By providing healthy food choices, by offering diverse opportunities for engaging in wellness programming, and by creating purposeful landscapes and building designs, Lehigh creates a supportive environment for enhancing health and wellness among students, faculty, and staff. Through a focus on improving the well-being of all members of our campus community, the University recognizes that good health and quality of life are essential to employee satisfaction, student engagement, and overall productivity.
Food
Lehigh is committed to supporting a healthy food system that not only supports environmental stewardship, but also respects human rights and facilitates campus involvement. Since 2013, Lehigh has been participating in the Real Food Challenge (RFC), a national campaign to encourage campuses to increase the ratio of food purchased from "conventional" to "real" food.
Growing an understanding of the true costs behind our food choices, Lehigh Dining locations will soon provide information about the carbon and water footprints of select menu items. Additionally, a new Hungry Hawks app and web interface will help minimize food waste and mitigate food insecurity by helping students locate free leftover food from catered events.
Well-Being
Recognizing and rewarding actions taken by faculty, staff, and students to make Lehigh a more sustainable campus is part of our commitment to engaging the entire community. To ensure Lehigh is a healthy and welcoming environment for all, we will implement a tobacco-free campus policy and are in the process of implementing a lactation-friendly campus standard.
Healthy Infrastructure
Enhancing pedestrian pathways and improving outdoor lighting will reduce reliance on single-occupancy vehicles and encourage walking. Following Fitwel or similar standards for certification of new campus buildings will enable Lehigh to promote and integrate best practices in occupant health and wellness in the years to come.