Dear Colleagues:

We hope this email finds you well. We are writing to provide you an update on the Big Ten Prospectus. Based on conversations with individual partner institutions, Metrics Working Group members, and progress made over the last month, we’ve determined we need to expand the metrics development process to allow for: 

• Background research on mission level objectives and metrics: Two and a half weeks ago, the Metrics Working Group took a break from their work to allow Emilie to research desired institutional outcomes among executive leadership. Building on a strong foundation from our pre-AASHE conversation and a preliminary list of outcomes compiled by a Purdue student, she took two weeks to read strategic planning documents (e.g., presidential speeches, university-wide and campus specific strategic plans, sustainability reports) from our partner institutions. She will be reaching out to you in the next couple of days to inform you which documents she’s reviewed from your institution and request your suggestions for additional documents you feel should be reviewed. The next two weeks will be spent synthesizing this information into conference wide executive leadership outcomes, priority areas, and metrics. Final conclusions will be outlined in a 1-2 page summary document.
• Communication with executive leadership: We hope the summary document can be used by each of you to initiate a conversation with one or more allies in executive leadership for the purposes of: 1) conveying basic project details, and 2) obtaining feedback on synthesized outcomes, priority areas, and metrics.
• Additional time for metrics development: After some very helpful feedback from partner institutions, we’ve extended this process to allow our Metrics Working Group more time and support to build a set of metrics for the prospectus based on mission level outcomes and metrics, our metrics developed at the pre-AASHE meeting in Portland, and STARS.

We’ve summarized these modifications in the attached graphic.

Given these modifications to the process, we’ve extended the timeline for the project with the pre-AASHE meeting in Minneapolis now serving as a midpoint check-in for the project, and a potential meeting at the Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference serving as the final project deadline. A summary of key dates can be found below.

We will be touching base monthly to inform you of progress on the project, but we encourage you to reach out any time with comments or questions about the process.

To-date, nine (9) partner institutions have committed to the Prospectus project by paying the invoice that was distributed by AASHE on our behalf.  We have a verbal commitment from several of the remaining institutions and hope that you can get the invoices paid by the end of the month.  Thank you for your continued support and participation.

Best,

Michael, Denice, Liz, and Emilie

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REVISED PROJECT TIMELINE:

Please find definitions for each stakeholder group at the bottom of the timeline.

• July 22-August 3: Partner institution and executive leadership comment period for summary document
  
  • August 3: Deadline for partners institutions to submit comments
• July 27-August 31: Metrics Working Group develops prospectus metrics
• September 1-11: Partner institution comment period for metrics
• September 14-October 16: Preliminary data requested from partner institutions
• October 24: Pre-AASHE meeting in Minneapolis (RSVP here)
• November 16: Final data due from partner institutions
• December 21: Preliminary draft of prospectus due to planning team
• January 11-February 2: Partner institution comment period for draft
• February 8-26: Executive leadership comment period for revised draft
• March 7: Final copy ready for publication
• Early-April: Pre-SSCC conversation to discuss next steps

STAKEHOLDER GROUPS:

• Partner Institutions: All institutions participating in the project
• Executive Leadership: Executive leaders at the partner institutions
• Metrics Working Group: A group of sustainability officers—from partner institutions—who have agreed to participate in the metric development process. Please note this group is open to anyone interested.
• Consultant: Emilie Rex, former assistant director of sustainability at Indiana University, is serving as the consultant for the project
• Planning Team: The planning team consists of Liz Christiansen (Iowa), Michael Gulich (Purdue), Denice Wardrop (Penn State), and Emilie Rex (project consultant)

Michael J. Gulich, AIA, LEED

Director of University Sustainability

Purdue University