Arizona State University
AC-1: Academic Courses

This course inventory was completed with support from University Sustainability Practices, the College of Global Futures, and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.

The data set used for this report reflects one academic year - Fall 2021, Spring 2022, and Summer 2022.

The following logic was used to filter our course catalog and create the data set that we ultimately inventoried:
- Courses with zero enrollment were removed
- Individually-directed courses were removed
- Remedial English Courses & ASU Bridge/Orientation Courses were removed
- Non-credit courses were removed
- Courses that are strictly practice-oriented, e.g. medical courses dedicated to clinical practice, art courses dedicated to performance, technique, or composition, and physical education courses that are activity-based were removed.
- Cross-listed courses were removed (so that only one instance of the course remained)
- Duplicate sections were removed
- Special topics were removed (many of these courses address sustainability but they are highly variable year to year; removing them better reflects the core of ASU's courses)

The final data set provided was further reviewed to filter out ROTC courses as their content is determined by an external body. It was also reviewed to remove additional practice-oriented courses that were not automatically removed based on earlier guidance.


To identify sustainability-focused and sustainability-inclusive courses, the following steps were taken:

(1) Courses offered through the School of Sustainability were automatically designated as sustainability-focused -- generally courses with the following prefixes:
SOS (School of Sustainability)
EMS (Executive Sustainability Leadership)
SFS (Sustainable Food Systems)

(2) Course descriptions were reviewed to determine if courses were clearly identifiable as sustainability-focused based on the criteria in the Technical Manual

(3) Course descriptions were reviewed to determine if courses had connections to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Targets in order to mark them as sustainability-inclusive.

(4) The Office of the Provost sent an email out to deans asking them to help identify sustainability courses in their areas. Feedback gathered from this survey was generally used to identify courses as sustainability-inclusive. The majority of feedback was accepted directly into the inventory as those working with the course material know it best. However, some feedback identifying courses that included or focused on sustainability was not integrated as appeared to either be a clerical error or a misunderstanding of the definition of sustainability.

Note:
When considering sustainability-inclusive courses, efforts were made to differentiate between conceptual courses that would provide knowledge that was useful in sustainability work with those that applied it to real-world situations. For example, SWU 320, Research Methods in Social Work, was not marked as a sustainability-inclusive course (Course description: Applies critical research principles and methods to conceptualizing problems, informing social work practice and evaluating practice.) However, SWU 374, Diversity and Oppression in Social Work was marked as a sustainability-inclusive course (Course description: Issues of social inequality related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Emphasizes populations of the Southwest.)

Each course was counted as a single course regardless of the number of offerings or sections. For example, if a course had multiple sections that were offered over different campuses (including online) or over different semesters, the course was only counted once.

Departments listed in this report are based on departmental affiliations listed by the Office of Institutional Analysis for tenured and tenure-track faculty. This credit reports one less department than AC-9 because the School of Ocean Futures did not yet exist during the course inventory period.