American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Seal of Approval Program

Last fall, I joined a group of community college presidents to form the American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Sustainability Task Force. I have had the pleasure of learning about the visionary green jobs training and sustainability efforts all of you across community colleges nation-wide have initiated.  Now I am pleased to share the Sustainability Education & Economic Development (SEED) Center, a comprehensive initiative of the AACC in partnership with ecoAmerica to help community, junior, and technical colleges lead in the green economy. Launched in October, the SEED Center will help us prepare our students for jobs in the green economy and lead our communities in the restoration of American prosperity.

The SEED Center consolidates promising practices and curriculum materials making them available for free to all colleges. Faculty and staff can explore green jobs curricula and sustainability education with tools such as a searchable database, topical wiki, and discussion boards.

The SEED Center will be as robust and useful as all of us make it.  I encourage you to personally contribute to the SEED Center's success by contributing materials and helping to publicize and promote SEED across your colleges, to employers, and within communities.

You can start by building our curricula wiki. Encourage the appropriate deans and faculty at your schools to become active contributors to this major national effort.  Share your resources in key green economy sectors. Your school will be recognized and you will have access to others' materials to enhance your own programs.  The process is simple, learn how here.

In this regular newsletter, you will find the latest about AACC's programs, success stories at colleges, innovative partnerships in communities, new resources to help faculty, and suggestions how you can help.  Share with us your thoughts, ideas, photos, and questions by sending them to SEED@ecoamerica.org.

On 10/10/2010 the SEED Center was formally launched at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Conference in Denver, Colorado. This annual conference gathers together nearly 2,000 participants looking to empower higher education to lead the sustainability transformation at the largest campus sustainability conference in North America.  U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan provided this video endorsement and actor and environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. lauded SEED during his keynote address.

The SEED Center has debuted to strong support from colleges and media.  To date, 344 community college presidents, representing over 25% of the AACC's membership have signed the SEED pledge. The media coverage surrounding the launch included more than 10 feature articles and an overall potential reach of 20 million people.  Signature features included the Huffington Post and Chronicle for Higher Education.