Congratulations to Portland Community College, which just won the 2017 Second Nature Climate Leadership Award for two-year colleges! The national honor recognizes innovative and advanced leadership in sustainability, climate mitigation, and resilience at signatory campuses of the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitments. Second Nature and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that Loyola University Chicago (a four-year college) and PCC are the only recipients of this highly competitive national award. GPSEN Board member Briar Schoon, PCC’s Sustainability Manager, will be heading to the national Greenbuild Conference next month to accept the award on PCC’s behalf. Read more about this prestigious honor.
This month we celebrate UN Day, October 24, which commemorates the day the United Nations was officially born in 1945 out of the ashes of World War II. We invite you to celebrate this historic event with us on Sunday, October 22 at Global Goals, Local Leaders, a free event GPSEN that is co-sponsored with the UN Association Portland, Hosteling International, and GlobalPDX. See details below.
We pause here to reflect on the announcement last week that the United States is withdrawing from UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Please take a moment to listen to the UNESCO Director’s powerful statement about why she regrets the US withdrawal and why UNESCO is important to the American people. UNESCO’s website also offers a wealth of information about its programs and about education for sustainable development.
GPSEN is proud to be a part of UN University’s worldwide RCE network, which serves a valuable educational function as part of an effort to carry out UNESCO’s Global Action Program to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs were unanimously approved by UN Members, including the US, in 2015. We will continue to carry on this work, because we are all engaged in learning and teaching ways to create a healthier, more peaceful, just, equitable, and sustainable world. That begins at home and in our communities, not in the distant marble halls of politics. We look forward to the day when all of the nations of the world are working together to achieve a better future for all of the people and creatures that share our planet. We invite you to join GPSEN as a volunteer, partner, or sponsor in this important work.
For more information, view our mid-October Newsletter.
Lin Harmon-Walker
GPSEN Executive Director