The Sustainability Across the Curriculum Program, formerly known as the Penstemon Project, supports faculty to integrate sustainability across the curriculum in every school and department at SCU. The program offers funding and training for faculty, strengthening our campus culture of sustainability. The Program also keeps an inventory of all courses that include sustainability, building our reputation as a leader in higher education.
According to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), sustainability-related courses address two or more of the following dimensions of sustainability: “social wellbeing, economic prosperity, and/or environmental health.”
The Sustainability Across the Curriculum Program supports faculty to develop courses that are sustainability-focused or that simply include sustainability as a component.
In a sustainability-focused course, “the primary and explicit focus is on sustainability and/or on understanding or solving one or more major sustainability challenges.”
A course that includes sustainability is “primarily focused on a topic other than sustainability, but incorporates a unit or module on sustainability or a sustainability challenge, includes one or more sustainability-focused activities, or integrates sustainability issues throughout the course.”
Sustainability challenges include “climate change, global poverty and inequality, natural resource depletion, environmental degradation,” and many others. For example, a course addresses a relevant challenge if it helps to realize one or more principles in the Earth Charter or one or more of the targets listed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Have more questions about what counts? Feel free to e-mail Chad Raphael (craphael@scu.edu).
Since 2007, the Program has offered annual stipends and professional development workshops for faculty members who want to revise an existing course or design a new one to include sustainability. Workshops introduce a host of teaching resources and offer individualized support, while recognizing that faculty members are the experts in their fields. See examples of Sustainability Across the Curriculum participants' curricula. See the Sustainability Data Hub to learn more about past participants.
While stipends are sometimes arranged on a departmental or school basis, any faculty member can query Chad Raphael (craphael@scu.edu) with an idea for adding a sustainability component to a course or developing a new course focused on sustainability. Awards are restricted to full-time faculty who anticipate teaching at SCU the following year. Stipend recipients commit to attend a workshop in spring quarter and to submit their revised syllabi at the end of the following summer.
Drawing data from the University Registrar, department chairs, and the faculty, the Center for Sustainability compiles an annual inventory of sustainability courses taught each year and their enrollment. We report the data to AASHE, using its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). Visit the Sustainability Data Hub to see our progress.
The Sustainability Curriculum Advisory Council assists the workshop by supporting the infusion of sustainability across the university’s curriculum. Members review our curriculum inventory (process and results) and recommend faculty members to receive summer stipends for curriculum transformation. They also collaborate to develop ideas to further sustainability-related curricular development.
