Four hundred sixty-five Luther College first-year students and 37 first-year resident assistants devoted Sept. 6-7 to an unusual community service project: cleaning, sorting and stacking bricks as part of a dual-purpose sustainability project sponsored by Luther College Wellness.
Luther College Dining Services has "gone trayless" for three months as part of the college's sustainability initiative and is now evaluating the pros and cons of trayless cafeteria operations.
The Luther College Board of Regents has approved the college's Sesquicentennial Strategic Plan for 2008-12, a plan that includes a landmark initiative for Luther's quest towards carbon neutrality.
In the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, every day is a struggle to survive. Families pack into one-room corrugated iron shacks, few have electricity, running water is scarce, and pit latrines serve as bathrooms.
Brad Chamberlain, associate professor of chemistry at Luther College, has received a $100,000 award from the Grow Iowa Values Fund. The two-year award will fund a project titled "A New Class of Plant-Based Plastics Derived from Soybean and Corn Oil" with research focused on the synthesis of plastics derived from soybean oil.
Brad Chamberlain, Luther College associate professor of chemistry, and collaborators at the University of Northern Iowa have received a $78,000 award from the Iowa Office of Energy Independence through the Iowa Power Fund.
Luther College has moved closer to its goal of 50 percent reduction of its carbon emission with the purchase of three new all-electric vehicles for its campus fleet of utility vehicles.
Brett Johnson, assistant professor of sociology at Luther College, and a group of Luther students have launched a $10K for Kiva campaign to assist developing communities in Third World countries. The Luther group plans to raise $10,000 from a variety of campus and off-campus sources by mid-February to loan through Kiva.org.
The Associated Colleges of the Midwest, a consortium of academically excellent, independent liberal arts colleges, welcomes Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, as a new member in 2009.
Luther College recently released the results of a carbon footprint analysis for the 2007-08 academic year. The data shows that Luther has reduced its campus carbon footprint by 15 percent.