Re: Campus Sustainability Course

[David A. Sonnenfeld]

Hi Rob, 
 
Please see the announcement from AASHE, below, of possible interest for your course. I've used a related text, also from MIT Press, Greening the Ivory Tower, by Sarah Creighton, in one of my classes; very helpful. Good luck!
 
Kind regards, 
David Sonnenfeld


 
***

Sustainability Across the Curriculum Leadership Workshops


AASHE's Sustainability Across the Curriculum Leadership workshops are for faculty leaders of all disciplines who wish to develop curriculum change programs around sustainability on their campuses.
Through an intensive two days of presentations, exercises, discussions, reflection, and planning, participants will become familiar with the philosophy of change in higher education developed through the Ponderosa Project at Northern Arizona University and adapted at Emory in the Piedmont Project. Participants will also experience a range of workshop strategies, hear local experts, enjoy outdoor place-based activities, and dialogue with faculty from around the country as they gain help in adapting this model to their own campus. In a supportive and stimulating environment, workshop members will reflect on their own roles in the transformation of higher education. Readings and materials will also be provided.
These highly successful workshops are led by Geoffrey Chase of San Diego State University and Peggy Barlett of Emory University. Peggy and Geoff are editors of Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change, published by MIT Press in 2004. Peggy and Geoff have many years of experience leading these kinds of workshops and have helped more than 200 faculty on several campuses revise courses in a wide array of disciplines.
Comments from past attendees:

Hit the nail on the head! 
This was way better than I anticipated. It helped to revitalize and refocus my efforts. 
The pacing kept us awake, engaged and having fun. 
One of the best workshops I have ever attended. 
Excellent!! Well worth my time. Thank you. 
The workshop provided all that I expected to get and a chance to talk with so many interesting folks about ideas and programs. 
Thanks for very pleasant educational experience!!! 
This is a wonderful workshop that should be offered every year. The organization of the workshop was fantastic. 
Workshop tuition is $350 for AASHE members and $390 for non-members. Tuition covers snacks and lunches on both days of the workshop, handouts, materials, and an evening reception on the first day of the workshop.
Upcoming Workshops
July 12-13 (Thurs-Fri), 2007San Diego State University, CAApplication Process: To apply, please email a completed application to AASHE Associate Director Julian Dautremont-Smith at [EMAIL PROTECTED] by May 18, 2007. Payment will be worked out after the selection committee has had a chance to review all of the applications. Please do not book flights or your room until your application has been accepted. 
Previous Workshops
January 11-12 2007 - Emory UniversityJuly 20-21 2006 - San Diego State UniversityJanuary 5-6 2006 - Emory University 

Fwd: greening campus course

[B. Welling Hall]

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.4

Hi Robert,

Welling Hall passed along your request.  I've taught about sustainability,
focusing on campus, a number of times.  I also convened a working group
that put together an environmental report and plan for the campus.

I've attached the syllabus from an information-gathering course, as well
as the final report for the course.  If you find those helpful, I can dig
up some other stuff.

My biggest warning -- from the beginning realize that the course will
cross over into the territory of administrators at your school.  You will
not be able to make a strictly academic experience. And that will
complicate your life (in interesting and good ways). You can take
advantage of student motivation to allow interesting and useful
initiatives to get under way -- but you won't have control over them in
ways to which you are accustomed.  I can provide few anecdotes if you
wish.

Have fun with this.

Mic
+++
Mic Jackson, Ph.D.
Professor of Mathematics
Director of Environmental Programs
Earlham College
Richmond, IN 47374-4095
www.cs.earlham.edu/~micj




B. Welling Hall, Ph.D.
Professor of Politics and International Studies
Director of Model UN Program
Earlham College
Richmond, IN 47374-4095
USA

Email: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]edu

Voice:  765.983.1208
Fax:765.983.1207
Model UN page:  http://www.earlham.edu/~modelun

Those of us who work in universities should have it as our aim to 
make young people understand that all existing social systems have a 
history.  None of them is natural or inevitable. We have made them 
all, including the disgracefully primitive international system. We 
have to remove from the minds of the young . . . the disempowering 
idea that what happens to exist now is inevitable and 
permanent.  (Philip Allott, The Health of Nations, p. 154)


Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a 
particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe.  As 
it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes 
between truth and idolatry. . . There is a world of difference 
between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, 
inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that 
God is always on one's side and that what one wills oneself cannot 
fail to be willed by God also.  (Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among 
Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace,  p. 13)



Title: Greening Earlham Syllabus




EnPr 484, Greening Earlham  Winter 2004 / 9 MWF / D209 
Mic Jackson, D208  x1620, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Introduction  
Our work has three primary goals.
 
 Develop a baseline description of Earlham's current environmental status.  Our work will be based on the modern ideas and practices related to the notion of "environmental footprint".  We will make use of previous studies done at Earlham and relevant work done on other campuses.  We will work in consulation with Earlham's Vice President for Financial Affairs, the person who is most involved with the economic implications of changes to current practices.  We will also, at all times, consider ways in which we might better educate the Earlham community concerning more sustainable practices.
 Develop an initial set of measures of sustainability which can be maintained and updated over time, inexpensively.  My hope is that these measures will provide a basis for long-term planning and progress toward Earlham becoming a more sustainable community.
 Determine strategies by which members of the Earlham community can grow in their awareness of and commitment to sustainable lifestyle choices. 




Resources 
There are an overwhelming number of websites and organizations with information and ideas related to environmental sustainability.  I have downloaded useful documents from some of them, and we will investigate and make use of many more. The course folder on the server PAX contains a number of documents relating to sustainability, ecological footprints or performance, green campus initiatives, an audit of Earlham carried out in 1999 by students, etc. 
Below is a single link, I'll add others as we find useful ones.

 Questions and ideas put forth by you and others on campus.
 


Initial Ideas for Projects

 Energy

 
 Transportation

 
 Wastes

 
 Water 
 
 Grounds, Landscaping, Pest Managment
 
 
 Food

 
 Paper

 


Evaluation  
Each of you will choose an area of study and spend most of your course energy this semester learning about that area, finding what other institutions have done and their outcomes, evaluating the adaptability of the work of others to Earlham, and developing proposals for implementation of specific greening activities at Earlham.
 Near the end