"Education for a Sustainable Living Programme" at the University of California
The first oikos Award for Student Entrepreneurship went to the University of California Santa Cruz for the Education for a Sustainable Living Program (ESLP).
The portfolio of applying student projects for the oikos student award 2005 was overwhelming: Students from the University of Prague (Czech Republic) applied with a Sustainability Recipe Contest and students from Graz Technical University (Austria) handed in an impressive concept for a student led lecture series with an integrated practical training.
Prof. Dr. Andrew J. Hoffman from the University of Michigan and member of the award committee, concluded: "It was very challenging to pick the best of these interesting projects. All the students should be commended for taking a leadership role in promoting sustainability at their universities and beyond."
Not only the originality of the submitted projects but also the integration of students and the leverage effect of the projects were major criteria for the selection of the winning project.
The first oikos award for student entrepreneurship went to the University of California Santa Cruz for the Education for a Sustainable Living Program (ESLP).
This student driven program is a benchmark example how students can make a difference and have an impact at their University. It consists of a lecture series with outstanding speakers (e.g. Vandana Shiva) and Student Action Teams which work on concrete projects.
Marcia Winslade, representative for the ESLP Program, received the award during a special award ceremony at the oikos winter school on November 24, 2005.
The award included a prize money of EURO 1000.-, an invitation to the 6 days long oikos Winter School, a custom made sculpture and a certificate of achievement.
Ms. Winslade also agreed to be a member of the 2006 award judging committee.
Because of the high quality of submissions, the jury decided to announce two honorary mentions for outstanding achievements.
As a second outstanding project the jury selected the newly founded "Sustainability Enterprise Association" at Cornell University (USA), represented by Randall Allen, an undergraduate Student at Cornell.
A third prize went to the project "Expedition World", organized by a student team from the University of Witten-Herdecke (Germany).
Details to the projects, involved students and links can be found below.
All three chosen projects have common characteristics.
They are all driven by an intelligent combination of theoretical elements and practical action.
They target students from a variety of disciplines.
And all three projects have a "built-in" leverage effect: The outreach and impact of the projects is extremely impressive.
Finally, all of them are great examples for translating the oikos mission "be informed, get involved, make a difference" into practice.
The competition will be relaunched and oikos looks forward to next years' student contributions.
For additional Information (short videos and presentations of the winning projects) on the oikos award for Student Entrepreneurship and the oikos Winter school please consult the oikos Winter School online documentation.
Contact: Dr. Jost Hamschmidt (mailto: jost.hamschmidt@unisg.ch)