Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Yale: What Can A University Really Do About Sustainability?
A panel discussion with institutional sustainability directors.
Davis Bookhart
Davis Bookhart was hired in 2006 to create and direct the Sustainability Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. Bookhart’s charge is to develop and facilitate projects that reduce the negative environmental impacts of the University; integrate students and faculty into each project to the greatest extent possible; and promote sustainability through collaboration between divisions and involvement in the larger Baltimore community. Bookhart is also chair of the Johns Hopkins Sustainability Committee, a 16-member group convened by President William R. Brody to boost the university's environmental profile.
Bookhart holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a master’s of American Literature from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Before joining the Office of Facilities Management at Homewood, Bookhart founded, and remains president of, Charm21 – Clean and Healthy Air through Renewables in Maryland – a non-profit group advocating the use of renewable fuels and resources in the Baltimore region. Bookhart helped a number of Baltimore-based companies such as CleanCities.com and East Coast Organics, develop “green” marketing plans, and on a national level, Bookhart was senior project director of the public interest group Consumer Energy Council of America. In 2008 Bookhart was appointed by Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon to serve a four year term on the City’s Sustainability Commission.
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Leith Sharp, Director, Harvard Green Campus Initiative
Since 2000, Leith Sharp has been the Founder and Director of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, an interfaculty program dedicated to the integration of campus environmental sustainability throughout Harvard University. The HGCI uses a cost effective business model to enhance Harvard University’s own ‘learning organization’ capacities and to propagate the utilization of the campus as a living laboratory for research, development and implementation of methods and approaches to achieve campus environmental sustainability. Areas of focus have included high performance building design and operations, renewable energy, behavioral change, environmental procurement, campus master planning and more. Leith also instructs two coursex offered through the Harvard Extension School, Sustainability – The Challenge of Changing Our Institutions and Green Building Design Construction and Operations. www.greencampus.harvard.edu.
Leith has a bachelor of Environmental Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Australia and a Master of Education in human development and psychology from Harvard University. Leith has worked with universities for over 12 years, in both Australia and the USA, to achieve organizational change in the pursuit of campus environmental sustainability. Leith is a LEED accredited profession and has won numerous awards for her work including 1998 Young Australian of the Year, NSW Environment Category, a Churchill Fellowship in 1999 to research best practice in greening universities throughout Europe and the USA and most outstanding paper for her contribution to the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 2002. Leith is now on the editorial board for the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education and Sustainability: The Journal of Record, is an Advisory council of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and is on the steering group for the North East Campus Sustainability Consortium.
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Julie Newman, Director, Yale Office of Sustainability
Julie Newman, Ph.D. was hired as the first Director of the Office of Sustainability at Yale University. She came to Yale from the University of New Hampshire, Office of Sustainability Programs (OSP) where she assisted with the development of the program since its inception in 1997. Prior to her work with the OSP she worked for University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF) while a graduate student at Tufts University. Julie’s fifteen years of experience in the field of sustainable development from community based experience overseas to university campuses has enabled her to build bridges with students, staff, faculty and administrators to facilitate the vision of a sustainable campus for Yale. Julie also holds a lecturer appointment with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. During the spring semester Julie teaches an undergraduate course entitled – Sustainability: From theory to practice in institutions.
In 2004 Julie co-founded the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium, to advance education and action for sustainable development on university campuses in the northeast and maritime region. Julie also co-coordinates a sustainability working group of the International Alliance of Research Universities. In addition, Julie is a co-editor of the new Sustainability: Journal of Record. Her research has focused on the role of decision-making processes and organizational behavior in institutionalizing sustainability into higher education.
Julie’s introduction to sustainable development was as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan while working on water quality issues in inner-city Detroit and later in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Israel and Australia. She pursued her interest in this field by working as an environmental management volunteer with the Peace Corps in Guatemala. Since her return from Guatemala she has had the opportunity to work with colleagues around the world on issues of sustainability and institutional change.
Julie holds a BS in Natural Resource Policy and Management from the University of Michigan; an MS in Environmental Policy and Biology from Tufts University; and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies from the University of New Hampshire.
