Overall Rating Reporter - expired
Overall Score
Liaison Denice Koljonen
Submission Date March 2, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Boston College
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete Reporter Tara Pisani
Assistant Professor
Earth and Envronment
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

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

A brief description of the program(s), including positive outcomes during the previous three years (e.g. descriptions of new courses or course content resulting from the program):

Boston College's Core Renewal: Toward a 21st Century Core involves two different types of courses:
(1) Complex Problems courses are large team-taught, six-credit classes that address a contemporary problem. All of the complex problems courses deal with some aspect of sustainability in society.
(2) Enduring Questions courses are linked pairs of distinct three-credit classes of approximately 20 students that meet separately, each taught by a faculty member from a different department. Both classes are connected by a common topic and set of questions as well as share some readings and assignments.

These courses are interdisciplinary in design. Faculty are incentivized to partner with a faculty member in another department to teach either a core Complex Problems course or an Enduring Question course. Some of the new core classes are:
EESC1501/SOCY1501 Global Implications of Climate Change
EESCS1505/PHIL1505 Science and Ethics of Climate Change
SOCY1509/HIST1509 Planet in Peril: History and Future of Human Impacts
EESC1701/ARTH1701 Living on Water: Venetian Art, Architecture, and the Environment
ENGL1703/PHIL1703 Humans, Nature, and Creativity
MATH1705/PHIL1705 Being Human: Philosophical Problem – Nature and Math

This means that more students (200+ per year) are being exposed to sustainability as part of their core foundational education at Boston College.


A brief description of the incentives that faculty members who participate in the program(s) receive:

Faculty receive extra stipend and course relief during the first semester they teach a complex problems or enduring question course.


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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