A Model for Equity-Centered Campus GIS: How Howard University Is Using Esri to Advance HBCUs on the Sustainability Map
For decades, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been at the center of environmental justice work, embedded in the communities most exposed to climate risk and most underserved by climate infrastructure investment.
The pattern is well documented: institutions like Howard University sit in neighborhoods bearing disproportionate exposure to industrial pollution, urban heat, and flooding, and HBCU faculty have spent decades doing the often overlooked work of community science and environmental literacy in those same neighborhoods, often without the institutional infrastructure or recognition that larger, well-resourced universities take for granted. Yet when national higher education sustainability ranking systems and assessment frameworks publish their data, HBCUs are almost entirely absent.
As of June 2026, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s official list of 410 institutions holding a STARS rating contains, to our knowledge, zero HBCUs. The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, or STARS, is the national benchmark for campus sustainability performance, administered by AASHE, and a rated campus gains real, material advantages: eligibility for major federal and foundation climate funding streams, inclusion in national sustainability rankings that shape student enrollment decisions, and a seat at the table in setting the standards by which all of higher education is measured. This absence is not a reflection of commitment, dedication, or capability. In many cases it is a reflection of resourcing and robust data collection.
Figure 1. Howard University, Aerial view circa 1938 (Source: Negatives Collection, #740. Howard University Archives, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC, United States.).
Howard University, established in 1867 and one of the nation's most distinguished and research-active HBCUs, sits in one of the most transit-rich and policy-active cities in the country, if not the world. Its campus spans more than 115 buildings across roughly 258 acres along Washington, DC's Georgia Avenue corridor, a historically under-resourced neighborhood now at the center of major climate and environmental justice policy conversations (Bullard, 1990; Tessum et al., 2021).
As the University's own Central Campus Master Plan affirms, Howard "occupies a unique niche in higher education both in terms of its remarkable legacy and future potential," recognized by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education as "a national treasure as the foremost research university ensuring the education of African American leaders for the nation and the world" (Howard University, 2021, p. 38). That legacy extends directly into the neighborhoods surrounding campus: Howard faculty have long partnered with community organizations such as Empower DC, "focusing on environmental justice efforts that include varying levels of citizen science, community development and environmental literacy" in Ivy City and Barry Farms (Howard University, 2021, p. 209).
For almost three years, Howard has partnered with Esri, which has provided ArcGIS software at no cost for educational, training, and research purposes. Shoot for the STARS is one of the many outcomes of that partnership, applying the full power of the ArcGIS platform to one of the most consequential data gaps in higher education sustainability.
The Classroom as a Research Lab
The data that powers Howard's campus sustainability map did not come from a facilities office or a contracted GIS firm. Beginning several years ago, in conjunction with her Sustainability Topics course, Dr. Janelle Burke charged students to work together on a class project researching and combining common campus sustainability metrics. This research was compiled by former student, Melea Earley into an Esri StoryMap documenting Howard University's campus sustainability efforts and initiatives. In her Introduction to Environmental Studies course, Dr. Quarkume greatly standardized and expanded the mapping effort, with the project quickly expanding into a university-wide participatory data collection initiative.
First starting with a comprehensive survey of 80 HBCUs conducted by Howard student researchers, in partnership with Brookhaven Nation Lab and revealed the depth of that data and sustainability gap: while 72% of surveyed institutions maintain environmental academic programs, only 35% have dedicated sustainability offices, compared to more than 70% at peer institutions.
Faculty, students, and staff used ArcGIS Field Maps to conduct systematic campus surveys, walking on the campus grounds building zone, documenting infrastructure, and collecting the georeferenced data that would become the foundation of Howard's sustainability dataset. For many students, it was their first experience doing original field research, and for Howard, it has produced institutional sustainability data at a scale and level of detail that directly supports STARS certification reporting.
Figure 2: Intro to Environmental Studies class completing a mapping and planting activity at Howard University H.A.L.O Garden
One student, Kiera Hale, is taking the work further, recognizing that urban tree canopy is one of the most critical and most overlooked dimensions of campus sustainability. As part of the data collection for her Honors thesis, the HU Tree Survey, Kiera Hale has recorded the diameter at breast height (DBH), species, and coordinates of 170+ trees in the field before mapping them digitally using ArcGIS FieldMaps.
Mapping Howard’s campus trees is essential data because it can serve as a baseline dataset for students to explore deeper ecological questions, connect to their campus as an urban ecosystem, and understand how its ecosystem services impact their lived experiences. Funded by the Garden Club of America-Casey Trees Urban Forestry Fellowship, her work connects directly to Howard's heat island vulnerability, stormwater management capacity, and biodiversity credits, and it demonstrates precisely the kind of student-generated, institution-specific data that the STARS framework rewards.
Figure 3: Kiera Hale measuring a campus tree (left); Howard University Tree Campus Map (right)
This work showcases the power of participatory GIS: when a campus community becomes the data collection team, the resulting dataset reflects the lived knowledge of the people who inhabit the space every day, producing richer, more accurate, and more actionable sustainability intelligence than any top-down data collection approach could achieve.
The Solution: A Living Campus Sustainability Map
Using ArcGIS Online, Howard University staff and students in partnership with the Office of Sustainability, developed a live Howard University Campus Sustainability mapping platform that integrates building footprints, sustainability indicators, and AASHE STARS credit categories into a single web-based geospatial interface. Organized around the STARS framework's eight performance domains, the application functions as a thematic layer stack in which each dataset is published as a discrete spatial overlay and is progressively updated as field verification and data collection are completed. Students document solar panel installations, building energy systems, water infrastructure, stormwater management features, transportation access, waste station locations, and now the trees.
Figure 4: New Howard University Digital Campus Map Dashboard
The Energy: Solar Panels layer, already active within the dashboard, maps four installed solar systems and six pending installations across Howard's campus, including Locke Hall, the Blackburn Center, the School of Business, and Burr Gymnasium. This layer translates Howard's broader climate commitments into a navigable, building-by-building record: the University's own Central Campus Master Plan calls for new and renovated buildings to be designed toward a goal of Net Zero by 2030, with energy modeling treated as a design and cost-control tool rather than an afterthought (Howard University, 2021, p. 161).
The dashboard makes that institutional commitment visible at the scale of an individual rooftop. Clicking any location surfaces a detailed popup with installation status, campus role, and narrative context, turning what would otherwise be a static facilities inventory into an interactive record of the University's energy transition in progress. The School of Business entry reads: "Solar panels are installed and currently operating.
This active system integrates renewable energy directly into one of Howard's flagship academic buildings, serving as a real-world model for future business leaders studying sustainability alongside their coursework." Read alongside the other six pending installations, the layer does double duty: it documents what has already been built, and it makes visible the work still ahead, the kind of transparent, building-level accounting that STARS reporting itself ultimately requires, but that few HBCUs have had the data infrastructure to produce at this resolution before now.
This project constitutes a structured geospatial layer stack of more than 1,000 mapped features (see Table 1) currently covering roughly half of the Central Campus, with mapping extending next across Howard's full institutional footprint: the West Campus (Law and Divinity), the East Campus (Health Sciences), the Beltsville Research Campus, and Howard University Hospital. Organized by sustainability and operational domain, each dataset functions as an addressable overlay supporting spatial analysis, wayfinding, and facilities-level visibility university-wide.
Table 1: Howard University Campus Map Data Matrix | ||
Category | Layer | What the Layer Shows |
Buildings | Main Central Campus Buildings | Howard campus buildings and major campus destinations |
LEED / Green Certified Buildings | LEED and LEED Gold certified buildings | |
Energy | Solar Panels | Installed, pending, and no-solar building locations |
Transportation | Parking | Campus parking lots and garages |
Bike Racks | Bicycle parking rack locations across campus | |
Metro Bus Stops | WMATA bus stops in and around the campus area | |
Bike Lanes | DDOT bicycle lane network near and around campus | |
Bikeshare | Capital and other bikeshare docking stations | |
Metro Stations | Nearby WMATA Metrorail stations | |
Waste | Trash Bins | Campus trash receptacle locations |
Recycle Bins | Campus recycling bin locations | |
Grounds | Benches | Outdoor seating and bench locations |
Food & Dining | Dining Halls and Food Services | Dining halls, cafes, markets, and campus food service locations |
With student data collection underway each semester. Each new layer brings Howard closer to a complete STARS submission and closer to becoming the first HBCU in history to achieve certification.
What Gets Mapped Next: Howard's Sustainability Roadmap
The power of a living GIS platform is that it grows with the institution's ambitions. As Howard launches new sustainability initiatives in the coming years, each one will be documented, mapped, and measured within the same Esri platform, creating the longitudinal dataset that STARS certification and federal climate funding require.
Upcoming projects that will be tracked and visualized through the campus sustainability map include:
- an expanded recycling program with mapped station coverage and gap analysis
- a food waste reduction initiative documenting dining hall diversion rates and composting locations
- an e-waste reduction program tracking collection station locations and annual diversion volumes
- an expanded Green Move Out project mapping donation and collection zones across residential facilities
- scooter charging and storage station infrastructure
- improved stormwater capture features including rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable pavement zones
- a green roofs development project documenting vegetated roof installations across the building portfolio.
A redesigned sustainability and green initiatives website will serve as the public-facing hub connecting the campus community and external partners to the live map and the data behind it.
Building a Digital Twin and Replicating the Model
As the dataset deepens and layers activate across semesters, the Howard Campus Sustainability Map becomes the foundation for a campus digital twin, a living and continuously updated model of the university's physical sustainability infrastructure usable for energy planning, capital investment decisions, federal grant applications, and ongoing student research. The urban tree canopy layer, combined with Esri's Living Atlas surface temperature data, will produce a heat island map showing exactly where Howard's campus is most thermally vulnerable and where green infrastructure investment would have the greatest climate benefit. Layering flood zone boundaries and regional climate exposure data over Howard's campus boundary will further connect institutional sustainability performance to the neighborhood equity context that makes HBCU climate work distinct from any other campus GIS application in the country.
What makes Shoot for the STARS most significant, however, is not what it accomplishes at Howard alone. Beginning Fall 2026, with support from the Yale University ASCEND research initiative Howard will partner with four additional HBCUs to replicate the Esri-based sustainability mapping model. Each partner campus will integrate the same ArcGIS Online platform, deploy ArcGIS Field Maps for participatory data collection, and build out their own STARS-aligned sustainability layer architecture, with Howard students serving as peer mentors guiding their HBCU counterparts through the process. The project includes a full replication guide built for institutions with limited sustainability staffing, documenting every step of the GIS data collection process, a STARS credit category map, every Esri tool deployed, and a course integration model, so that any HBCU environmental studies or data science course can begin building its institution's digital sustainability footprint without starting from scratch.
Howard University's Shoot for the STARS initiative demonstrates what becomes possible when GIS is placed in the hands of the people who know their campus best: its students, faculty, and staff. Powered by a three-year partnership with Esri, what began in an Introduction to Environmental Studies classroom, has now developed into creating a replicable infrastructure model ready to scale. Learn more about Shoot for the STARS at hbcustars.org.
References:
Bullard, R.D. (1990). Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Westview Press.
Howard University. (2021). Central Campus Master Plan, April 2021 submission. Office of Real Estate Development, pp. 38, 209.
Tessum, C.W., Paolella, D.A., Chambliss, S.E., Apte, J.S., Hill, J.D., & Marshall, J.D. (2021). PM2.5 polluters disproportionately and systemically affect people of color in the United States. Science Advances, 7(18), eabf4491.
