Campus Engagement
As a signatory university to the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, Santa Clara University is committed to not only care for our common home, but also our common good, since those values are so deeply intertwined.
This goal ensures that we engage as a university with a more intersectional approach. By defining and living out the values of integral ecology for our community, we will bring about systemic transformation, ecological and social justice, as well as personal transformations. As a university, we are already committed to DEI efforts and the Eight Dimensions of Wellness – this goal unifies these values to ensure that these practices are integrated into all that we do.
Through integrating our values more clearly into the work of our staff, into the classrooms of our faculty, and in our day-to-day decisions of our students, we will ensure that all Broncos feel they belong and that their presence is significant. By creating a more just and sustainable culture at SCU – including access to resources, accountability, outreach to our campus community, and modeling racial and economic equitable practices – we will have an improved campus culture and experience. By focusing on our goals of improving access and affordability, we will have a more inclusive student, faculty, and staff recruitment process and, likewise, improve our retention rate for a more diverse campus. While all of these aspects will improve our campus reputation, more importantly, they are also the right thing to do to support each other. After having spent some formative years on this campus witnessing and experiencing integral ecology, our graduates will go out into the world ready to create and support these same equitable practices in their civic, personal, and professional lives.
“There are no lasting changes without cultural changes, without a maturing of lifestyles and convictions within societies, and there are no cultural changes without personal changes.”
– Laudate Deum paragraph 70
Goal
Santa Clara University will engage all students and employees in cultivating a culture of just sustainability by building a community who leads with a care ethic and applies an intersectional approach to care for our common home.
Strategies
SCE 1: Sustainability in All Roles
By 2030, sustainability and justice will be integrated into all employee position descriptions and annual review processes.
Sub-strategies include crafting a standard sustainability statement for SCU’s position descriptions, offering annual training for managers and new / current employees, as well as integrating sustainability into all roles, annual reviews, and unit strategic plans.
SCE 2: Systems & Structures
By 2030, SCU will embed key systems and structures to offer equitable access for all employees to resources, affordability, and climate justice, fostering racial and economic equity.
Sub-strategies include advancing equitable and sustainable practices in areas such as employee health, wellness, safety, support, benefits, compensation, and affordability programs. Additional sub-strategies focus on increasing diversity representation across campus.
SCE 3: Behavior Change
By 2030, at least 50% of students and employees at SCU, representative of the diverse make-up of our community, are practicing change agents to cultivate a culture of just sustainability.
Sub-strategies include tracking campus sustainability engagement, launching the Sustainability Playbooks program, increasing the number of campus organizations offering sustainability activities, and requiring a lower-division extracurricular sustainability experience.