Higher Pursuits
Sustainability Across Curricula at Vancouver Island University: Strengthening Connections Among Faculty
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lindsay J McCunn, Nadine Cruickshanks, Don Alexander
This presentation describes the process and results of Vancouver Island University’s (VIU) recent Sustainability Across Curricula workshop held to inform and inspire faculty as they build sustainability into their courses. Many faculty at VIU have chosen to integrate topics concerning sustainability into their curricula and teaching practice. Fortunately, opportunities for faculty wanting to know more about how other educators define, teach, and research sustainability are encouraged at VIU where interdisciplinary collaborations and engagement is an institutional goal. In early 2018, VIU’s Sustainability Advisory Committee held a workshop for faculty and students to learn about how sustainability is already being taught across several disciplines, as well as what more could be done to augment collaborative course offerings with respect to sustainability. Through a keynote address, a multidisciplinary panel discussion, and a World Café activity, faculty discussed their experiences, successes, and challenges in collaborating and teaching sustainability, and integrating relevant topics into their courses. The workshop satisfied faculty’s curiosity about “who is teaching what,” and afforded opportunities to reflect on future directions. Responses to the World Café activity were systematically collected and are being content analyzed to inform administration of themes surrounding common needs and preferences for building institutional support for teaching sustainability across curricula. Data may also serve as a baseline point of comparison for additional research investigating changes to how sustainability can be taught across departments.
The Campus as an Ecocity Fractal: Delivering Sustainability Education through Living Labs
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sarah Campbell, Alexandre Hebert
In 2006, the School of Construction and the Environment (SoCE) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) initiated a project on the North end of campus aimed at creating an ecologically sustainable microcosm, or “Ecocity Fractal”. This paper reviews how, working as a living lab project, we demonstrated sustainable practices on campus, providing opportunities to engage students in the transformation of the built environment as an ecologically sustainable learning space. The goal was to reduce our footprint while maintaining services. Through energy efficiency improvements, six buildings have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 50%. Future plans to connect our educational wood-waste-to-energy district energy system will achieve reductions up to 90%. In addition to reducing our carbon footprint we are working towards the ecological restoration of the area. Projects have included hundreds of students, faculty from over a dozen programs, and members of the BCIT service departments. The co-benefits of pursuing sustainability on campus have been numerous and provide a model for other communities and educational institutions. Students reported higher levels of satisfaction and improved workplace quality. We have improved health and safety, air quality, classroom delivery, campus look and feel, and improved the sense of pride and ownership in our educators.
Curricular and Co-curricular Activities to Embrace Sustainability Practices on Campus and Beyond
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ganesh Naik
College of Saint Mary (CSM) is a private liberal arts university located in Omaha, Nebraska. It was founded based on the mission and values of the Sisters of Mercy. Earth and Sustainability are important “critical concerns” of Sisters of Mercy and to embrace this mission we developed a new eighteen-credit hour interdisciplinary academic minor in Environmental Sustainability. The new curriculum has allowed students from various majors to build a broader understanding of sustainability, including how environmental concerns intersect with economic and social justice issues. Curricular and co-curricular activities were designed to increase the students’ understanding of Anthropocene, climate change, and Earth's limited capacity to support all forms of life and to provide for the needs of human society. The focus of this study is on different strategies used to increase students’ understanding of sustainability issues and climate change. There is also a discussion on the CSM climate action plan and different green campus initiatives undertaken to reduce the university’s carbon footprint.
