shi, to get more depth and breadth around the
topics of sustainability, and especially in ways in which
students could benefit from things that we tried here
on campus or in the local community. A lot of those
early efforts were organized around trying to ‘walk the
talk’ here on campus.”
In 2007, Furman became a charter signatory to the
American College and University Presidents’ Climate
Commitment (ACUPCC). The university’s Center for
Sustainability was established in 2008. Soon after
Halfacre arrived to take charge of the new program,
she surveyed the entire campus – students, faculty,
staff, and administrators – and discovered that people
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Furman University Office of Sustainability
WHAT:
Campus-based office promoting sustain-
ability initiatives and courses
WHERE:
Furman University, Greenville, South
Carolina
WEBSITE
:
Shi Ctr Affiliate Faculty use the campus to teach about sustainability
CLEAN AND GREEN
