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Last month, professional graduate students in the Masters of the Environment (MENV) Program presented their Capstone projects at the annual MENV Capstone Symposium. The 28 Capstone presentations attracted more than 350 guests virtually and in-person, including industry and community partners. MENV was thrilled to welcome Justin Schwartz, CU Boulder Chancellor, and Jonathan Asher, Director of the Colorado Governor’s Office of Climate Preparedness and Disaster Recovery and recipient of the 2023–24 Charles F. Kettering Award for partnerships with MENV, as the first-ever keynote speakers. 

Each year, the MENV Capstone Program pairs nearly 30 MENV professional graduate student teams with professional partners to engage in hands-on projects focusing on sustainability, resilience, and equity challenges in Colorado and beyond. Students build professional consulting experience by responding to partner organizations’ proposals under the guidance of their faculty mentor. Students collaborate with their partner organizations very closely for the full year through weekly meetings – but many may get additional opportunities to be immersed in the partner’s work through office days and site visits. 

The Capstone Program is required for all students who enroll each fall, making it an integral part of the curriculum that intentionally combines theoretical knowledge with real-world problem-solving. Alice Reznickova, Capstone Lead and Teaching Associate Professor, believes that this approach needs to be more common in higher education. “We need to break silos that isolate the academic community and practitioners to have real impact – both in providing excellent education and working towards sustainability transformations. Our program supports the development of sustainability ecosystem on the Front Range – and we look forward to building more partnerships!” 

As MENV students presented the outcomes of their capstone projects, they demonstrated

 the inherently multi-faceted nature of sustainability work across and within spheres. Projects were presented under five themes: Embracing Outdoor Recreation, Climate Action at Scale, Sustainable and Community-Centered Development, Infrastructure in the Energy Sector, and Resilient Food Systems.  In one of the projects, students worked with Albertson’s Companies Inc, the second-largest supermarket chain in the US, to develop an electric vehicle charging station deployment strategy for grocery retail locations. Josh Radoff, Teaching Associate Professor and Renewable and Sustainable Energy Specialization Lead in MENV commended the student work: “The EV charging strategy that the students designed for Albertson’s is worth whatever a consultant would have charged a lot of money to provide.”

Other teams worked with not-for-profit organizations and public institutions. One team partnered with Colorado Department of Corrections and the Governor’s Office of Climate Preparedness to identify climate-related health and resiliency risks for Colorado prison staff and inmates. And one even more local team helped the Boulder Valley School District design their decarbonization plan. 

The keynote speakers highlighted the need for programs such as MENV to support the new generation of sustainability leaders. Jonathan Asher highlighted the demand for sustainable change that he sees in his work and beyond. “Data and science will continue to drive outcomes regardless of political wins. [...] Opportunities are always there, and [the importance lies in] seizing those opportunities. Successes come with finding opportunities through the skills that you're gaining, just like those that the MENV program is helping you understand, learn from, grow, foster.”

Chancellor Schwartz echoed Asher’s sentiments and spoke to his plans within CU Boulder to meet the rising demand for sustainability education, citing MENV as the basis of that growth: “This kind of work and this program are examples of what CU Boulder should be known for nationally and globally, in terms of bringing our academic focus and our student enthusiasm – I keep telling people, we need to do more programs in sustainability because students want it and society needs it, and all I need to prove that point is a picture [of this room].”

MENV will continue to set the example within CU Boulder for professional student excellence and sustainability impact in our community as the new class of MENV students is ready to begin their Capstone projects in January!