Hartwick college

Whether talking about classes over potluck dinners or planning a volunteer activity to help focus awareness on sustainability, Hartwick College’s Pine Lake Environmental Campus residents are committed to reducing their footprint on the Earth.

Thirty-five students live at the Environmental Campus (8 miles from main campus) in cabins nestled in a northern hardwood forest or in the main Robertson Lodge. 

Students minimize car use when living at the property by parking in a centralized location and by carpooling together in Pine Lake shuttle vans. Pine Lake provides the shuttle vans, and students work cooperatively to drive and coordinate the shuttle schedule. 

Student cabins, and the Robertson Lodge in part, are heated by Quadra-fire wood pellet stoves.  We purchase wood pellets annually from a number of local and regional sources.

Approximately half the annual electricity for Robertson Lodge (on average) is provided by a 10 kW photovoltaic system mounted on the Lodge roof.  (This net metering system was installed by ETM Solar Works). Net metering systems feed our electrical load in synchrony with utility power; no batteries are used. When the system generates more electricity than the building needs, the utility meter turns backwards and we receive credit at the retail rate. When the sun is not out, we use the credit. All buildings also use compact fluorescent bulbs.

Water for the property comes from two wells on property in the Pine Lake Watershed and low flow showerheads are installed in all bathrooms; wastewater on the property is treated via septic tanks. Furniture in some of the buildings is from Nikita Indoor Outdoor (local wood and manufacture) in nearby Richfield Springs, NY.  Much of the rest of our furniture is recycled from buildings on the College's main campus. Students work together on a community organic garden behind Robertson Lodge, and plant vegetables and herbs for their own use. Students often also buy food from local farms and other producers.

On top of all these great achievements is the simple fact that the Environmental Campus is a special place to unwind after studying all day. Students take walks after classes on trails spanning over 2,000 acres (Hartwick and state property), gather for impromptu bonfires or take a boat out on 12-acre Pine Lake to "study." Others recognize this too. The Environmental Campus has been featured in regional magazines, radio shows and newspapers, nationally with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, and via visits from other schools and international scholars such as Vandana Shiva and Winona LaDuke.