Sustainability in Higher Education

Re: Suggested topics for this blog

2007-06-20T00:42:00.000-07:00

Having been through an engineering degree program recently I have some
thoughts on the topics in the previous post.

1. The university's role in engaging students is to treat sustainability
as part of the core curriculum. This is especially true for the sciences
and applied sciences.

3. Instructional resources already exist. The best way to teach
sustainable planning is to focus on points 1,8, and 9. Dedicating whole
courses to the subject and hiring for expertise in sustainability seem
like the obvious first steps to take.

9. Cross-discipline collaboration at the student level has been elusive
for many university programs because it quickly butts up with the
hierarchal structure of most schools. Even a leading school like MIT has
found this type of integration difficult to achieve. At the same time, I
think it is perhaps the single most valuable tool for accomplishing #1.
Having guest lecturers teach students outside their discipline is a step
in the right direction.

Points 2,4,5,6,7,8,10 can all be addressed by setting up a
sustainability office on campus. A few employees can do a whole lot in
this regard, aided by student and faculty engagement.

I found your website while doing research for the review I am putting
together. It is a collection of talks related to sustainability.
http://mpages.org/wv/
Regards,
Mike Simons

Suggested topics for this blog

2007-05-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

Here are a few topics that have come up as we've been developing our
presentation "A New Course for Higher Education." What do you think
about:

1. Ways to get students to care about sustainability.
2. Getting buy-in from administration to address greening the campus.
3. Resources for instructions so they may easily incorporate
sustainability in their curriculum.
4. Creative methods of funding green projects.
5. Communicating green efforts to the community and alumni without
greenwashing.
6. Addressing the choice to have green buildings certified versus
using green building guidelines alone.
7. Moving beyond the "low hanging fruit" projects to more substantial
green efforts.
8. How to involve students in major campus projects to turn them into
learning experiences.
9. Methods of nurturing cross-discipline collaboration on green
curriculum development.
10. Effective ways to address global warming on campus.

Welcome to the ACP higher education community blog

2007-05-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

We have developed this blog to connect everyone involved with sustainability in higher education. It's designed to serve as a platform to share stories, resources, lessons learned and advice about colleges and universities going green. Administrators, campus staff, faculty and students are welcome to participate.

From time-to-time, we might share information gained from the production of our Web page on sustainability in higher education.

Best,
Doug and Dave