Entries will be accepted through April 1, 2012. The winner will receive a complimentary registration for the CAFÉ Leadership Conference, June 22-24, 2012, in San Antonio, Texas, where the award will be presented. Kendall College will also present the recipient with a $1,000 cash prize.

Kendall has dedicated itself to sustainability in its classrooms and operations since 2005, and even more gratifying than the value we’ve reaped on our own campus has been the privilege of sharing our knowledge with other educators and learning from them. By working together to build this body of knowledge, educators everywhere will have the tools to impact the future of our industry and our world through our students.

Last year’s award was given to the Colorado State University (CSU) Hospitality Management Program at Fort Collins, Colo., for its comprehensive integration of sustainability into all aspects of its operation. Its student-run restaurant, the Aspen Grille, is a model of sustainable operation. The restaurant grows much of its own produce and sources micro greens through CSU’s horticulture department. Other foods are locally sourced wherever possible. Even coffee is roasted locally and sourced from environmentally managed estates in Brazil. At the other end of the process, the restaurant uses only compostable to-go containers, and recycles and composts everything possible. The resulting compost is used as a soil additive, which closes the circle.

In 2010, Faith Jennetta, program coordinator and baking instructor for the Technology Center of DuPage in Addison, Ill., was recognized for her tilapia aquaculture project. An interdepartmental learning experience that includes both culinary and landscape students, the program provides practical experience in aquaculture, fish butchery and cookery. The entire program is taught under the school’s guiding principle, “Be respectful of food, the environment and each other.”

Paul Malcolm, currently associate professor at Johnson & Wales University, Charlotte, N.C., was the recipient of the first Green Award in 2009. What started as a lesson in sustainability for his children, composting to “make vitamins for the garden,” developed into a composting program at JWU that, in 2009, removed more than 60 tons of organic material from the college’s waste stream.

Full information about award criteria and the application process can be found in the news section of www.CafeMeetingPlace.com under “Scholarship/Awards.” Applications must be postmarked no later than April 1, 2012, and the winner will be notified by May 1, 2012.

Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC, is executive director of the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago and vice president of Laureate International Universities Center of Excellence in Culinary Arts. Kendall sponsors the annual CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award.