Higher Education for Sustainability Cases, Challenges, and Opportunities from Across the Curriculum

Student and employer demand, high-level institutional commitment, and faculty interest are inspiring the integration of sustainability oriented themes into higher education curricula and research agendas. Moving toward sustainability calls for shifts in practice such as interdisciplinary collaboration and partnerships for engaged learning. This timely edited collection provides a glimpse at the ways colleges and universities have integrated sustainability across the curriculum. The research-based chapters provide empirical studies of both traditional and innovative degree programs as well as case studies from professional schools. Chapter authors illustrate some of the inclusive and deliberative community and political processes that can lead to sustainable learning outcomes in higher education. Exploring the range of approaches campuses are making to successfully integrate sustainability into the curricula, this much-needed resource provides inspiration, guidance, and instruction for others seeking to take education for sustainability to the next level.

Foreword: When You Wake Up Tomorrow, Paul Rowland

Chapter 1: Introduction: What’s Required to Take EfS to the Next Level? Dedee DeLongpre Johnston and Lucas Johnston

SECTION 1: Understanding the Landscape for Change

Chapter 2: The Emerging Environmental Sustainability Program at Meredith College: Exploring Student and Faculty Interest and Participation, Laura Fieselman and Erin Lindquist

Chapter 3: Understanding Student Environmental Interests When Designing Multidisciplinary Curriculum, Jeremy T. Bruskotter, Greg Hitzhusen, Robyn S. Wilson, Adam Zwickle

Chapter 4: Learning Outcomes: An International Comparison of Countries and Declarations, Debra Rowe and Lucas Johnston

SECTION 2: Sustainability Across the Curriculum: Strategies and Tactics

Chapter 5: Systems Study of an International Masters Program: A Case from Sweden, Sanaz Karim, Nadarajah Sriskandarajah, Asa Heiter

Chapter 6: Keys to Breaking Disciplinary Barriers that Limit Sustainable Development Courses, William Van Lopik

SECTION 3: Educating the Professional

Chapter 7: Strategies for Transforming Healthcare Curricula: A Call for Collaboration between Academia and Practitioners, Carrie Rich and Seema Wadhwa

Chapter 8: Sustainability and Professional Identity in Engineering Education, Mark Minster, Patricia D. Brackin, Rebecca DeVasher, Erik Z Hayes, Richard House, Corey Taylor

Chapter 9: Implementing Environmental Sustainability in the Global Hospitality, Tourism, and Leisure Industries: Developing a Comprehensive Cross-Disciplinary Curriculum, Michelle Millar, Chris Brown, Cynthia Carruthers, Thomas Jones, Yen-Soon Kim, Carola Raab, Ken Teeters, Li-Ting Yang

SECTION 4: Problem-Based Learning

Chapter 10: Everybody’s Business: Addressing the Challenge of Team-Teaching Partnerships in the Global Seminar, Tamara Savelyeva

Chapter 11: The Moral Ecology of Everyday Life, James J. Farrell

Chapter 12: The Living Home: Building It into the Curriculum, Braum Barber and Leona Rousseau

SECTION 5: Transformational Approaches

Chapter 13: Shaping Sustainability at Furman and Middlebury: Emergent and Adaptive Curricular Models, Angela C. Halfacre, Michelle Horhota, Katherine Kransteuber, Brittany DeKnight, Brannon Andersen, Jack Byrne, Steve Trombulak, Nan Jenks-Jay

Chapter 14: Stepping Up to the Challenge—The Dalhousie Experience, Tarah Wright

Chapter 15: Sustainability as a Transformation in Education, Charles L. Redman

Chapter 16: Toward a Resilient Academy, Richard M. Carp

Epilogue

About the Contributors

Lucas F. Johnston is Assistant Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies and a Faculty Associate in the Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (CEES) at Wake Forest University, USA.