Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 58.15
Liaison Lacey Raak
Submission Date Feb. 21, 2021

STARS v2.2

California State University, Monterey Bay
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Dan Fernandez
Faculty
Environmental Science
"---" 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):

The Sustainable City Year Program began in 2015. The outcomes have resulted in 2 additional sustainability courses in multiple disciplines.


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

Consulting days for faculty to participate. As well as financial incentives for students to do write-ups and reimbursement for materials and travel.


Website URL where information about the incentives for developing sustainability course content is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

The Sustainable City Year Program is a university-community connection where cities work with universities to “matchmake” community needs (as determined by someone in city management) to university expertise. The matchmaking is done by someone on campus once the needs of the city are determined.

The university sends out an RFP to regional city governments soliciting them for a “wish list” of sustainability-related projects. Interested cities respond with proposals that describe sustainability-related projects that they would like to work on, but may be unable to due to staffing or other limitations.

Someone at the university connects those city projects with likely faculty who teach related courses and solicits those faculty to see if they would be willing to incorporate this project into their existing class (that is, no new classes need to be created). The proposal that has the best fit to faculty expertise (and can contribute sufficient funding to maintain the needed connection) is selected that year. A contract is then generated between the university and the city to pursue the work. One of the unique features of this model is the interdisciplinarity that it engenders. In other words, partnerships are created across many disciplines on campus. So far that has included Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Science, Statistics and Psychology.


The Sustainable City Year Program is a university-community connection where cities work with universities to “matchmake” community needs (as determined by someone in city management) to university expertise. The matchmaking is done by someone on campus once the needs of the city are determined.

The university sends out an RFP to regional city governments soliciting them for a “wish list” of sustainability-related projects. Interested cities respond with proposals that describe sustainability-related projects that they would like to work on, but may be unable to due to staffing or other limitations.

Someone at the university connects those city projects with likely faculty who teach related courses and solicits those faculty to see if they would be willing to incorporate this project into their existing class (that is, no new classes need to be created). The proposal that has the best fit to faculty expertise (and can contribute sufficient funding to maintain the needed connection) is selected that year. A contract is then generated between the university and the city to pursue the work. One of the unique features of this model is the interdisciplinarity that it engenders. In other words, partnerships are created across many disciplines on campus. So far that has included Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Science, Statistics and Psychology.

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.