Mission

Energize Colleges is a program of Strategic Energy Innovations (SEI) launched in 2016. We support a network of California colleges and universities to advance energy and sustainability education and workforce development through experiential learning.

SEI is a nonprofit dedicated to helping communities embrace sustainability. The Energize Colleges program, along with Energize Schools offers K-College energy education and workforce development to thousands of students each year. 

Energize Colleges is a vehicle for creating a cleaner, healthier, and more resilient future by training the engineers, analysts, building scientists, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs who will lead the transformation to a clean energy future. 
Energize Colleges and SEI staff were quoted in the Climate Change Business Journal.

Program Structure

In the first year of a campus' participation in the Energize Colleges program, SEI will place a full time Climate Corps Fellow at the campus. Fellows are college graduates who will lead climate and energy internship and education projects on the campus, while developing energy career pathways. Each Fellow will have a site supervisor on campus, typically a faculty or staff member who serves as a direct supervisor and provides support.

​Each Fellow in turn recruits and supports a number of current college students in finding and completing an internship direcly related to one of the eight energy career pathways identified as part of this program. The program also supports participating campuses by providing grants to faculty to develop courses and curriculum that strengthen these career pathways.

For more information about our career pathways and how we support campuses, visit the Education page.

For more information about fellowships, visit the Fellowships page.

For more information about internships visit the Internships page.

About Strategic Energy Innovations

Founded in 1997, Strategic Energy Innovations (SEI) is a nonprofit that develops and delivers solutions customized to help communities accomplish their sustainability goals.  SEI’s creative team of problem solvers supports communities to adopt clean, energy efficient technologies and practices, and facilitates the valuable training people need to build a successful career in the green economy. 

Energize Colleges is funded by California utility customers under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission.
Strategic Energy Innovations is the program implementer.