West Chester University may be home to the Golden Rams, but WCU has a new silver designation under the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

The silver designation is a result of the Office of Sustainability’s spring 2020 submission of a report of the university’s sustainability accomplishments.

AASHE’s STARS is a self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. Institutions earn points and are rated from bronze to platinum for documenting the work they do to achieve sustainable outcomes across four categories: academics, engagement, operations, and planning and administration. There are 63 types of sustainability initiatives in which a university could amass points.

“I’m very happy that we were able to document enough points to raise our rating from bronze to silver this year,” said Brad Flamm, Director of WCU’s Office of Sustainability.

Flamm presented a spring sustainability lecture about reporting the university’s sustainability efforts to STARS. Recordings of this and the other weekly Office of Sustainability presentations are available on the Digital Commons Sustainability Research and Creative Activities site.

Work on the report began in summer 2019 and involved staff, faculty, and students from multiple areas.

“Analyzing our accomplishments for STARS is an important effort for WCU,” Flamm said. “It helps us document our successes, understand how to improve in the future, and share the news of our good work with colleagues and partners.”

Click here to view WCU’s STARS report.