University Commits to Building a Sustainability Program as Integral Part of New Strategic Plan
This represents the beginning of a multi-year journey aligned with the Pope’s Laudato Si’ call to action to do more to care for our common home.
This summer, Saint Joseph’s announced its commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability with a goal of becoming designated by the Vatican as a Laudato Si’ University. Inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si, “On Care for Our Common Home,” a Laudato Si’ University is called to work toward total sustainability in the spirit of integral ecology.
Saint Joseph’s sustainability program, the President’s Laudato Si’ Initiative on Sustainability and Stewardship, will focus on three main principles rooted in Jesuit values: environmental stewardship, social justice stewardship and cura personalis stewardship.
Environmental stewardship will strive to minimize the University’s environmental footprint through initiatives like energy conservation, including renewable energy sources such as the geothermal-power at Sister Thea Bowman Hall; waste reduction and water conservation; LEED-certified construction; and promoting green spaces on campus.
The two additional principles, social justice stewardship and cura personalis stewardship, go beyond environmental issues to focus on the interconnectedness of environmental and social justice issues and recognize the environment as an integral part of human health for all, especially for marginalized populations.
“As a Jesuit institution of higher education and as citizens of the world, we are called on to promote environmental justice and to be better stewards of our common home,” President Cheryl A. McConnell, PhD, said in an announcement.
Longtime Saint Joseph’s supporters, Brian Dooner, BS ’83, and Marlene Dooner, BA ‘83, H’23, are funding the University’s initiative, which will be led by a sustainability guiding coalition of faculty, staff and students and chaired by Clint Springer, PhD, associate professor of biology, director of the Institute for Environmental Stewardship and director of the Barnes Arboretum.
“We are honored to support this critical initiative, which demonstrates Saint Joseph’s University’s ongoing commitment to guiding students to become critical thinkers, compassionate leaders and agents of positive change in our increasingly complex and interconnected world,” said the Dooners.