With the threat of climate change ever-looming, some believe it is important to include sustainability in all factors of campus life. A group of professors and alumni are currently working on creating an affinity group, which will help connect students to job opportunities with a focus on sustainability. Chad Davis, the executive director of Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving, said that the goal was to launch an affinity group with a focus on sustainability in the near future with the aid of several alumni.

“While we don’t have a formal affinity group focused on sustainability at this time, it is something that we intend to launch in the future, with the intention of providing a network for alumni to interact with other alumni who have an interest in sustainability, while also providing connections with students and the college,” Davis said. “[The group would] provide a great volunteer and engagement opportunity.” for alumni who wish to remain involved with Lafayette in regards to sustainable practices.

Director of Sustainability Delicia Nahman discussed how the Office of Sustainability, in collaboration with the Gateway Career Center, planned on offering a Sustainability Career Conversations series.

“It is an opportunity for Lafayette alumni in sustainability-related roles to share their career journey and insights,” Nahman said. “We hope this semester to offer a few workshops on specific topics that students might be interested in like GHG accounting. These would be led by alumni.”

GHG accounting, or greenhouse gas accounting, is the measuring of how much carbon dioxide a corporation emits.

One of the alumni who had joined the sustainability program, Campbell Weyland ‘17, a Sustainability and Compliance Senior Analyst at Lowe’s Companies, pointed out that it was already hard enough for students to get jobs, with many positions requiring years of experience. With this in mind, he believed sustainability groups made sense for both students and alumni for various reasons.

He said the ability to provide students with work that they may be interested in, allowing those particular students to hear about how alumni in their fields landed their jobs and understanding that the path to a job isn’t always linear.

“Alumni get the chance to give back to their college outside of donating money,” Campbell said.

Campbell added that they also get the chance to network within their specific industry and help students understand what skill sets employers are looking for.

The goals of the group as of now have yet to be identified. Nahman added that the initiative would be launching this year, and to “stay tuned for an update” on the project.