The United Negro College Fund will be turning more than 400 colleges green, thanks to a grant from The Kresge Foundation.
The $1.8 million grant will support the Building Green at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) Initiative, the inaugural project of the Facilities and Infrastructure Enhancement Program (FIEP) of the UNCF Institute for Capacity Building (ICB). The program will focus on greening up UNCF member colleges and other minority-serving institutions.
Much of the project will highlight the importance of building green as well as how under-resourced schools can benefit from green building initiatives and adopting energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable practices.
"Environmental sustainability and green building are two of the nation’s most important 21st century imperatives, and minority-serving institutions want and need to become as green as possible as fast as possible," said Michael L. Lomax, PhD, UNCF president and CEO. "[W]e are grateful to The Kresge Foundation for making it possible."
The Building Green at MSIs Initiative will spread the message and educate educators through a series of Building Green Learning Institutes and Technical Assistance Workshops. Additionally, $20,000 grants will be awarded to help MSIs incorporate sustainable design and energy efficiency into their building projects and to overcome barriers they often face when trying to go green, including small endowments and lack of in-house expertise in green building practices.
UNCF will partner on the initiative with several groups to help promote the initiative on a wider scale.
Second Nature, an organization with expertise in advancing sustainability and green building with leaders in higher education along with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund have agreed to participate in and promote the initiative.
