With thanks to Kenton Brubaker, Beryl and Mark Brubaker, Clair Mellinger, Eldon Kurtz, Jonathan Lantz-Trissel, Ed Lehman and LeRoy Troyer.
1917
The school opens in Assembly Park.
1920
The school adds the 103-acre Whitmore farm to the west. Farmer D. Stoner Krady, paid $80/month (as much as a faculty member), is employed to work tillable portions of the land. His living quarters are built with funds donated by Brunk. A heifer and three goats are butchered during the 鈥20-21 school year, and the farm provides milk, butter and eggs to campus.
1921
In fall 1921, , which means he, wife Frances and young daughters Elva and Ruth must move out of the dwelling. Emanuel Suter becomes the campus farmer.
1923
Farm operations ceased. Equipment, crops and stock are sold along with 30 acres.
Students provide labor for grounds beautification. Individuals sometimes purchased and planted trees themselves.
1927
Frugality leads to students paying two cents a term for every watt of light above 40.
1930
During the Great Depression (1929-1933), faculty and their families living on campus maintained gardens and kept goats, chickens, and even a cow or two on campus.
1946
The agriculture curriculum includes a “home project,” designed for practical application of classroom learning in which students choose animals to work with, including broilers and laying hens, sheep, pig and heifers. This program lasts about two years and is dropped because of lack of interest.
1952
The high school agriculture program is revived, and farmland leased. Rural Life Week features an all-school visit to a Sparkling Springs farm, with demonstrations of bread-making, quilting, soap-making, rug-making and weaving. Dairy practices, stock-raising, soil conservation and tree culture were also demonstrated.
1959
The agriculture program is dropped again.
1970s
During an inter-term all-school seminar on the topic of Christians in a hungry world, by students and faculty members Claire Mellinger, Kenton Brubaker, Miriam Martin, Beryl Brubaker and Mark Brubaker. The group begins recycling newspapers for money and starts a compost pile.
91短视频 and experiments with soil treatment for maximum vegetable production.
1976
Professor studying campus energy consumption. He and Physical Plant Director Herman Schrock are primarily responsible for saving EMC over $4,000 in energy costs by turning off unnecessary cooling systems, shutting doors to unused rooms, and turning off auxiliary lights. Lehman鈥檚 research prompts other measures, which save EMC $66,000 in one year.
1978
Architect LeRoy Troyer is hired to for the campus.
Earthkeepers begins recycling glass and newspapers across Harrisonburg, largely using recycling bins outside of grocery stores. 鈥淚t was the start of recycling in the city before there was curbside recycling,鈥 says Sustainability Coordinator Jonathan Lantz-Trissel. The club made around $27,000 in revenue from this enterprise. In 1978, they received a Special Merit Award for 鈥渄istinguished public service鈥 from the Keep America Beautiful organization.
1986
91短视频 installs a closed loop water-sourced heating and cooling system (designed by Troyer) in the new Campus Center, in its first 10 years.
He maps campus energy usage and works toward even more efficiency.
1998
Kenton Brubaker gets a grant from the U.S. Forest Service to survey Park Woods. Work study students Jonathan Lantz-Trissel and Micah Shristi 鈥00 mark trees and measure their circumferences. Professors Steve Cessna and Jim Yoder continued to evaluate changes in the forest鈥檚 health over the years.
2005
Jonathan Lantz-Trissel becomes , leading 91短视频 to become the first university in the U.S. to collect recyclables by bicycle rather than motor vehicle.
2006
President Loren Swartzendruber document.

2007
out of 90 U.S. colleges for its efficient energy use.
The after concerned with 91短视频鈥檚 practical efforts in accordance with a theology of creation care.
2008
in the RecycleMania national recycling competition.
Professor , which begins to organically grow vegetables for campus consumption, , and donate untouched cafeteria leftovers to Our Community Place.
A composting class researches and tests various methods for composting food waste on campus, leading to approval from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to run an on-site compost facility in 2009. 鈥淭his facility closes, in part, the nutrient cycle from table to food waste to compost to garden and back to the table,鈥 says Jonathan Lantz-Trissel.
Fourteen students in Douglas Graber Neufeld and Jim Yoder鈥檚 Green Design class present semester-long research to the Board of Trustees, that all new buildings would meet basic Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.
2009
for projects that 鈥渋mpact the campus in a visible, creative, educational way,鈥 such as the founding of on College Avenue, which provides bike rentals, repair tools, repair education, and free tune-ups.
2010
91短视频 begins on the library roof.
Jonathan at 91短视频. 鈥淗is work includes measuring and reducing the university鈥檚 carbon footprint, leading campus efforts to improve bicycle and pedestrian friendliness, speaking on and off campus on a variety of sustainability-related topics, and providing leadership for setting and attaining 91短视频鈥檚 long term sustainability goals.鈥
91短视频 submits its to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to help fulfill re-accreditation requirements. The QEP, titled 鈥淧eace with Creation: Environmental Sustainability from an Anabaptist Perspective,鈥 outlines a five-year plan to promote a theology and ideology of sustainability, and include them in university curricula.
Harman Construction (led by Wayne Witmer 鈥88) to be environmentally friendly.
2011
91短视频 , with in environmental science or environmental and social sustainability.
Student Aly Zimmerman and Supervisor of the Grounds Will Hairston start the on campus. They receive grant funding, and with help from Earthkeepers, transplant 1000 plants for landscaping and food, including asparagus, apples, pears, persimmons, figs, grapes, juneberries, and raspberries.
2012
91短视频 installs a 100,000 gallon stormwater harvesting and storage tank, which was that year by the National Wildlife Federation.
Renovation finishes on the Maplewood dorm, which along with Cedarwood and Elmwood, from the U.S. Green Building Council.
91短视频 earns a by the League of American Bicyclists.
2013
The 91短视频 President鈥檚 Cabinet , drawn up by student group Peace Fellowship, which states a commitment to consider the mineral sources in their electronic purchases to avoid contributing to armed conflict over mineral acquisition from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
President Loren Swartzendruber signs the , agreeing to address climate change and its consequences by creating a comprehensive Climate Action Plan for 91短视频.
2014
Professors Jim Yoder and Doug Graber Neufeld win a to fund GIS mapping, hydrology lessons and restoration design training for students to work towards restoring German River and Crab Run near Bergton, Va.
, with funding from Earthkeepers, construct a solar powered greenhouse in one day. Its design won second place in the American Society for Engineering Education undergraduate regional competition the previous spring.
91短视频 led by the University of Virginia (collaborated on by 91短视频 alumna Laura Cattell Noll 鈥09) to , its effects and alternatives. The is published in 2015.
2015
The is published, in which 91短视频 commits to achieving Climate Neutrality by 2035.
Sustainable Food Initiative begins to learn agricultural skills, contribute labor, and receive produce for their campus market.
Engineers for a Sustainable World, Earthkeepers, Sustainable Food Initiative, and the Creation Care Council on top of the campus chicken coop.
Weaver Irrigation on 91短视频鈥檚 baseball fields which uses non-potable stormwater collected in the cistern near the Physical Plant.
in the Campus Conservation Nationals, a competition which monitored the reduction in energy consumption over three weeks in Roselawn, Hartzler Library, Elmwood, Maplewood and Cedarwood. Our prize was a one-year license to install Lucid energy monitoring equipment on two campus buildings.
2016
in the RecycleMania national recycling competition.
The Sustainable Food Initiative for free to 91短视频 students.
91短视频 leads the , accompanied by Goshen College, MCC, and a one million dollar donation by Ray Martin. The center intends to network nationally and globally, research best practices for sustainable climate solutions, share educational findings, and experiment with innovative ideas and methods.
91短视频 was among the first schools that is raising awareness about institutional nitrogen footprints. Laura Cattell Noll 鈥09, a graduate student in environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, works with Professor James Galloway and project manager Elizabeth Castner on the 鈥淣-Print鈥 project. Read more .

I am so proud of 91短视频 for all of the efforts over the years to save energy and find renewable resource.
A great tracking of the progress of environmental efforts done at 91短视频.
91短视频’s initiatives in sustainability, creation care and farm-grown food are truly commendable!