Elizabethtown College Students Complete Inaugural Sustainability Semester at Greenway Institute

A group of Elizabethtown College Engineering students spent the fall 2023 semester at the Greenway Center for Equity and Sustainability (GCES) in Engineering, located in Vermont as the inaugural cohort for the recently launched Sustainability Semester Away: “Engineering for our Sustainable Future” program. During the semester, Etown students Samuel Senkowicz ’26, William Sipe ’26, Jazz Gonzalez ’26, along with visiting Etown student and current junior at Babson College Quincy McBride ’25, formed the inaugural cohort to engage in hands-on projects while enrolled in ABET-accredited, Etown Engineering courses focused on sustainability.

The GCES is an innovative engineering center founded in partnership with Etown’s School of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) and Greenway Institute, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Broadening Participation in Engineering program. The “semester away” program is organized around hands-on learning and sustainable engineering and is open to engineering students in the second year of study.

“I was thrilled to see how well our adventurous pilot cohort did at Greenway this fall,” Elizabethtown College Dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science, Sara Atwood said. “At Greenway, we’re integrating all the evidence-based practices of how to best educate an engineer to tackle our biggest societal challenges and allowing the students to co-create that education with us. Other engineering programs dream about delivering this type of education – we’re figuring out how to make it happen.”

Students took on cross-curricular projects throughout the semester relating to their classes. In one project, students designed a wind turbine and presented small-scale models to wind experts at Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company. They also designed a solar-powered traffic light, one of three hands-on projects in their Sustainable Resource Engineering and Design course.

“The hands-on approach to learning at Greenway allowed for a thorough understanding of the complex material, and gave me confidence in applying the knowledge in everyday life,” Gonzalez said. “I discovered a new way of learning and had an amazing educational support team. The projects made me completely change my mindset, allowing me to create my own building constraints and explore the different outcomes toward mastery at my own pace.”

Community engagement was another point of emphasis during the sustainability semester. Each Friday was dedicated to “Green Career Treks,” which included visits to Vermont businesses engaging with sustainability and equity issues.

“At Greenway, we were educated for service with service,” Sipe said. “From volunteering time to help Montpelier recover after a flood, to being part of and speaking at public conferences, I felt a deep connection with the local community.”

During their time away from classwork, students had the opportunity to explore the surrounding community. Gonzalez was the resident assistant (RA) for the cohort, and planned activities to unwind, like trips to Thunder Road racetrack and the Ben and Jerry’s factory.

The sustainability semester away program was presented to first-year engineering students at Etown, and interested students worked with their academic advisors to apply and plan for their participation. Additional Etown students will travel to GCES for the sustainability semester in fall 2024.

About Etown’s Partnership with the Greenway Institute
In 2022, Elizabethtown College was awarded a $1.2 Million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch the Greenway Center for Sustainability and Equity in Engineering in partnership with the Greenway Institute, located in Vermont. The innovation center re-designs and re-centers engineering education around sustainability and core equity practices that empower students from underrepresented groups. Explore more information about Etown’s Engineering program at etown.edu.