SCI’s Sustainable City Year Program has been recognized as a leader in higher education sustainability initiatives, and program Co-Directors and Associate Professors Marc Schlossberg and Nico Larco have been busy sharing the details of the program at recent conferences across the country.

In 2012, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) recognized the co-directors of the Sustainable City Year Program with the Faculty Innovation Award. This year, Schlossberg returned to the AASHE annual conference in Nashville, Tennessee to present the SCYP model with representatives from the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota, two universities that have successfully implemented the SCYP program. The panel explored how the program can be molded to individual universities, as well as the different approaches and challenges that the three universities faced.

At the University of Maryland, Larco presented a workshop with Frances Bronet, UO Dean of Architecture and Allied Arts, and Jeff Towery, Assistant City Manager for the city of Springfield, Oregon. At the workshop, Larco explained on how SCYP programs can effectively reach out to students, faculty and administrators, while Bronet and Towery focused on explaining university recognition and city benefits.

The University of Maryland is one of the latest institutions to implement the “Oregon Model”, thanks to the research efforts of University of Maryland professor Gerrit Knaap. Knaap, the Director of the National Center for Smart Growth, attended the 2013 SCYP conference at the UO.

The Sustainable City Year Program focuses on one city per year, crafting service-learning courses for students that focus on key projects throughout the city. The program has spread to more than 11 other states and SCYP has led two successful national conferences on replicating the program.