Strategic Plan Implementation Teams

Our new strategic plan, Solution Seekers, outlines the steps we will take in the coming years to elevate vocation, expand innovation, and sustain our community. As the work gets underway, four implementation teams are charged with turning those steps into reality. Each week we are using this space in This Week to highlight one of the implementation teams and provide an update on their work.

This week: the Advance Sustainable Development Goals Implementation Team. This team is led by Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies Paul Jackson ’92, with Vice President for Business and Finance and Chief Financial Officer Mike Berthelsen as the PLT sponsor. Team members include: 

• Associate Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies Seth Binder 
• Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Vivian Choi
• Assistant Director of Institutional Research and Student Success Lauren Feiler
• Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community Administrative Assistant Pippa Younger
• Mechanical Trades Technician Craig Rasmussen
• Academic Civic Engagement Program Director Alyssa Melby
• Student Government Association Environmental Senator Emily Breuch ’25

The team is charged with:

• Identifying steps for St. Olaf to be a leader in addressing the global climate crisis, including ways for college operations to become carbon neutral by 2040 or sooner.
• Identifying and focusing on two or three of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that align with the college’s mission and capacity, and publicly sharing progress on these goals through the Times Higher Education Impact Report.
• Partnering with Carleton College and the City of Northfield on shared sustainability goals.

In its work so far, the team has spent time examining what sustainability means to the college, selecting the climate action SDG on which to focus initially, researching structures employed at other liberal arts institutions to support this work, proposing a structure for St. Olaf, and exploring approaches to identify one or two additional SDGs for this initial effort. They have started evaluating multiple approaches for turning the goals into actions and outcomes: the creation of a climate action plan and becoming an AASHE STARS reporting institution, the Voluntary University Review process first facilitated by Carnegie Mellon University, and the 17 Rooms exercise developed by the Brookings Institution and used by more than a dozen colleges and universities around the world over the past few years. The team continues to work toward finalizing key performance indicators that the college will use to measure progress on the SDGs and its carbon neutrality goals. More details on the team’s work and plans can be found in the Advance SDGs Implementation Team Charter.