Dear Editor,

We at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) are always thrilled when AASHE is featured in an article that is focused on our mission of empowering higher education to lead the sustainability transformation. However, we’d like to clear up a misrepresentation of our STARS Program in the Daily Reveille’s recent “Campus Sustainability Improved” article.

While STARS does have three main categories, Education & Research, Operations, and Planning, Administration & Engagement, institutions are not given a letter grade for the efforts in these areas. Each of these categories contains credits worth a total of 100 points. An institution’s STARS score is based on the average of the percentage of applicable points it earns in each category and is celebrated with Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum ratings.

It seems the author of this article may be confusing the STARS Program and the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s Green Report card, a survey that offers letter grades to institutions based on achievements in sustainability. That being said, the Green Report Card was not issued this year.

For correct information on the STARS Program please visit, stars.aashe.org. We would like to thank the author for including AASHE in this article about ways that campuses are improving their sustainability efforts.

Jillian Buckholz

Senior Programs Coordinator AASHE