CU, CSU helping make students better people

Ah, universities, those bastions of knowledge and producers of degree-wielding job seekers ready to inundate the world’s workforce.

Colleges are inclined to support students through graduation and launch them into the working world with newfound knowledge and skills. But with higher education comes a higher purpose.

Colorado institutions bill themselves as being in the business of producing more engaged citizens who make the world a better place.

Look no further than the University of Colorado, which lists one of its three strategic imperatives as “positively impact humanity.”

“We know students are coming to the university to learn about their academics, but they’re also coming for an experience,” said Akirah Bradley, CU’s interim vice chancellor for student affairs. “They’re coming to navigate the world outside of being under the roof of their parents and families. It’s their time for exploration. We can help set up programming and conversations to help them go a little bit deeper into who they want to become.”

Take sustainability, example.

CU’s Boulder and Colorado Springs campuses are pioneers in partnering with an app intended to gamify and incentivize being good to the Earth.

The campuses have teamed up with a “social good digital currency program” called Positive Impact Points — PIP, for short. Students and employees can download the app for free and earn scholarship money, restaurant discounts and other rewards as the app tracks when they ride the bus, bike to class or fill up reusable water bottles, among other green tasks. for

PIP installed beacons on buses in the area that sense the app’s presence when students step on board, meaning they don’t even have to take out their phones to earn 50 ridership points. For other actions such as biking and water refilling, students receive a QR code they can scan a certain number of times per day on the honor system to rack up points.

“It’s our largest, most farreaching engagement program with regard to sustainability that we’ve ever done,” said Linda Kogan, CU-Colorado Springs sustainability director. Kogan noted that 1,450 students — more than 10% of the campus’ student population — were participating in the program.

CU was the first school to partner with PIP in 2017. The university paid $272,160 for a three-year campus subscription, said Josh Lindenstein, campus spokesman. The Colorado Springs campus followed suit, joining the program in August.

For Colorado State University’s Tonie Miyamoto, student engagement is key.

Miyamoto, spokeswoman for CSU’s Student Affairs department, described the beyond-academic goals of the university as “highimpact practices.”

“It’s any time a student is engaging, and it’s really looking at the whole student and those college experiences that really make a difference for students post-graduation,” Miyamoto said. “Students who are engaged in campus are more likely to graduate and more likely to be successful at a university. We know that seems simple, but it has to be intentional.”

CSU students are encouraged to donate their unused meal swipes in the dining hall to their peers who might not be able to afford enough to eat. During the fall semester, one of every three students living on campus promised to live more sustainably through the Green Warrior program, in which students were rewarded for acts such as using energy-efficient light bulbs or keeping compost bins in their rooms. During move-out, CSU students collect unwanted items from their dorms and can donate them to those less fortunate.

“It’s a direct tie for students to see they have these things in their room they don’t want anymore and connect them to people in the community who really need help,” Miyamoto said.

CU drew in more than 6,900 campus PIP users by the 2019 fall semester.

Between the Colorado Springs and Boulder campuses, PIP users have embarked on nearly 70,000 bike rides, 40,127 bus excursions, recycled 78,966 times and saved 208,461 pounds of carbon — the equivalent of planting 4,343 trees, according to PIP data.

“It’s providing a unique and innovative way for students to help offset the costs of their education while also encouraging these healthy and sustainable behaviors,” Lindenstein said. “It’s a benefit to students and a benefit to society.”