Dr. Barbara Malt, the Director of the Cognitive Science Program at Lehigh and a member of the Lehigh Sustainability Council, recently attended the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) “Sustainability Across the Curriculum” Leadership Workshop. The purpose of this workshop was to guide campus leaders in curriculum development through an intensive two days of presentations, exercises, discussions, reflections and planning. This concept of integrating sustainability across the curriculum is a university initiative at many institutions of higher education, including at Lehigh. Dr. Malt shared her experience at the workshop and the role she plays on the Lehigh Sustainability Council with us. Here’s what Dr. Malt told us:
Q1: What does it mean to integrate sustainability across the curriculum?
There are certain types of courses that everyone would think of in connection with sustainability, such as those in the departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Environmental Engineering. What it means to integrate sustainability across the curriculum is for students to be exposed to other facets of sustainability issues and the whole range of disciplines that help address them, by including sustainability content in many other courses.
Q2: Why do you think sustainability should be further integrated across the curriculum at Lehigh?
There are several reasons! First, some students go through their time at Lehigh without taking courses in areas such as Earth and Environmental Sciences and Environmental Engineering. By including sustainability content in other courses, we will ensure that every student graduates from Lehigh with some education about this topic. Second, it will expose students to different aspects of sustainability, and how various disciplines contribute to addressing them. For instance, a sociology or political science course might consider environmental challenges in urban areas and how income level affects exposure to environmental hazards. Third, being exposed to sustainability issues repeatedly and across different disciplines will help students appreciate the fundamental importance of this topic to their futures and to their roles as leaders in the 21st century.
Q3: What has the Lehigh Sustainability Council’s curriculum subcommittee done so far to help promote and encourage the integration of sustainability across the curriculum?
The Lehigh Sustainability Council’s curriculum subcommittee has taken several steps to encourage integration of sustainability across the curriculum. In 2016 and 2017 the subcommittee conducted a survey of all courses in the university catalog to identify the ones that were either sustainability-focused or had some sustainability content. The subcommittee found that slightly more than half of the departments on campus offer at least one course that fits into one of those categories, but only about eight percent of all the courses at Lehigh fall into one of the categories. As a result of the survey, the subcommittee now has a good understanding of the current status, and a baseline against which to measure improvement.
During spring 2018, members of the subcommittee also visited each college’s faculty meeting to talk about the importance of sustainability as part of a Lehigh education. The subcommittee then followed up with two, one-hour lunchtime workshops, open to all faculty, to begin a conversation about increasing sustainability content in the curriculum. The workshops presented examples of existing courses with sustainability content from several disciplines and identified some campus resources that can be used in integrating more into courses.
Q4: What were the main takeaways from the AASHE workshop?
The AASHE workshop provided a lot of useful takeaways. They included:
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- We need to help faculty see how sustainability relates to the range of disciplines they work and teach in. Many people think of recycling or electric cars in connection with sustainability, but haven’t considered the links to the arts and humanities, social and economic systems, education, health, individual and group behavior, and so on.
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- Some simple participatory exercises can help faculty see the potential for their disciplines. At the AASHE workshop, we each sat at a different campus location for 15 minutes to think about how that spot could be used to ground discussion of sustainability in our own discipline. A parking lot, for instance, brought up ideas about not only loss of natural lands and stormwater management, but also commuter habits, mass transit, and carpooling, which in turn linked to social norms and economic incentive impacts.
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- There are many different ways to incorporate sustainability into courses. These range from creating a whole new course or shifting the focus of an existing course (e.g., teaching accounting using sustainable businesses), to integrating a new module (e.g., a module on environmental justice in a course on social justice), to using sustainability topics as the content area for assignments that have a different purpose (e.g., teaching writing by using nature or environmental challenges as the topic for essays or poems, or doing math problems with climate change content).
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- The networking created by participants in a workshop can be a valuable source of support and inspiration that lasts long after the workshop ends.
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- A modest financial incentive can do a lot to attract participation (and making payment contingent on turning in a revised course syllabus or new module, set of exercises, etc. ensures that the money is well spent).
Q5: What are the next steps for the Lehigh Sustainability Council’s curriculum subcommittee?
The curriculum subcommittee needs to begin figuring out how to implement an AASHE-like workshop in a format that will work best for Lehigh. That means not only timing and topics, but how to take advantage of our campus and south Bethlehem resources.
Dr. Malt, and the rest of the Lehigh Sustainability Council curriculum subcommittee, are committed to further integrating sustainability across the curriculum. They understand that our students are inheriting a world, and shaping a world, in which sustainability literacy is crucial. In order to teach new generations of leaders to address the coming challenges, we must demonstrate the application of sustainability principles through academic, workplace, and residential experiences. In doing so, we will create opportunities for students to use the campus as a living laboratory, as well as engage with the local, international, and corporate partners to advance solutions that will solve 21st century problems.