The President’s Sustainability Steering Committee has introduced The University of Texas at Austin’s Sustainability Web Portal, a university-wide Web site dedicated to sustainability-related initiatives across campus.
The portal provides information on university initiatives, operations, opportunities to get involved and leadership on sustainability issues.
“Creating a campus-wide Web portal has been a major interest of the president’s committee,” said Dr. Patricia Clubb, vice president of university operations and co-chair of the committee. “The university is already doing a lot of good work in our operations, and this is a great way to share all of those efforts, as well as new initiatives and new ideas.”
A major feature of the portal is the Sustainability Directory, a searchable, relational database focused on education and research at the university. Developed by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and supported by the Office of the Provost, the directory topically organizes and presents sustainability-related faculty/staff profiles, research, courses, degree plans and curriculum, as well as centers and institutes involved in sustainability work. The directory’s design allows faculty and staff to sign in with their UT EID and edit existing information as well as add new faculty/staff profiles, research or courses.
“The directory is a dynamic new tool that seeks to promote all the academic opportunities on campus,” said Dean Fritz Steiner, School of Architecture, and co-chair of the president’s committee. “We used the expertise of Susan Rieff and the Wildflower Center to create the directory. We anticipate that as the directory grows, it will help connect the dots across campus for students and faculty whose research exemplifies sustainability principles, as well as be a means of communicating our efforts with the university’s partners.”
