Making Progress
Action on Climate Change in Pennsylvania Higher Education
Susquehanna University  

"Making Progress," PERC's 2012 Climate Change conference, was held on November 2nd, 2012.

Despite being held days after hurricane Sandy battered the East Coast, the conference was well attended and enthusiastically received, as evidenced by some of the followup emails PERC received:

I thought Friday's event was really superb and I enjoyed very much being back in the PERC community. --Eric Foley, Penn State, University Park

I really enjoyed the conference on Friday. These are always well done and so valuable for networking. --Clara Chang, Towson University

Really enjoyed the conference today! --Shannon Spencer, Ursinus College

I came away from the conference yesterday feeling it was successful!  Great conversations and ideas proposed, and some solid take-aways for people. --Julia Knight, Harrisburg Area Community College

Presentations
A number of people--both those at the conference and those who had a conflict and couldn't attend--have asked PERC to make the presentations available.  The petitions been placed on a Google Drive folder with each of the three panels' presentations separated into a folder, and a fourth folder for PERC's other partner presentations. This is a new method of sharing materials and we look forward to your feedback. The conference packet with the day's agenda is here.

Sustainability Cafe
As has become a tradition at the annual meeting a Sustainability Café breakout session served as the final event of the day.  Notes were taken by each of the groups and PERC will share those notes as the groups report in.  One group formed around "building a social movement on climate change." Their idea, to draft a petition from college and university presidents to the President of the United States demanding action around climate change got significant attention at the end of the day.  Their early draft of what such a petition might look like can be seen here.

PERC Partnerships
PERC partners presented throughout the day. Mike Mumper of High Construction's Energy Solutions Group gave a fascinating presentation on benchmarking energy use and made an offer to do so for your school.  The Sustainable Energy Fund is again offering free scholarships to PERC members for their EnergyPath 2013 weeklong workshops/ conference event this coming spring. The number of scholarships is limited, so email Josh Hooper if you wish to reserve a spot.  A great opportunity for faculty/ staff to attend with a group of students.  Also, Tom Tuffey of Community Energy overviewed their developing curriculum modules "Building Keystone Solar, Bill Oppenheim of Summit Energy discussed their procurement plan that encourages the use of renewable energy and Bill Valentine of MACEAC gave a primer on the Energy Saving benefits of CHP combined heat and power. Again, email Josh Hooper to connect with any of these speakers.

PERC reported on several projects that people have been collectively referring to as benchmarking.  Expect those efforts to be visible on our site around the beginning of the year.