Ball State University
ER-15: Sustainability Research Identification

The BSU Council on the Environment (COTE) developed "A statement on Sustainability" which susequently was vetted by the full university community on these dates: 25 March 2002: Adopted by COTE 15 April 2002: Endorsed by - Senior Staff 17 April 2002: Endorsed by - Academic Deans 25 April 2002: Endorsed by - University Senate 7 February 2003: Accepted by - Board of Trustees In part, the statement reads: “All students, faculty and employees are provided opportunities to become literate in the environmental, social and economic interactions of human and biophysical systems. Such opportunities are made available through strong undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional-specialization, faculty development and staff training offerings that provide diverse opportunities for learning. Collaborative faculty and student research on related issues is encouraged and supported.” This latter sentence embeds the integration of sustainability considerations into our research mission. The full statement can be found here: http://cms.bsu.edu/Academics/CentersandInstitutes/COTE/Sustainability/Statement.aspx

_____A: As part of our "Mapping Sustainability" efforts using the STARS Framework, we report out research activity in every building on campus; see related web site for details. _____B: Our Sponsored Programs Office (SPO) facilitates sustainability-related research routinely; as of this reporting they note that some 30% of the university departments filing the unit-level sustainability plans report that their faculty - at least one or more from the department - is engaged in sustainability research. Since sustainability transcends traditional academic divisions, having multiple departments involved in research indicates that the institution has a broad perspective on sustainability and can help ensure that multiple perspectives are considered. Moreover, SPO counts that some 200 of the total 500 research faculty members are engaged in sustainability research; see related web site for details. _____C: Faculty associated with the Center for Energy Research/Education/Service (CERES) have engaged in research ranging in scale from community planning to materials technology. The primary emphasis of the CERES research is the interrelation of disciplines in energy-related methods of analysis, performance evaluation, and decision-making; see related web site for details.

These are additional websites where the sustainability research inventory can be found: _____http://cms.bsu.edu/About/AdministrativeOffices/SPO.aspx _____http://cote.iweb.bsu.edu/stars/ _____http://cms.bsu.edu/Academics/CentersandInstitutes/CERES/Research.aspx _____www.bsu.edu/CERES (Click on "Research" button)