Step aside Olympics. Which campus gets the green medal for being the most environmentally sensitive in the country? According to the September/October issue of Sierra magazine, that honor goes to Middlebury College. Sierra staffers ranked colleges and universities using 10 categories such as buildings, curriculum, energy, and investments. Middlebury distinguished itself, according to the magazine, by generating much of its own energy and recycling 60 percent of its waste.

The other top schools were the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Vermont at Burlington, Warren Wilson College, Evergreen State College, Arizona State University at Tempe, the University of Florida at Gainesville, Oberlin College, the University of Washington at Seattle, and Tufts University.

The magazine also singled out five campuses for scoring the worst in its rankings: The College of William …

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Looking for ways to cut carbon emissions, reduce energy usage, and enhance your environmental profile? Check out a report issued this week by the Environmental Protection Agency titled A Business Guide to U.S. EPA Climate Partnership Programs.

Although it is aimed at business, the report contains practical information that will interest many people in academe. It profiles the different programs in which EPA partners with business and institutions in “addressing the risks and opportunities of climate change.”

Readers can find out whom to contact at EPA to learn more about energy-efficient labs, environmentally friendly landscaping, and waste-reduction strategies.

Across the Sun Belt, colleges and universities are gearing up to tap into solar power as a way to reduce their carbon emissions and make themselves greener. Several campuses have unveiled plans recently to put up large solar-power installations that will generate significant portions of their electricity.

When Florida Gov. Charlie Crist signed a $66-billion budget Wednesday, he provided $8.5-million to Florida Gulf Coast University for the construction of a 2-megawatt solar-power installation that will provide 100 percent of the campus’s electricity needs.

Arizona State University reported this week that it signed a contract with companies to build two megawatts of solar electric modules on rooftops in Tempe. That project, slated to be finished in December, will provide 7 percent of the energy for the Tempe campus, according to the university. Arizona State will not pay directly…

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College and university presidents are quickly signing on the dotted line to commit their campuses to be climate-friendly. Tulane University announced on Tuesday that it was the 500th signatory of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. The agreement binds presidents to make their campuses climate-neutral, meaning that they will eventually zero out their net emissions of greenhouse gases—a formidable goal, which some presidents say will be hard to reach.

Tulane has a special interest in the issue, said Scott S. Cowen, president of the university, in the announcement: “Global warming is a phenomenon that affects us all. For those of us living in New Orleans and other coastal communities, it has even greater urgency because several prominent scientists have linked global warming to the increased intensity of hurricanes.”

The number of signatories has climbed…

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Boston College is facing continued opposition from the city to its plan to build undergraduate housing on 65 acres of nearby land that it recently bought from the Archdiocese of Boston.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority, which must approve the project, released a review of the campus extension on Wednesday that called on the college to reconsider building dorms on the land, according to The Boston Globe.

The mayor of Boston, Thomas M. Menino, also said the college should restrict dormitories to its traditional campus, although he had earlier called on the college to increase its on-campus housing capacity, according to the Globe. Proposals for an athletics field house, a baseball field, and a parking facility have received less consternation from neighbors.

Boston College submitted its proposals for the new campus development to the city late last year as part of a 10-year master…

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