Learn About the Program

Apply to the Program

About the Program | Back to Top

The Internship Program in Sustainability uses campus as a living-learning lab, enlisting students as researchers in investigating important questions facing our community, such as:

  • How do the ways in which our campus operates and consumes resources affect the social, environmental and economic well being of our community?
  • How is our campus’ impact connected to more complicated global issues likeGIve
    climate change, resource scarcity and poverty? 
  • What opportunities do we have as individuals, institutions, communities, and governments to increase collective social, economic and economic health, and how do we best communicate these opportunities?
  • How will we adapt and ensure all people have the ability to thrive in response to dynamic climate conditions and limitations on resources? 

Through internships co-mentored by staff in operations and faculty members, interns conduct research and develop programming focused on general sustainability outreach and education or in specific topic areas such as food, transportation or resource use.

Information Session | Back to Top

On Tuesday, January 31st from 6-7 PM, we’ll be holding an info session about the program that will feature current and former interns. The session will be held at E-House (704 E. 10th St.). Please register for the event here.

Is the Internship Program in Sustainability right for you? | Back to Top

IUOS interns are high achieving and actively involved students who hail from all corners of campus.  From the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts to the Department of Physics to the School of Journalism, each of our alumni has enriched our program with a different perspective on sustainability.  And while it is this diversity that strengthens our program, there are a couple of traits that are common among our interns:

  • Passion: students in our program are passionate about making our campus a more socially, economically and environmentally equitable place.  They demonstrate this passion through their choices in course work, previous employment, extracurricular involvement and career goals. 
  • Independence: many of the internships require students to work well independently and make their own hours.  They are self-motivated and self-directed. 
  • Critical thinking: all of our interns demonstrate the ability to think critically through complex problems and reach well-reasoned and comprehensive solutions. 
  • Perseverance: sustainability-related projects are attempts to address complex problems, and interns often run into obstacles along the way.  Our most successful interns work tirelessly to approach each barrier in new and creative ways. 
  • Respect and inclusivity: the internship program depends on respectful collaboration between interns.  Our students make a commitment to working well each other and making sure that work is relevant to the largest number of students, faculty, staff and community members. 

To learn more about the typical responsibilities and activities of an intern, visit our blog. Our interns update it regularly, often on topics related to their internships.

Logistics | Back to Top

This summer's program will run from May 14, 2012 to August 3, 2012, and interns are expected to work approximately 20 hours/week in addition to attending a weekly seminar. Interns will be compensated for their time at a rate of $11/hr for graduate students and $9/hr for undergraduates.

Basic qualifications:

  • Applicants must be full-time students at Indiana University Bloomington at the time they apply to the program. 
  • Current students graduating before the summer program begins are not eligible. 
  • Applicants must be in good academic standing with a minimum GPA of 3.0. 
  • Graduate and undergraduate students in all schools are eligible to apply. 

Get Ready to Apply | Back to Top

The IU Office of Sustainability (IUOS) will begin accepting applications for its Summer 2012 Internship Program on Monday, January 30, 2012. The application will ask students to provide information about their education, work, and volunteer experience, as well a personal statement expressing their interest in and qualifications for the internship program. Applicants must also provide a recommendation from a professor or past supervisor. Students interested in applying to the program are encouraged to request a letter of recommendation before the application period begins to ensure it is complete by the deadline. Applications (including recommendations) will be due Friday, February 17, 2012. A PDF version of the application (without the internship position descriptions) is available for download here. You can access the online application system here.

Tips for Strengthening Your Application | Back to Top

  • Tailor your personal statement to our program. The most successful applications make a strong case for why your academic background, professional experience, and personal and career interests align with specific internship positions. 
  • Choose your recommender early and wisely. Make sure you speak with someone who can speak to your academic experience and/or engagement genuinely and with clarity. Contact this person early to ask if he/she will complete our recommendation form.
  • Get involved. If you’re not doing so already, start volunteering or get involved with a sustainability-related student group or community organization.  Our strongest applicants demonstrate their commitment to sustainability through active campus and/or community engagement. 
  • Ask questions. Have questions, comments, concerns or just need some advice about how to approach an application question? Email us at sustain@indiana.edu.  We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.  

Steps for Applying and Application Checklist | Back to Top

Steps for Applying
    1. Read through the internship offerings and determine which positions might be a good fit for you. 
    2. Download (but DO NOT print!) the IUOS application questions to begin preparing your responses. 
    3. Contact your recommender, request permission to use him/her as a reference and obtain his/her email address. 
    4. Login to the IUOS internship website and submit an electronic recommendation request.  Note: You will not be able access the online application until you submit your recommendation request. 
    5. Complete the online application. 
    6. Confirm that you recommender has submitted your evaluation.
    7. Submit your application. 

Application Checklist

    1. Complete online application
    2. One letter of reference (Note: You MUST obtain consent from your reference before submitting an electronic recommendation request.)
    3. (Optional) Resume for upload (PDF only)
    4. (Optional) Slashtmp or other file sharing link to relevant work sample(s)

Hiring Timeline | Back to Top

  • Monday, Jan. 30: IUOS begins accepting applications through the online application system
  • Friday, Feb. 17: Online applications AND recommendations are due. *Note: Applicants WILL NOT be allowed to submit applications until their online recommendation has been received*
  • Friday, March 9: Interns selected, all applicants notified of decisions

Summer 2012 Internship Descriptions | Back to Top

>> Click here for PDF version of internship descriptions.

INTERNSHIPS MENTORED THROUGH IUOS

INTERNSHIPS MENTORED THROUGH THE CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY BOARD

Greening of the Athletic Department: A well-executed sporting event utilizes a series of
well-coordinated systems for transportation, lighting, building efficiency, food
procurement, and waste management. Through each of these systems, IU has an
opportunity to conserve resources and reduce our carbon footprint. This intern will
collaborate with IU Athletics staff to improve and implement their strategic plan for greening athletic facilities and events. Special projects may include: developing strategies for sustainable site and landscape issues and increasing access to recycling services at the tailgate, developing sustainability policy documents for IU Athletics staff, and implementing energy efficiency upgrades of existing sports facilities. Back to list of internships

Green Events Coordination: The hundreds of events occurring monthly across the IUB campus contribute significantly to our collective carbon, waste and water footprints. This intern will develop and execute an implementation plan for green events at IUB based on the best practices guide and certification system created by previous intern. Additionally, the intern will work with students to develop a green events consultancy corps aimed at providing student, faculty and staff with expertise on green event planning. Back to list of internships

Green Purchasing: Affordable and sustainably sourced, packaged and delivered purchasing options are critical to reducing the social, environmental and economic impact of campus activities. This intern will continue the work of past interns, compiling current green purchasing options into a user-friendly guide. Work will include seeking opportunities to increase the number of sustainable options and researching ways to facilitate green purchasing (such as combining purchase orders to reduce number of deliveries). Back to list of internships

Green Teams Coordination: Informal groups of students, faculty and staff continue to
emerge in departments and schools across campus to discuss their roles in greening IU’s offices and living spaces. Because each of these groups represents a unique set of perspectives, interests and skills, the need for communication and resource sharing is paramount. This intern will: (1) develop materials and resources to help encourage the initiation of new green teams in various campus departments and organizations, (2) collaborate with green teams to develop office resources, suggested campus-wide policy documents, and (possibly) funding sources for the groups, (3) continue implementing the Green Team Certification Program for offices, and (4) develop a green reward system for recognizing individuals or groups for outstanding green practices. Back to list of internships

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Tracking and Documentation: Indiana University has had a LEED Silver requirement for new buildings and major renovations for three years with three projects certified and 11 more in progress. Recent projects have been tracking well beyond this requirement, in the high Gold range with some pushing the highest Platinum level. A goal of this internship would be to streamline the process of certification to save time and money for the university and elevate the performance of the finished projects. This intern would look at best practices at campuses across the country, publicize our current LEED projects, analyze the credits most often successful here, analyze relative cost of credits, provide a reference database of scoresheets and credit templates, and assist with collection and dissemination of Owner-supplied information needed for certification. This intern would also assist in formulating a plan for certifying existing buildings on campus utilizing internal teams and a portfolio certification process. Back to list of internships

Sustainability and the First Year Experience: The Office of First Year Experience Programs (FYE) and Residential Program Services (RPS) serve nearly 8,000 new students each year. Both organizations are working hard to integrate sustainability into their operations and programming. This intern will continue the work of the academic year and summer intern by collaborating with: (1) FYE to create a sustainability assessment and improve on existing sustainability initiatives, (2) RPS to implement the new Green Dorm Room Certification Pilot Program, and (3) the Residence Hall Association and Resident Advisors to create student centered programming focusing on sustainability. Back to list of internships

Academic Initiatives - Sustainability Academic Programs and Research Clearinghouse: Faculty, staff and students at IU conduct a considerable amount of research related to sustainability both domestically and internationally. There are also many sustainability related courses and co-curricular activities on campus. IU faces a considerable challenge in disseminating these activities beyond the campus. This intern will continue the work of the academic year intern assisting the Office of Sustainability Academic Initiatives Working Group in
the development of a website summarizing sustainability related research on campus, and analysis of IU courses across departments and schools to assess their connections to sustainability issues. This intern will work with faculty to digest their research to short summaries to be posted on the web. Back to list of internships

Energy and Built Environment - Utility Conservation in Academic Buildings: This intern will continue the Utilities department’s ongoing efforts to increase water and energy conservation in some of the highest usage buildings on campus. Duties will include examining usage data for trends and inconsistencies, developing communication materials on water and energyconservation and attempting to link trends in usage to implementation of conservation messages.  This intern will also plan and coordinate the Fall 2012 Energy Challenge. Back to list of internships

Energy and Built Environment - Qualified Energy Savings Project Planning: This intern will assist IU engineers in the evaluation of the energy payback calculations that will be submitted by the Energy Savings Contractors (ESCOs) in their responses to the IU Qualified Energy Savings Project (QESP) Requests for Proposals. Part of this evaluation process will include the use of energy consumption data that the intern will collection in Late May & June from new meters in several of the buildings that will be part of the Qualified Energy Savings Project at IUB.    The intern also will gather related metrics, such as compressor run times and the hours of room occupancy, that are deemed important to specific Energy Conservation Measures.  For this work the intern must be able to quickly learn to communicate effectively with the ESCO engineers and IU Building Maintenance technicians. Back to list of internships

Environmental Quality and Land Use - Conserving Natural & Cultural Heritage in Dunn's Woods: This intern would work with an interdisciplinary team of faculty, students and professionals seeking to understand and promote the cultural and natural heritage of Dunn's Woods,  a 100+-year old wooded area within the Old Crescent of Indiana University's Bloomington campus. The intern would assist in grant writing as well as: (1) researching the historical and cultural forces that have helped to shape this ~10-acre woodand, (2) conducting and applying ecological research aimed at mitigating exotic invasive plants and promoting native biodiversity, and (3) developing teaching and outreach opportunities that reconnect students and citizens with their cultural and natural heritage, including organizing and leading  volunteer workdays to remove exotic invasive plants and restore native flora. See www.indiana.edu/~dunnswoo for more information about Dunn's Woods. Back to list of internships


Food Working Group - Big Red Eats Green Fall Festival: This fall, in conjunction with the Campus
Sustainability Advisory Board Food Working Group’s Big Red Eats Green initiative, the Bloomington campus will hold its second Fall Harvest Festival, this year in Dunn Meadow. The festival will feature booths where local farmers can sell their products, cooking demos by local chefs, live music and delicious food. This intern will coordinate campus and community stakeholders in the planning and executing the festival. Back to list of internships

Sustainable Computing- Document and Paper Management: Last year, IU purchased over 167,000,000 sheets of paper – which would stack two miles high. Building on the previous academic year and summer interns’ work, this intern will collaborate with the Sustainable Computing Working Group to help draft policy and design and implement an education and awareness campaign to reduce paper use and document retention among faculty, staff and students. Competitive applicants will have educational experience in Public and Environmental Affairs, Business, Library and Information Science, Learning Sciences or Journalism. Back to list of internships

Sustainable Computing - Measurement Analysis: IUB faculty and staff working on the various campus sustainability initiatives are interested in developing publicly displayed information about energy use, recycling, environmental quality and related data to encourage conservation and sustainability.  Building on the work of the 2011/2012 academic year intern, this intern would design reports and applications to begin disseminating identified measures .  This may include mapping sources for the data elements and recommending collection frequency, refresh rate, and effective mechanisms for garnering appropriate attention. Competitive applicants will have educational experience in measurement as well as dynamic reporting platforms (e.g., dashboards) through such programs as Informatics, Business, Library and Information Science, or Telecommunications. Back to list of internships 

Transportation - Bicycle Friendly Campus Initiatives: This intern will help improve bicycle access and safety for the IU Bloomington campus.  Intern serves as the coordinator for the Bicycle Steering Committee.  Intern will work closely with IUSA in the startup of the bicycle sharing program scheduled for the Fall Semester 2012.  Intern will set up implementation program for recommendations contained in the bicycling element of the Transportation Demand Management Study to be released during the summer of 2012.  Intern will also keep the Bicycling at IUB web page up to date.  

Back to list of internships