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Campus Initiatives

Dallas College has seven Main Campuses, twelve Community Centers, and three Operations locations. Every campus, center and location offers both college-wide sustainability programs and campus-specific sustainability programs for the greater Dallas County community.

Campus sustainability initiatives are unique programs only available to the community at specific campuses and community centers. The College operations locations serve as administrative centers to support the mission of Dallas College.

 

Brookhaven Campus Sustainability Initiatives

The Brookhaven Campus, located in the Farmers Branch and Addison communities, is on a journey to sustainability with an understanding of the choices, challenges, knowledge, skills and actions needed to create a desirable future. Brookhaven has a community nature trail that circles the campus and serves as a connection trail between the main community trail of Farmers Branch and Addison’s Vitruvian Park. Along the Brookhaven trail, visitors can experience the 195-acre campus that exemplifies an “urban forest” and is recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation as a designated Tree Campus USA.

Picture of a bear made from fallen leaves on the Brookhaven Campus, created by art students. The bear has a calming look, creating a welcome feeling. If you were to touch the leafy bear sculpture, it would feel like leaves were glued together like a quilted blanket, taking the shape of a small bear or large dog without a tail. 
 

Image: Final art project by students from the School of Creativity, Arts, Entertainment and Design (CAED) Kimberly Diaz, Emily Soriano, and Lily Edwards. The art project is made from sustainable materials.

Brookhaven Campus features the following sustainability initiatives:

Cedar Valley Campus Sustainability Initiatives

The Cedar Valley Campus is located in the heart of the Best Southwest Cities, serving the communities of Dallas, Duncanville, DeSoto, Cedar Hill, and Lancaster. The campus is located in the City of Lancaster, a city known for its bluebonnets, friendly neighborhoods and one of the region’s first frontier settlements. Cedar Valley works to increase sustainability awareness by adopting sustainable practices with strategic actions, and is part of the Southern Dallas County Inland Port Association collaborating with industry and community leaders for sustainable economic development, education and career pathways for our students.

The image is of the M building on the Cedar Valley Campus. This building has courses for the veterinary technology degree program and courses for life sciences programs. The building is tall, having two floors, and is one of the newest buildings on the campus, with lots of grass, trees and plants. It is a green building, with more efficient electricity usage, more windows for natural light, and more accessible entry ways. 
 

Image: M Building on the Cedar Valley Campus supports the Veterinary Technology and Life Sciences courses. The M Building is certified Gold Level by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

Cedar Valley Campus features the following campus sustainability initiatives:

Eastfield Campus Sustainability Initiatives

The Eastfield Campus serves the Mesquite, Garland and East Dallas communities. Sometimes known as the “Educational Village” because of its unique architecture, it is located on 244 acres at the intersection of Interstate 30 and Motley Drive in Mesquite. Functional building clusters give students easy access to classrooms and labs and the overall aesthetic effect has earned Eastfield several architectural awards of excellence. The careful landscape planning includes terraced areas throughout the campus and are a showcase of aesthetic local drought resistant plants.

The photo depicts seven college and community leaders in a row, holding shovels and wearing construction hard hats. They are all smiling and happy, digging into the dirt and celebrating the joyous occasion to start the construction on a new building for the Eastfield Campus that will serve students and the community. Behind the seven people, is a large construction bull dozer and a pick-up truck.

Image: Ground-breaking ceremony for the new Academic and Student Services Building, part of the 2019 Bond Program. The building is designed by Perkins & Will following the USGBC-LEED framework but not seeking certification. From left to right: Dan Eikenberry (Perkins & Will), Mesquite Mayor Daniel Aleman, Jr., Dallas College Provost Shawnda Floyd, Dallas College Eastfield President Eddie Tealer, Dallas College Chancellor Justin Lonon, Vice Chancellor of Student Success Beatriz Joseph, Mesquite City Manager Cliff Keheley.

Eastfield Campus features the following campus sustainability initiatives:

  • City of Mesquite Clean City Initiative
  • Air Quality education and monitoring
  • Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Demonstration Project
  • Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations
  • Green Jobs Training for North Texas
  • Green IT with Virtual Desktops
  • Harvester Community Garden
  • Food Pantry and Clothes Closet
  • Recycling
  • Community Walking Trails
  • Multicultural Events with Sustainability Topics
  • Cease the Grease Drop-Off Station
  • A Legacy of Sustainability

El Centro Campus Sustainability Initiatives

The El Centro Campus is located in center of downtown Dallas, with campuses in multiple high-rise buildings. Many of the buildings are historic and must meet the building guidelines of the City Historic Commission, and are also energy efficient and updated to meet the comfort needs of students, faculty, staff and community visitors. The El Centro Campus is one of two Dallas College campuses that participated in the inaugural pilot of AASHE-STARS (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Reporting System), earning a STARS Reporter Rating in 2011. This a distinct honor because only 50 institutions participated in the inaugural AASHE-STARS pilot, and today more than 900 institutions use the self-reporting framework. The focus on sustainability includes a four-pronged approach in areas of education, engagement, economy and environment.

The photo of the building shows the massive size of the seven-story building. The first level of the building has a Corner Bakery Café that is visible on the lower right of the photo. The lower left of the photo shows the DART Rail Line that is part of the DART West End Station, also lined with trees. The building is an historic building, made mostly entirely of bricks with equally spaced windows on each floor.  
 

Image: El Centro Campus Downtown Health Sciences Center, also historically known as the Paramount Building. The building was the former headquarters of the Paramount Pictures movie company, and today includes the College’s advanced energy efficient facilities supporting health sciences programs for nursing, sonography, and a newly renovated dental clinic open to the public.

El Centro Campus features the following campus sustainability initiatives:

  • Student Environmental Club
  • Annual Earth Day Event
  • Dallas 2030 District
  • DART Station West End
  • Historic, energy efficient buildings
  • Two rooftop greenhouses and a rainwater catchment tank
  • Culinary food service with sustainable menu options
  • Air quality education and monitoring
  • Campus Food Pantry
  • Recycling
  • Multicultural events with sustainability topics
  • Legacy of sustainability

Mountain View Campus Sustainability Initiatives

The Mountain View campus is located in Southern Dallas in a unique ecoregion that includes Blackland prairie, cross timbers woodlands, the Austin Chalk Wash geologic formation, and the far north beginnings of the Texas Hill Country. The Mountain View model for sustainability includes innovation, conservation, biodiversity, food, soil, water, drought, air quality, and nutrition. Mountain View campus leadership and sustainability stakeholders led the first Campus Resilience Assessment of all the Dallas College campuses, and this serves as a leadership example for identifying and supporting vulnerable populations in the event of a natural disaster, emergency or ongoing stressors experienced by people in the community.

Photo of the W building and the campus creek that runs though the middle of campus. You can see a limestone chalk rock and cypress trees along the shore of the creek. 
 

Image: The campus creek that flows through the middle of the campus, forming a limestone canyon. The building to the left is the W building connected by a sky bridge to the E building.

Mountain View Campus features the following campus sustainability initiatives:

  • Mountain View Park
  • Humane Society Certified Campus
  • STEM Walk for Master Naturalists
  • Hydroponics nursery
  • EV Charging Stations
  • Air quality education and monitoring
  • Urban forest
  • Jogging trails
  • Cease the Grease drop-off station
  • Campus Food Pantry
  • Multicultural events
  • Recycling
  • Legacy of sustainability

North Lake Campus Sustainability Initiatives

The Dallas College North Lake campus is located in Irving, Texas, and serves the communities of Irving, Dallas, Coppell, and Grand Prairie. North Lake encourages a culture of community stewardship. The goal across campus is to promote success, wellness and conservation.

North Lake’s vision for sustainability is to serve as a leader in a network of individuals and organizations for economic, environmental and societal sustainability. Working with community partners, they continually enhance and develop curriculum, policies and workforce initiatives to meet the challenges of the future together.

A picture of the DART train arriving to the DART Orange Line North Lake Station. In the background left of the photo, you can see the apartments bordering the campus, separated by a brick wall. To the right of the photo you can see benches to sit on while waiting for the train).

Image: DART Orange Rail North Lake Station. All Dallas College students enrolled in six credit hours or 90 contact hours for continuing education are eligible for a free DART Go Pass.

North Lake Campus features the following campus sustainability initiatives:

  • Dr. Yolanda Romero Food Garden
  • Living Learning Garden
  • Most LEED buildings of any campus
  • Air quality education and monitoring
  • City of Irving Green Advisory Board
  • Cease the Grease drop-off station
  • Campus Food Pantry
  • Recycling
  • Community walking trails
  • Multicultural events
  • Legacy of sustainability

Richland Campus Sustainability Initiatives

Dallas College Richland Campus is located in the northeast part of Dallas County serving Dallas, Richardson, Garland and surrounding communities. The Richland Campus model for sustainability is to build a sustainable local and world community using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework to connect student education with sustainability projects and programs to improve the environmental performance of the campus for future generations.

The Richland Campus is home to the Texas Trees Foundation Education Center and Tree Farm. The Tree Farm Education Center provides an outdoor experience where students, businesses, and group volunteers engage together performing tree planting, tree care, tree anatomy, tree health benefits and general nursery care.

The picture is of a group of students and staff planting a tree. The tree is taller than the people. One volunteer is holding the tree to be centered in the dugout hole, while the other volunteers stand ready with shovels to scoop dirt into the hole and finish planting the tree. 
 

Image: Student volunteers plant a tree at the Richland Campus, guided by facilities management staff and staff from the Texas Trees Foundation (TTF). TTF has a tree farm on the Richland Campus to provide landscaping needs in the North Texas region.

Richland Campus features the following campus sustainability initiatives:

  • LEED Platinum Building, Sabine Hall (Sciences)
  • Student Green Club
  • Texas Trees Foundation Tree Farm
  • Monarch Butterfly weigh station
  • Air quality education and monitoring
  • Environmental Classroom Lab water testing 
  • Biodiversity conservation with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
  • Cease the Grease drop-off station
  • Campus Food Pantry
  • Recycling
  • Community walking trails
  • Multicultural events with sustainability topics
  • Legacy of sustainability​