Building Sustainability in the Curriculum:

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Building Sustainability in the Curriculum
The Key to our Sustainable Future
Peter W. BardaglioProvost and Vice President for
Academic AffairsIthaca College
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What is sustainability?
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Sustainable Development Development that meets
the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. - Brundtland Commission, 1987
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Intersection of 3 domains
Economy
Environment
Society
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Haudenosaunee Confederacy Worldview

• Considers impact of decisions on 7th generation
• Focuses attention on future and creates sense of
  connection between generations

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Sustainability involves more than simply
minimizing negative impact of human activity on
environment
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It seeks to promote democracy and social justice,
and achieve an equitable distribution of
resources and power
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• It also seeks to foster growth of human spirit
  and transform relations of people to each other
  and to natural world
• Not a product, but a process
• Thomas Berry Great Work of 21st century

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What does sustainability thinking mean for higher
ed institutions?
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Institutions of higher education bear a profound
moral responsibility to increase the awareness,
knowledge, skills and values needed to create a
just and sustainable future. - Anthony
Cortese, Second Nature
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Dominant Paradigm in Higher Education

• Emphasizes functional learning
• Socialization and vocationalism
• Learning takes place within accepted boundaries
• Focuses more on distinctions rather than
  connections parts rather than system
• Seeks to transmit knowledge student as consumer

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An Alternative Approach Sustainable Education

• Stephen Sterling
• Emphasizes deep learning learning about
  learning
• Focuses more on connections and interdependence
  than divisions integrative
• Fosters creation instead of consumption
• Transformative we see world differently

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We need to arm our students both to dream and
take action
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We must present a sense of hopefulness to
students, and the competence to act on that hope.
Thats different from wishful thinking ignoring
problems or assuming that somehow technology or
some mythical they is going to figure it out.
- David Orr, Oberlin College
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• Education for a sustainable future should promote
  learning how to
• Respect, value, and preserve past achievements
• Appreciate the wonders and peoples of the Earth
• Provide all people with sufficient food for a
  healthy and productive life

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• Education for a sustainable future should promote
  learning how to
• Assess, care for, and restore state of our
  planet
• Create and enjoy better, safer, more just world
• Be caring citizens who exercise their rights and
  responsibilities locally, nationally, and globally

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• Participation in education for
• sustainability should
• Actively build knowledge through dialogue
• Provide skills, motivation, and confidence to
  engage in ongoing, long-term change
• Build capacity for self-reliance and
  self-organization, and strengthen community
  identity

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• The content of education for
• sustainability should
• Recognize rights of all groups to participate,
  especially minorities, women, and youth
• Help work towards locally relevant solutions
• Seek to put decision-making and responsibility
  for outcomes in hands of participants

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What are some examples of building
sustainability in the undergraduate curriculum?
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THE PONDEROSA PROJECT at Northern Arizona
University

• Began in 1995 with Department of Energy grant
• Interdisciplinary faculty group effort
• Seeks to green the curriculum introduce theme
  of environmental sustainability and reinforce it
  throughout students' educational experiences
• National model for other faculty development
  projects

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THE PONDEROSA PROJECT at Northern Arizona
University

• Guiding Assumptions
• Sustainability is responsibility of university,
  not just a program
• Best way to educate students is to integrate
  environmental perspectives into content material
  presented in variety of subjects
• How we teach is as important as what we teach

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THE PONDEROSA PROJECT at Northern Arizona
University

• Pragmatic Orientation
• Focus on ways of thinking
• Address problems facing contemporary society
• Education as unending process

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Build community through learning about place
Emory University
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• Build community to support curriculum change
• Inspired by Ponderosa
• Project
• Ad-hoc Committee on Environmental
  Stewardship (1999)
• Faculty Green Lunch Group (2000)

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Focus on place
Piedmont ecosystem
Atlanta
Emory campus
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Build community through learning about place
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Berea Colleges mission includes a long-standing
commitment that we engage in good stewardship of
our natural, human and material resources. To
that end, we are moving aggressively to transform
our College into a sustainable campus that meets
its educational and community goals without
degrading the ecological, social, and economic
systems on which our region and all of our
futures depend. - President Larry Shinn
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Sustainability and Environmental Studies

• Seeks to infuse teaching of sustainability
  concepts throughout curriculum while guiding and
  supporting campus efforts to practice
  sustainability

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• 1000 acres of farms and gardens and 8000 acres
  of forests, including reservoirs, ponds, and
  streams, serve as ecological laboratories for
  SENS classes, internships and projects

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• SENS House
• Ecologically designed residential,
  demonstration, and teaching facility

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Ecomachine at Berea College

• SENS House largely self-reliant for energy,
  water, and waste treatment, employing a wide
  range of technologies for energy conservation and
  production, water conservation, waste treatment,
  and use of local materials in construction

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• Integrating sustainability across the
• curriculum at Ithaca College
• Chief vehicle collaboration between the
  Environmental Studies Program and EcoVillage at
  Ithaca (EVI)

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EcoVillage at Ithaca

• Planned community and nonprofit organization
  outside the City of Ithaca
• 176 acres includes co-housing, habitat for land
  conservation and restoration, organic
  agriculture, and education center
• Dedicated to modeling innovative approaches to
  ecological, economic, and social sustainability

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New Environmental Studies courses

• Sustainable Communities
• Sustainable Energy Systems
• Sustainable Land Use
• Environmental Futures

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Just released by New Society Publishers
Earth Café 2050 at Sustainability Summit, Spring
2004
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• Multiplier Effect of NSF Grant
• Summer grants for sustainability across
  curriculum business administration, history,
  philosophy, recreation management, physics,
  writing, etc.
• EPA grant to study biodiversity on South Hill
• Sandra Steingraber appointed distinguished
  scholar
• Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival
• Sustainable Tompkins
• High performance building for School of Business

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• Sustainable Tompkins
• Broad-based coalition that seeks to ensure the
  long-term well-being of our communities and
  region
• Primary goal introduce the concept of
  sustainability to individuals, businesses, and
  community and government leaders

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• Sustainable Tompkins project
• teams are working on
• Developing a green building resource hub
• Sustainable land use and planning
• Promoting local production and consumption
• Alternative fuels and public transit
• Sustainable landscape design

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New High Performance Building for School of
Business

• Robert A. M. Stern Architects selected to design
  40,000 sq. ft. building
• First Platinum LEED facility in world planned
  for School of Business

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• Projected cost 14 million lead gift of 7
  million from Park family
• A 'tool of teaching' in the fullest sense of
  sustainability, so that it will model economic,
  environmental, social, ethical, and human
  performance Dean Susan West Engelkemeyer

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Vision for New Business School
Not just a building
but a way of thinking and being

• ethical business practices

• organizations as citizens

• responsible use of natural resources

IC School of Business Earns AACSB International
Accreditation April 2005
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A sustainably-designed School of Business
should give back resources
Economic

• reduced operating and maintenance costs

Social

• building community

• promoting interactive learning

Environmental

• energy production

• water management

• air quality

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How do you infuse sustainability into the
curriculum?
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• Help faculty understand
• Broad all-encompassing nature of sustainability
• Critical importance of and value in studying
  sustainability across disciplines and from
  multiple perspectives
• Interconnectedness and relative importance of
  each aspect of the economic, environmental, and
  social aspects of sustainability

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• How to foster greater understanding
• of sustainability
• Sustainability Cafés

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• How to foster greater understanding
• of sustainability
• Speakers

Bill McKibben
Betsy Taylor
Jim Merkel
David Orr
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• How to foster greater understanding
• of sustainability
• Webcasts

A (recycled, of course) Six-Pack of
Sustainability Lessons from the Past Year in
Higher Education Moderator Joe Palca, NPR
Science Correspondent
Sustainability in the Curriculum Theory to
Practice (held April 19, 2005)Moderator Geoff
Chase, San Diego State Univ.
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• How to foster greater understanding
• of sustainability
• Listserve discussions
• Support for attending sustainability conferences
• Faculty development workshops on creating a
  sustainability curriculum

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• Assess the resources you have
• Campus academic leaders supportive of
  sustainability education
• Communication tools e-newsletters, campus and
  local newspapers, radio, TV
• On-campus and local experts

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• Assess the resources you have
• Inventory existing courses with sustainability
  content
• Inventory financial resources
• Special campus funding programs
• External funding sources
• Reallocation of department resources
• Collaboration between departments to meetmutual
  training and education needs

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• Promote the resources you have
• Showcase special programs
• Website links
• Brochures
• Highlight courses in catalog and on web
• SENSE program at University of British Columbia

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• Employ both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards
• Recognition for effort
• Faculty presentations
• Academic symposia
• Success story profiles on website
• Funding for course development
• Faculty release time
• Curriculum development training workshops

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• Lessons Learned Ithaca College
• Emphasize hands-on, place-based learning
• Make use of undergraduate research opportunities
• Bring in non-academic experts as faculty
• Leverage multiplier effect

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• Lessons Learned Barlett and Chase
• Personal relationships are key
• Faculty, students, staff and administrators must
  work together
• Leadership emerges from many different sources
• Support from above is crucial

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In short, we cannot continue to operate as we
have in either higher education or society at
large. We can no longer think only in the short
term and we can no longer waste natural resources
or take the environment for granted. We must
learn to care about the needs of the global
society as much as our local community.

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Thank you!
E-mail pbardaglio_at_ithaca.edu Web
http//www.ithaca.edu/provost
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