Educational Procurement Journal - December 2007 - (Page 4)

LETTER F R O M T HE CE O Sustainability Doreen Murner CEO, NAEP in Higher Education 5523 Research Park Drive Baltimore, MD 21228 Phone: (443) 543-5540 Fax: (443) 543-5550 Web Site: www.naepnet.org 2006-2007 Editorial Board Co-Chairs Dear Readers, or this issue, I decided to use my column to deliver information about an initiative of tremendous importance to higher education. We support this initiative and our members’ involvement in helping to create STARS. I hope you give this column the attention it deserves and answer the call. F are needed, particularly in the area of green purchasing. STARS’ development is guided by a Steering Committee and two Advisory Committees (Technical and Strategic). Goals of STARS 1. Provide a guide for advancing sustainability in all sectors of higher education, from governance and operations to academics and community engagement. 2. Enable meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions by establishing a common standard of measurement for sustainability in higher education. 3. Create incentives for continuous improvement toward sustainability. 4. Facilitate information-sharing about higher education sustainability practices and performance. 5. Build a stronger, more diverse campus sustainability community and promote a comprehensive understanding of sustainability that includes its social, economic and environmental dimensions. AASHE plans to release a pilot version of STARS for testing by campuses in early 2008 and a 1.0 version by early 2009. Pilot institutions will test-run the STARS checklist and provide feedback on the process to AASHE. Information from the pilot phase will be used to set thresholds of achievement by institutional type and to adjust speciﬁc indicators. A wide diversity of institutions in this phase will ensure accurate threshold-setting before the release of version 1.0 in 2009. To learn more about STARS, become a reviewer, join a committee, or sign up for progress updates, visit www.aashe.org/stars, or contact Judy Walton, STARS Project Manager, at judy@aashe.org. Cory Harms Iowa State University clharms@iastate.edu Michael A. Chmielewski, C.P.M. Law School Admission Council mchmielewski@lsac.org Associate Editor Burr Millsap, CPA, M.B.A. University of Oklahoma burr-millsap@ouhsc.edu Members Linda Collins University of California lcollins@ucsd.edu John Klopp University of Iowa john-klopp@uiowa.edu Martha (Marty) Newman, CPPB University of Maryland-College Park menewman@umd.edu Craig Passey Brigham Young University craigpassey@byu.edu Valerie Rhodes-Sorrelle, M.P.A., C.P.M., A.P.P. Grand Valley State University rhodesv@gvsu.edu Victoria R. Windley University of Delaware tory@udel.edu A Rating System for Sustainability in Higher Education Given the rapid growth of sustainability initiatives at colleges and universities in the United States, measuring and assessing progress toward sustainability goals have become increasingly important. While many institutions have undertaken campus-wide assessments of their progress toward sustainability – using a variety of sustainability assessment tools and frameworks – there is currently no system that translates a diverse set of sustainability indicators into a single metric to arrive at overall level of sustainability and enable comparisons across many campuses. To ﬁll this gap, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has involved the higher education community in a collaborative process to develop an assessment and self-evaluation tool for campuses to rate their sustainability efforts, with the goal of providing a usable, comprehensive measurement of success for sustainability in higher education. The project is called STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System). STARS began in response to a call for a rating system by HEASC: Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium. It has been under development for over a year and is currently in its comments phase. Over 200 volunteer reviewers from campuses, higher education associations, nonproﬁt organizations, business, and government have been serving on committees, providing comments, or otherwise participating. More reviewers E&I Liaison Sabra Schell E&I Cooperative Purchasing sschell@eandi.org NAEP Staff Doreen Murner / Chief Executive Ofﬁcer dmurner@naepnet.org Katie Adair / Financial Services Associate kadair@naepnet.org Jacqueline Harget / Financial Services Associate jharget@naepnet.org Marc Kendig / Web & Electronic Communication Specialist mkendig@naepnet.org Neil D. Markee / Purchasing Link, Editor-in-Chief nmarkee@naepnet.org Paul Ravenscroft / Director, Finance & Admin. pravenscroft@naepnet.org Barbara Torre / Community Resources Manager btorre@naepnet.org Toni Valenti / Director, Member Communications and Marketing tvalenti@naepnet.org Brian Yeoman / Director, Professional Development byeoman@naepnet.org Help us to tell your story, and give yourself and Procurement deserved recognition. Send us your ideas, articles and thoughts. Contact JournalEditor@naepnet.org. Educating Higher Education 4 EDUCATIONAL PROCUREMENT JOURNAL www.naepnet.org | December 2007 http://www.naepnet.org http://www.naepnet.org http://www.aashe.org/stars http://www.naepnet.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Educational Procurement Journal - December 2007

Educational Procurement Journal - December 2007 Contents Letter From the CEO: Sustainability in Higher Education Heard On the Streets Calculating Procurement's Value Cost-Per-Copy Contract and Site-Based Funding At a K-12 School District Bargain-Basement Solutions to Automate and Streamline Procurement Processes LEED & Leadership Certification Roamin' with Yeoman Best and Final

Educational Procurement Journal - December 2007

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