Scot Center earns LEED Gold from U.S. Green Building Council

New athletic and recreation facility is college's first LEED-certified building

WOOSTER, Ohio, Aug. 3, 2012 – The Scot Center, the College of Wooster’s new athletic and recreation facility, has earned LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for its sustainable and energy-efficient design and construction. This is the college’s first LEED-certified building.

“This is a very proud day for Wooster,” said Grant H. Cornwell, the college’s president, “not simply, or even primarily, because of this recognition, but rather because the things we have done to earn this LEED Gold embody values that are important to the whole Wooster family: values of sustainability and responsible stewardship of the earth’s resources.”

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, “LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a building, home or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at achieving high performance in key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.”

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system awards points based dozens of variables related to a structure’s design, construction, and operation. There are four tiers of certification, based on the total number of points earned: LEED Certified, LEED Silver, LEED Gold, and LEED Platinum.

The Scot Center earned points for everything from the erosion control methods used during its construction to its low-flow showers and toilets that reduce potable water usage in the building by 41 percent. Sophisticated lighting, electrical, and HVAC systems that adjust in real time to match outdoor temperature, sunlight levels, and building occupancy help cut its energy costs by 26 percent, while a 20,000-square-foot rooftop solar array generates more than 271,000 kilowatt hours of energy per year, enough to power one of the college’s student residence halls. Thirty-eight percent of the building materials used in the Scot Center’s construction were manufactured using recycled materials.

The College of Wooster is America’s premier college for mentored undergraduate research. Wooster offers an excellent, comprehensive liberal arts education, culminating in a rigorous senior project, in which each student works one-on-one with a faculty mentor to conceive, organize and complete a significant research project on a topic of the student’s own choosing. Through this distinctive program, every Wooster student develops abilities valued by employers and graduate schools alike: independent judgment, analytical ability, creativity, project-management and time-management skills, and strong written and oral communication skills. Founded in 1866, the college enrolls approximately 2,000 students.