It has been a while since I have written about APUS’ green initiatives but after spending several days at the Education Innovation Summit at Arizona State University’s SkySong Center, I was inspired to provide an update.  ASU is a founding signer of the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) and the school’s President, Michael Crow, has made sustainability a priority for ASU.  The SkySong Center is a state-of-the-art mixed-use facility that has received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.  In a previous article, I wrote (very favorably) about my thoughts on the Summit but while I was at SkySong Center, I also was reminded of the importance of higher education’s role in the sustainability movement.

APUS recently completed the newest addition to its Charles Town campus – a 44,000 square foot, state-of-the-art green building which is anticipated to receive LEED certification later this year.  The building features solar panels, low VOC paints and finishes, a reflective roof, a variable flow HVAC refrigerant system, and double hung windows designed to reflect ultraviolet rays, to name only a few of the elements that make the building green.  All furniture in the building was either made or purchased within 500 miles of the site and the building sits atop a restored Brownfields site.  To see more information about the specific elements of the building that make it green, take a look at the article published on the APUS Sustainability Committee blog when the ribbon cutting for the building was held.

As I think of the commitment to sustainability made by the now 677 signatories of the ACUPCC, I am proud that APUS is a charter member.  The initiatives are important if the member colleges and universities can call attention to the benefits of being environmentally conscious.

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This past Thursday, October 15th, APUS had a ground breaking ceremony at the site of its newest addition to the Charles Town, West Virginia campus.  Construction will soon begin on a four-story LEED certified building that will house our Academics and Admissions departments.  The building will sit on a site of abandoned and underutilized former industrial space including a junkyard.  The building will be approximately 45,000 square feet of office space for our expanding academic administrative staff and our admissions department and will represent a significant economic investment in the downtown Charles Town area.

One of the tangible actions to which APUS committed when I signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in September 2007 was a policy of building all new campus construction projects to LEED Silver standards.  The newest addition to the APUS Charles Town campus will meet or exceed those standards.  Environmentally friendly elements of the building will include solar panels on the roof which should provide some 30 percent of the building’s energy needs, bike racks to encourage employees to cut down on commuting by car, parking spaces for energy-efficient vehicles, highly efficient insulation and windows, a modern variable refrigerant HVAC system, and lighting controls to manage energy use, to name only a few.

As APUS has expanded its campus to house a growing staff tasked with accommodating the needs of our increasing student body, we have remained mindful of our responsibility to our Charles Town neighbors as well as our environment.  The new building will blend old and new, traditional and modern in an attempt to keep it similar in character to the historic nature of Charles Town’s other buildings, most of which were constructed in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. 

Joining me at Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony in addition to APUS staff were various members of the local Charles Town community as well as several state representatives.  David Lloyd, Director of the EPA’s Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization, was also in attendance and expressed his approval of the planned construction and use of the brownfields site for this purpose.

Please see below for a photo gallery of images from the ground breaking event.

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