Leaders at the School for International Training in Brattleboro; Greenfield Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts; and Antioch University New England and Keene State College, both in Keene, New Hampshire, have signed an agreement to support a new Ecovation Hub program meant to bring jobs, investment and visitors to the tri-state area.
The schools are pledging to provide education, training and support for a wide-ranging effort to capitalize on environmentally friendly industries and expertise. And they’re looking for new ways to do that cooperatively.
“The institutions coming together are thinking differently,” said Melinda Treadwell, Antioch’s chief executive officer and provost. “We are committed to thinking differently together.”
The “ecovation” name dates only to last year, but the underlying movement has roots in conversations that stretch back at least a decade in southeastern Vermont.
Brattleboro green-building pioneer Alex Wilson recalled conversations with Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. and others about how to benefit from an emerging green economy that emphasized resilient, sustainable buildings and communities.
“That kind of got our juices flowing,” said Wilson, who now chairs the Ecovation Hub project.
The region’s green economy efforts gathered speed when Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. landed a federal grant in 2015. The organization also received funding from a program created by a shutdown settlement between the state and Vermont Yankee.
BDCC is still involved in the effort, but the project has expanded rapidly: In 2016, a team of public officials, business administrators, educators and other experts created the Ecovation Hub.
The effort — which includes a new financing mechanism dubbed “ecoF.I.R.E.” — has stretched into southwestern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts to include “an amazing assemblage of people from three states,” Wilson said.
“The collaborations that are emerging have been really exciting to witness,” he added.
The four colleges’ joint efforts are the latest example of that.
What they’ve created is an education and training consortium, and the wide variety of proposed subject areas reflects the reach of the effort: Along with green building products and services, officials also are targeting finance, insurance and real estate; agriculture and agroforestry; and climate-resilient communities.
Antioch is a key piece of the collaboration due to its existing Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience.
There are also some new initiatives in the works due to the colleges’ collaboration. For example, Antioch has created a graduate fellowship position “explicitly funded to sustain the Ecovation Hub,” Treadwell said.
The college also is working with Keene State to create an accelerated program in which students can earn a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in sustainability within five years. That is “a direct outcome of the ecovation discussions,” Treadwell said.
At Greenfield Community College, President Bob Pura envisions developing an expanded curriculum from the campus’s outdoor learning laboratory. He also said a new internship coordinator position could help place students in related positions.
“It’s certainly good for our students, who will be learning, developing and becoming the leaders of these initiatives as we move forward,” Pura said Thursday during a gathering at Antioch.
“The green economy will grow,” Pura added. “It is inevitable. … Why not here in our community?”
John Ungerleider, an SIT faculty member, said more initiatives are in the works as the four-college consortium takes shape.
“The bottom line,” he said, “is getting people to come here and study.”
Abigail Abrash Walton, who has been involved in the Ecovation Hub project and co-directs Antioch’s Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience, said the emphasis is on bringing together modestly sized communities and colleges to do something big.
“This is an incredible challenge and an incredible opportunity, and we are really well-poised to take advantage of this moment,” she said.
