Santa Clara University has partnered with Zimride to encourage ride sharing and carpools among students, faculty and staff. The SCU population can use their ecampus ID to gain access and then link via Facebook profiles.

According to the school’s Office of Sustainability, about 63% of faculty and 72% of staff drive alone to campus. And while 51% of students walk, bike or skateboard to class, 38% are driving by themselves to campus.

By providing additional ridesharing solutions, the school has reduced the number of cars on campus, eliminating 107 parking spaces. Six of those spaces are being converted to charging stations for electrical cars.

What kind of driving and parking strategies does your school offer? Let us know in the comments section, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

The University of Washington (UW) in Seattle has been awarded the top spot on Sierra magazine’s “Coolest Schools” list.

The annual list recognizes the efforts universities make to go green. Rounding out the top five on the list:

• Green Mountain School (VT)
• University of California, San Diego
• Warren Wilson College (NC), and
• Stanford University (CA).

The full list is available here.

How did UW earn the No. 1 spot? In addition to getting 90% of its power from hydropower, UW also focuses on environmental responsibility with programs such as:

• The Center for Forestry at Pack Forest
• The Alaska Salmon Program, and
• The Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health.

What does your campus do to increase its green efforts? Chime in below — and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Did you know a typical 30-minute treadmill workout can generate enough energy to power a light bulb for 2.5 hours? Drexel University’s recreation department does – and these workouts are helping to power its facilities.

By retrofitting cardio elliptical machines in the university’s gym (with the help of the renewable energy company ReRev), exercising students supply electricity for that area. The energy can also be stored for later.

It was actually an idea brought to the department by students when the athletic department was under construction. And while it’s not saving the school anything on its electricity bill yet, there’s a plenty of potential.

Whether on rowing machines, treadmills or stationary cycles, 3,000 people exercise in Drexel’s facility – imagine if every piece of equipment were harnessed to the power grid, collecting energy.

Sound like something your campus could use? Share your thoughts in the comments section, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

69% of this year’s college applicants say information on a college’s commitment to environmental issues would contribute to their decision to attend a school, says a Princeton Review survey of 8,200 students. That’s a 5% rise from 2008.

To meet applicant’s criteria, schools are touting environmental-minded academic programs, green buildings and volunteer opportunities for students.

The Guide to 311 Green Colleges, produced by the Princeton Review and the U.S. Green Building Council, lists some top schools for eco-minded students to consider. Selection factors include how much local food is served, how much waste is diverted from landfills and the availability of alternative transportation options.

Some of the highlights:

• Elon University, North Carolina allows students to monitor real-time energy and water consumption in the school’s greenest building
• Adelphi University, New York uses geothermal heating and cooling systems in its newly constructed residence halls, and
• Lafayette College, Pennsylvania features dining services that use 100% compostable packaging and diner ware and organic cleaning products.

How does your school promote its eco-friendly features? Let us know in the comments section, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Princeton University plans to build a solar collector powerful enough to potentially generate enough energy for 700 households. Construction is slated for 2012.

It’s all part of the college’s plan to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 by cutting 3,090 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

The West Windsor-based field would be made out of 16,500 photovoltaic panels and generate 8 million kilowatt-hours per year – enough to cover 5.5% of the campus’s annual electricity needs. But a sunny summer day might boost those expectations. When the sun is shining brightest, the field could provide up to 20% of campus power in a given hour.

Of course, the aesthetic value’s been taken into account, too. The field will be mostly blocked from view with the help of a row of trees along the side of the road and some additional landscaping around the nearby lake and canal towpath.

What sustainability strategies is your school using? Let us know in the comments section and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Diane Blohowiak is the director of computing at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. She knows printer ink is ridiculously expensive: about $8,000 per gallon!

That’s why she switched the default font on the school’s e-mail system from Arial to Century Gothic.

Reason?

According to Blohowiak, Arial uses about 30 percent more ink than Century Gothic, so the university will save when students print out their e-mails.

It’s all an eco-friendly part of the school’s plan to go green — but the bonus is that it will save money, too!

According to this study, Century Gothic isn’t the only font that uses less printer ink. These fonts are ink savers, too:

• Garamond
• Courier
• Brush Script, and
• Times New Roman

Can  a default font change save your school’s money? Tell us why — or why not — in the comments section below.

But that’s not stopping Lafayette College from going the environmental route.

The college has 650 gowns on order for graduation ceremonies this May. These are made from acetate fibers that come from wood — and they decompose completely within a year of being buried in soil.

At Lehigh University, going green for graduation means offering sturdy gabardine robes, which can be used for about seven years. When they gowns need cleaning, they’re sent to an environmentally friendly cleaner.

Yet another option, which the University of Pennsylvania is following,  is commencement gowns made from recycled plastic water bottles.

Is your school going green for graduation? Let us know in the comments section below.

The increase is even more impressive if you look at 2005 when only three programs were created in this field.

Experts predict green jobs will be up 52% from 2000 to 2016 — while other fields are only expected to grow 14%.

At Arizona State University, 600 students now are majoring in sustainability studies. The University of California – Berkeley has watched its class in introductory energy jump from 40 students a decade ago to the current enrollment of 270.

What’s your school offering in the way of green courses? Let us know in the comments section below.

Here are the savings colleges are reporting:

• University of California-Santa Cruz has saved $100,000 since going trayless last year.
• San Diego State — which switched two years ago — has reduced its food costs by $65,000.
• In general, schools with all-you-can-eat plans are reporting up to 30% in decreased food waste.

Since students at these schools are unable to pile food onto their trays, they need to make a few trips to get as much as they want — which has caused some grumbling.

In fact, Northern Michigan University scrapped its plan to go trayless when students complained it was too inconvenient.

There are also some students who consider this a politically correct trend — but not one that actually is having an environmental impact. Is water really being saved when there are more plates — and tables — to be cleaned?

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.

The 697 colleges were ranked on the basis of: health and sustainability of campus life, preparation offered by the school for dealing with environmental challenges, and commitment to environmental concerns.

Click here to see the 15 schools that earned perfect scores.

Here’s what gave some of the schools high marks:

• University of California-Berkeley – Campus dining offers organic salad bars, and the school uses the first food vendor to earn organic certification.
• Middlebury College – Each year, the school uses sustainably produced wood chips instead of 1 million gallons of fuel oil.
• Bates College – Dining services recycles or reuses more than 80% of its waste, and the school uses electricity from 100% renewable sources.
• Harvard University – Fuels some of its vehicles at its own biodiesel filling station.
• Arizona State University – The school has a separate college offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in sustainability issues.

Although this is only the second year The Prince Review is giving green ratings, it’s worth mentioning 30% more schools were included this year.

What’s your school doing to go green? Let us know in the comments section below.

But it seems to be getting easier for these colleges and universities.

In the recent College Sustainability Report Card, two out of three colleges improved their efforts at going green.

Here are some numbers from the report:

• 70% buy food from local farms
• 64% serve fair trade coffee
• 59% have high-performance green building standards for new buildings
• 45% have cut carbon emissions
• 42% use hybrid or electric vehicles, and
• 37% buy renewable energy – with 30% producing some of their own, using wind or solar generators.

Top marks went to: Harvard, Dartmouth, University of Washington, Middlebury, Carleton and University of Vermont.

Those receiving low marks were: Juilliard School, Howard University, Regent University and Samford University.

Has your institution made strides toward going green? Let us know in the comments section below.

Here are some green ideas from around the country:

• Ohio State University – The school is turning off lights and computers that are not in use. That simple measure helped lead to substantial energy savings for one of the university’s campuses, which cut more than $3 million from its energy bill over a recent 12-month period.
• Rutgers University – At the Livingston campus, solar is in. The campus is in the process of installing more than seven acres of solar panels. That will go a long way toward providing energy on campus and reducing harmful emissions.
• The University of New Hampshire – The university is encouraging students to make sure those TVs, refrigerators and other electric products they bring to campus are Energy Star-approved.
• University of Rhode Island – One unconventional idea: asking students to take shorter showers. Students resisted the idea, although they did reduce the number of weekly showers taken from eight to a little less than seven per week.

What are you doing to go green? Let us know in the comments section below.