Campus Aesthetics & Public Art

The Sustainability Academy advocates for UNH public arts, campus aesthetics, and architectural crafts that will enhance and enliven the UNH campus. The goals of this include enriching student learning about the role of art in our cultural environment, stimulating public discourse about art, and fostering a sense of community and institutional identity. Examples of this work include the following:

• The UNH Sustainability Academy, the UNH Arts and Society Program, and UNH Dimond Library, in partnership with Ken Browne Productions and the Currier Gallery of Art, collaborated in making the documentary film entitled "Four Hands One Heart," which celebrates the lives and art of former UNH faculty Ed and Mary Scheier. The film was broadcast on over 100 PBS stations throughout the country. The video is available for loan at Dimond Library or can be purchased on DVD through www.4hands1heart.com or through New Hampshire Public Television. In addition, the University collection of the Scheier's work is on display at Dimond Library.

• In September 2006, a new Wildcat sculpture was installed outside the UNH Whittemore Center. Commissioned by the UNH Committee for Campus Aesthetics and the UNH Art Program Committee in collaboration with the UNH Alumni Association and the UNH Parents' Association, this sculpture is being funded by donations from the UNH Alumni Association and the UNH Parents' Association. See the new Wildcat sculpture for yourself and learn more about its commission and design.

• Green Art and the Growing Divide: During the spring of 2009, and in conjunction with "The Growing Divide: A University Dialogue on Poverty and Opportunity" the Sustainability Academy partnered with the Discovery Program on a "green" public art project. The project engaged students, faculty, and the broader campus community in the design and implementation of the artwork.

Celebrity Series

Chief Sustainability Officer Tom Kelly serves on the planning committee for the UNH Celebrity Series, which brings world-class theater, dance, and music to the UNH campus every year.

Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers

January 28 – April 4, 2012 (closed March 9 – 18) 
Opening Reception Friday, January 27, 5 – 7 p.m.

Co-sponsored by the UNH Sustainability Academy and the Museum of Art, this large-format digital photography exhibition at the Museum of Art, UNH, illuminates the consequences of some of our cultural choices, making visible what simple statistics cannot. Both imaginative and documentary in presentation, each image portrays a specific quantity of something: 15 million sheets of office paper (5 minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (30 seconds of can consumption) and so on. Chris Jordan has stated, “My hope is that the photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry.”

Cultural Excursions

Now run by the Museum of Art, UNH, the UNH Sustainability Academy ran a program of cultural excursions to the world renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra until 2011. Open to the entire UNH community, participants enjoy live open rehearsals featuring outstanding performers. The 2011-2012 season includes five performances. Register online today!

Indigenous New England Traditional Ecological Knowledge Conference

The Sustainability Academy sponsored of the conference, "Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Past - Present - Future," held September 22-24, 2011 at UNH. The goal of this international and intertribal conference was to generate conversation among academic scholars, tribal professionals and Community Knowledge Keepers about the spaces of interaction between Traditional Ecological Knowledge and scientific methodologies. The conference consisted of interactive roundtable discussions, experiential workshops and presentations by academic scholars, field professionals and community knowledge keepers from around the world.

Liberal Arts & Sustainability Co-Curricular Programming and Course Development

This year, the Sustainability Academy has invited proposals from UNH College of Liberal Arts (COLA) faculty members interested in developing and implementing programming that brings a liberal arts perspective to sustainability. Proposals may be submitted as individuals or groups, and interdisciplinary proposals involving collaboration between departments and offices that help to expand the scope and impact of the proposed program will be given special consideration.

Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium

The first U.S. Northeast Campus Sustainability Summit (NECSC) was hosted at UNH by the Sustainability Academy in October 2004. The Summit was designed to convene the growing network of higher education institutions, non-profits, activists, and community members working to advance campus sustainability in the northeast region and to represent a growing network of institutions of higher education from the northeast United States and Eastern Canadian Provinces. The Summit also actively anticipated the launch of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, which began on January 1, 2005. The Decade offers us an opportunity to think ahead 10 years, to envision where we wish to be, and to further implement the principles of education for sustainability. An annual Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium Summit will be held through 2014 and will rotate locations throughout the region. The final 2014 summit will return to UNH. Learn more about the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consoritum (NECSC).

2011-2012 Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series

The Sustainability Academy organized this year's Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series, a program of the UNH Center for the Humanities. The series was conducted as a symposium over the course of two days, March 21 and March 22, 2012. The theme -- Sustainability Unbound -- explored the unique role of the humanities in addressing the question: What is sustainability? More information will be available in the fall.