Green Campus Organizations

Green Team was founded in 2006 by Environmental Studies students. The organization works to promote environmental awareness and action within the campus community. While the projects differ from year to year, they tend to focus on making Denison a more sustainable place and encouraging environmentalism within the community. Past projects have included a Recyclable Fashion Show, Earth Day activism, working with staff to reduce plastic usage on campus, and efforts to reduce Denison’s carbon emissions.

The Denison University Recycling Program (D.U.R.P.), which was started in 1984 to raise awareness about recycling and provide recycling bins across campus, was folded into the Green Team in 2010. The two organizations now operate as one.

The Denison Sustainability Professionals Initiative (SPI) is a unique program, run by the Office of Sustainability that will give students the practical skills that will help them better prepare for a career in sustainability and be able to lead organizations to make positive social and environmental impacts.

Open to current First Year, Sophomore and Junior students, this program is designed to rapidly enhance understanding of sustainability issues and potential actions to help improve the environment and communities where we live.

Through internships, curricular studies, workshops and project management opportunities, students will learn to translate the sum of their academic and co-curricular experiences into marketable career skills in the field of sustainability. The SPI will help students align these experiences to clearly demonstrate proficiency with sustainability-related career skills. Students will also be partnered with a mentor in their sustainability field of interest who will coach and advise them as they explore and engage in skill building and career related opportunities.

Revival Thrift is Denison’s very own student-run thrift shop organization. Students can drop off unwanted clothes in donation bins, which are then sold at pop-ups on campus. They also host upcycling workshops to promote environmental awareness as it relates to the fashion and textiles industry. The group is a non-profit and any extra proceeds go to charities supporting a variety of causes, including refugee and immigration services as well as international advocacy.

Student volunteers in Denison’s chapter of Food Recovery Network go to the dining halls during closing time and donate the leftover food to local organizations that feed food insecure populations. In a normal year, we donate over 5,000 lbs of food to Salvation Army and Newark Homeless Outreach.

The Denison Outdoors Club hosts regular trips to get active outside, including hiking, camping, rafting, and more! DOC are also advocates for climate action on campus.

Denison Wildlife Conservation Club works to promote interest and activism in the protection of endangered animals.

Denison’s Campus Sustainability Committee is a group of faculty, staff, and students who advise Denison from a sustainability-focused perspective. Each year, 2 students are elected by Denison’s student government (DCGA) to serve as student representatives on the Sustainability Committee.

Denison Community Service Association hires a student each year to organize sustainability-related service opportunities for students. Environmental organizations that DCSA has partnered with in the past include Dawes Arboretum, Together We Grow Gardens, Kitchen of Life, Licking County Water and Soil Conservation District, and Sew4Service.