The winner will receive a complimentary registration to CAFÉ’s 9^th-annual Leadership Conference, June 20-22, 2013, in South Florida, 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 went to Seattle Culinary Academy, a division of Seattle Central Community College—one of the first culinary-arts programs in the nation to offer formal coursework in sustainability, highlighting the value of local and seasonal sourcing. The program is exceptional because it integrates health and environmental sustainability throughout the educational experience. Additionally, students learn how to plant, tend and harvest 2 acres of donated land, with harvested produce incorporated into menus at school. The school also maintains a plant-science lab/green house, teaches nose-to-tail butchery and food-preservation skills, and operates a GMO-free kitchen.

Colorado State University (CSU) Hospitality Management Program at Fort Collins, Colo., received the Green Award in 2011 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, CEPC, 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, an associate professor at Johnson & Wales University, Charlotte, N.C., was the recipient of the inaugural 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 one year 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 “Scholarships/Awards.” Applications must be postmarked no later than April 1, 2013, and the winner will be notified by May 1, 2013.

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.

Photo: (l. to r.) Chef-instructor Keijiro Miyata, CEC, CCE, AAC, of Seattle Culinary Academy accepts the 2012 CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award from Kendall College’s Christopher Koetke at the 8th-annual CAFÉ Leadership Conference in San Antonio, Texas. Courtesy of B. Frei