Sustainability Scholars

Apply to Become a Sustainability Scholar

The Sustainability Scholars Summer 2025 Internship Program is a nine-week, community-based, summer fellowship which pairs Davidson College students with community partners in the Charlotte region. Applications are due February 9, 2025.

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Our Sustainability Scholars have varying interests, majors and class years.

Each is placed with a private, public, or nonprofit community institution to focus on a discrete project during the summer, and we also meet as a group to discuss how individuals and institutions can move the needle at the community-scale on environmental issues, with a particular emphasis on climate change.

Learning Objectives

Through hands-on experience and dynamic group discussion, sustainability scholars gain unique knowledge and insight as well as applicable skills, including the following.

Urgency and agency to make positive change for the environment
Familiarity with systems thinking and several sustainability-related examples
Knowledge of key climate change drivers, impacts, and policies
Knowledge of Charlotte-area sustainability challenges, opportunities, and champions
First-hand experience with alternative transportation modes
Proficiency in specific tool(s) for measuring and/or engaging sustainability
Ability to identify advantages and barriers to community-scale sustainability action from the perspectives of individuals, private-sector, public-sector and nonprofit organizations

My Davidson: A Student Blog

My Summer as a Sustainability Scholar

Jingyan Chi ’26 shares insights from his summer as a Sustainability Scholar working at Trane Technologies where he studied embodied carbon reduction and gained valuable professional experience.

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