Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 71.04
Liaison Natalie Hayes
Submission Date Oct. 19, 2023

STARS v2.2

Bentley University
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Natalie Hayes
Associate Director of Sustainability
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have an ongoing program that offers incentives for academic staff in multiple disciplines or departments to develop new sustainability courses and/or incorporate sustainability into existing courses? :
Yes

A brief description of the incentive program(s):
Bentley received a $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant in 2019. This 5-year grant aims to research, develop, implement and evaluate curricula for college students that combine STEM and business, with an eye toward unraveling the “wicked” web of sustainability wrought by poverty, hunger, gender equality, climate change, energy use and other complex global issues.

This grant was awarded by the NSF in October 2019. Our positive outcomes include collaboration among faculty at three schools (Bentley, Wittenberg, Northern Illinois University) in discussing transdisciplinary problems of sustainability.

Faculty from all three institutions have produced and tested two such modules and have been testing them in a variety of business and liberal arts courses. In FY 2022, eight Bentley faculty were actively involved in testing the modules. Four were completing a two-year development and testing cycle, at the end of which they received the equivalent of 1.0 month salary for their efforts. Four additional faculty were involved as “beta testers,” incorporating one of the sustainability modules into their course(s) and received a trip to Chicago during the summer of 2022 to meet with the team for training.

A brief description of the incentives that academic staff who participate in the program(s) receive:
Participating faculty receive the equivalent of one month of summer salary over the course of the two-year curriculum development/testing cycle. Other incentives include potential publications in education journals, presentations, recognition among university leadership, and development of teaching excellence around cutting-edge curriculum and pedagogical innovation.

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the incentives for developing sustainability course content is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
---

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.