Living Learning Community | Alliance for a Sustainable Future

Introducing the New Sustainability Living-Learning Community

The Sustainability Living-Learning Community (LLC) is an exciting NEW opportunity for students to engage closely with GW’s Alliance for a Sustainable Future and Office of Sustainability. This year-long residential experience provides an exclusive opportunity for students to learn alongside peers who care passionately about the future of the planet and its inhabitants. Their faculty and staff are among GW’s leaders in sustainability programming, research, and teaching. The Sustainability LLC is housed on GW’s Mount Vernon Campus, which features The Loop clothing exchange shop, a Community Garden, and open green spaces.

Students will live, work, and learn together, benefit from events and speakers, and engage across Washington D.C. In the fall semester, students will take UW 1020, a sustainability-focused writing course that fulfills GW’s writing requirement. In the spring semester, students enroll in SUST 1001, Introduction to Sustainability, which meets GW’s General Education Curriculum Requirements for Local/Civic Engagement. From plastic pollution to clean water, climate change to environmental justice, this is a community of creative and committed students who want to contribute to planetary well-being as they forge new friendships and meaningful networks.

Students in the Sustainability LLC will create a model community that prioritizes and values sustainability as a lens for learning, living, and action.

Two students with long brown hair look at a microscope image on a computer screen in a classroom

Education

Explore sustainability- and climate-related issues through collective and immersive learning.

The LLC supports students across the university, from engineering and the hard sciences to languages and fine arts, who want to integrate sustainability into their GW experience. Students will build competencies in communicating to diverse audiences that are fundamental to any career path, using their shared interest in sustainability as a basis. Students will be introduced to additional options for continuing to build their sustainability knowledge at GW through coursework, the sustainability minor, experiential learning, and study away programs.

Action

Identify and implement campus-based sustainability initiatives aimed at addressing the university’s operational impact.

The GW Office of Sustainability provides students in the LLC with access to immersive, co-curricular learning on the distinct Mount Vernon Campus and beyond. The Loop Clothing Exchange, Community Garden, composting initiatives, and the spectacular parks and green spaces surrounding the Mount Vernon Campus provide intentional programming opportunities for the LLC. The Office of Sustainability will facilitate additional student-led, campus-based research and behavior-change initiatives undertaken by the LLC.

A student standing on a stage receiving an ovation from a group of people—a woman in a colorful floor-length dress, a man in a dark blazer, and a woman with brown hair in a blue blazer

Engagement

Build a network for students with members of the GW community and the resources of Washington D.C.

Through the Alliance, the Office of Sustainability, and additional University resources and connections, including faculty and myriad sustainability-focused student organizations, LLC students engage with internships, research and service opportunities, career networking, and access to noted guest speakers. A thriving ecosystem of DC-based government agencies, industry associations, and non-profit organizations will be leveraged for the enrichment of the LLC.

Placement Process and Timing

Upon acceptance into GW, interested first-year students can request placement in the Sustainability Living-Learning Community on the Housing Application. The Housing Application will open in early May with a section for opt-in special programming. Select the Sustainability LLC in this section.

Questions about GW’s Living-Learning Communities should be sent to Anthony Pohorilak [email protected], Assistant Director for Academic Partnerships through Campus Living and Residential Education.