Tech's Twenty-Year Agenda
"Georgia Tech will be a leader among those few technological universities whose students, alumni, faculty, and staff define and expand the frontiers of knowledge and innovation.
Georgia Tech seeks to create an enriched, more prosperous, and sustainable society for the citizens of Georgia, the nation, and the world."
— Dr. G. Wayne Clough
President, Georgia Tech
In 1992, Georgia Tech embarked on a twenty-year program of institutional transformation. Our goal is to incorporate concepts of sustainable technology and development into every academic program, to promote innovation through our research and development programs, and to model sustainable practices in the way we manage the built environment of our campus. We believe that sustainability is everyone's responsibility, and that each discipline, inter-discipline, and profession has a particular contribution to make.
The Georgia Tech Mission for Sustainability
Georgia Tech's mission is our sustainability mission. As stated in the Georgia Tech strategic plan, our mission is "to provide the state of Georgia with the scientific and technological knowledge base, innovation, and workforce it needs to shape a prosperous and sustainable future and quality of life for its citizens." We value our "position as a leading public research university in the United States and understand full well [our] responsibility to advance society toward a proper, fair, and sustainable future."
Our Strategy
We recognize that institutional transformation of this magnitude would take a serious commitment of time and resources. We began with an exploratory proposal in 1992 on sustainability in the engineering college and evolved, with experience and success, to the thriving and relevant campus-wide agenda we have today.
Our strategy began by engaging faculty and investing in research programs that advance our understanding of the many facets of sustainable technology and development. During these early years, we understood that these investments would let a "thousand flowers" bloom in the form of courses and research experiences across the colleges and schools.
At the same time, we recognized the need to build credibility and trust through our own practices on the campus. With sustainability as a major theme in our campus master plan, we've advanced from recycling and green purchasing programs to green buildings to sophisticated eco-commons concepts for managing the built environment.
As we approach the final stretch of our twenty-year agenda, we are poised to move sustainability into our academic programs: we have engaged the faculty, we have myriad courses and experiences, and we have aligned and demonstrated our commitment on the campus. Now the challenge is to assure that students achieve our desired learning outcomes from general education and the major at the undergraduate level, and from our graduate programs.