Actions and Activities
Hunter College and The Center for Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center are partnering on a new $150,000 Mellon-funded initiative— The CUNY Climate Assembly Project (CCAP) on Waste at Hunter College.
From Spring 2026 - Spring 2027, CCAP will gather a broadly representative group of Hunter students to learn, deliberate, and democratically develop waste management strategies for vertical urban campuses, like Hunter. During Spring 2026, 30-45 students will convene for five full days and four 2-hour workshops to learn from a diverse range of experts, weigh the opportunities and challenges of various waste management solutions, and collectively generate evidence-based recommendations for the campus community. Students in the assembly will receive a $750 honorarium for their participation. Students and faculty outside the assembly will engage through classroom curriculum, public forums, and other events and programs. In Fall 2026 and Spring 2027, 9-12 post-assembly fellows will work with campus leadership to review any subsequent learning, planning, adaptation, and/or
implementation of the recommendations. Climate Assemblies are an innovative method for civic problem-solving, with over 700 examples worldwide, but Hunter College will lead the nation as the first university-convened climate assembly in the US. Hunter will serve as a model, expanding universities as true schools for democracy, equipping the next generation of civic leaders with skills in facilitation, constructive dialogue, and democratic problem-solving
Waste management is challenging because it requires everyone’s involvement to be successful. While administrators can devise policies to meet these goals, they will only be effective if students, faculty, and staff can execute them. Meeting our waste reduction goals requires an all-hands-on-deck effort– individual behavior change, updating organizational practices, and shifting campus culture will require adaptation to how campuses operate. Without meaningful input and ownership from the Hunter community, even well-designed waste systems risk unforeseen adaptation and implementation barriers.
State Executive Order 22 requires all public entities, including CUNY, to develop waste diversion plans. From a student perspective, what incentives, structures, and systems would facilitate more effective waste management at vertical urban campuses, like Hunter College?
December 2025 - February 2026: A Civic Lottery will select 30-45 students to be a part of the assembly, ensuring Hunter’s unique demographic and social diversity is represented. Students will be provided a $750 honorarium for participating. Special accommodations, such as childcare, elderly care, or language translation, can be supported on a case-by-case basis.
April - June 2026: The Assembly will gather the students selected in the civic lottery to learn with a diversity of subject matter experts and engage in facilitated dialogue to develop recommendations for place-based waste management solutions for vertical, urban, commuter campuses like Hunter. The broader campus community of student orgs, university centers, faculty, and staff can join the CCAP Impact Network to learn and contribute with the Assembly through public forums, classroom curricula, and other events throughout the semester.
Fall 2026 - Spring 2027: A Post-assembly Fellowship will support 9-12 students from the assembly to advance the advocacy and implementation of the resulting recommendations with campus leadership and members of the Impact Network.
The CCAP governance committees, made up of Hunter administrators and campus community stakeholders, will review the assembly’s recommendations and contribute to a public-facing response–a community forum, public event, and/or white paper, to name a few possibilities– that unpacks which recommendations may be viable, which may need adaptation, and which ones cannot be accepted. This is a pilot assembly, and responses demonstrate a commitment to learning and growing the model.
The assembly’s recommendations will be directed through three impact pathways:
- Campus Leadership - Will review and respond to administrative recommendations.
- CCAP Impact Network - Will review and respond to recommendations on internal organizational practices (that do not require top administrative oversight), and help fund/create public programs.
- Campus Community - Will engage in programs that enable students, faculty, and staff to be a part of the assembly’s solutions (i.e. campus compost day, educational campaigns, etc.).
