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New Jersey City University (NJCU) is one of 25 higher education institutions around the country that has received a 2010 Kresge Fellowship Award from the Boston-based nonprofit Second Nature.

The fellowships, part of Second Nature’s Advancing Green Building in Higher Education Initiative, are designed to provide under-resourced institutions with information and networking opportunities that will develop champions for green building on their campuses. There were 60 applicants for the fellowships in 2010; NJCU was the only school in New Jersey to receive an award.

“The Kresge fellows are becoming key players in the education for sustainability movement,” Second Nature president Dr. Anthony Cortese says in a statement. “We’re thrilled to welcome the selected 2010 fellows to this effort, and we are excited to support them as they champion green building on their own campuses and beyond.”

Through the program, each school selects a leader to attend one of two green building conferences for free. NJCU has selected Kathy Monteiro, the project director of the university’s West Campus Development Project (illustrated in a rendering at right). Monteiro will attend the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference in Denver this October.

The West Campus project is an ambitious mixed-use development that will expand NJCU along Jersey City’s west side; it will fully redevelop one large parcel into an urban street grid, complete with everything from retail space to housing to classroom space. It is part of the larger Bayfront Redevelopment Area, which aims to turn the formerly industrial Hackensack Riverfront into a mixed-use community comprising 4,000 to 8,600 residential units and between 750,000 and 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, as well as more than 20 acres of open space.