Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 45.08
Liaison Jessica Krejcik
Submission Date Feb. 5, 2016
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

Concordia University
AC-1: Academic Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 8.09 / 14.00 Benoit-Antoine Bacon
Provost & VP, Academic Affairs
Office of the Provost & Vice-President, Academic Affairs
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Figures required to calculate the percentage of courses with sustainability content::
Undergraduate Graduate
Total number of courses offered by the institution 2,129 1,370
Number of sustainability courses offered 0 0
Number of courses offered that include sustainability 157
+ Date Revised: Feb. 16, 2016
129

Number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that offer at least one sustainability course and/or course that includes sustainability (at any level):
34

Total number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that offer courses (at any level):
47

Number of years covered by the data:
Two

A copy of the institution’s inventory of its course offerings with sustainability content (and course descriptions):
An inventory of the institution's course offerings with sustainability content (and course descriptions):

(See URL indicated below)


The website URL where the inventory of course offerings with sustainability content is publicly available:
A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the course inventory:

The sustainability courses inventory is made of two parts:
1. Undergraduate courses: The inventory was made through the Sustainable Curriculum Project and based on the curriculum inventory methodology devised by AASHE's STARS® sustainability tracking system. Full methodology is found in the URL above.
2. Graduate courses: The inventory was made by Concordia's Sustainability Analyst using a list of 38 keywords related to sustainability. Full methodology is found in the Notes section below.


How did the institution count courses with multiple offerings or sections in the inventory?:
Each course was counted as a single course regardless of the number of offerings or sections

A brief description of how courses with multiple offerings or sections were counted (if different from the options outlined above):
---

Which of the following course types were included in the inventory?:
Yes or No
Internships ---
Practicums ---
Independent study ---
Special topics ---
Thesis/dissertation ---
Clinical ---
Physical education ---
Performance arts ---

Does the institution designate sustainability courses in its catalog of course offerings?:
---

Does the institution designate sustainability courses on student transcripts?:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

- Methodology for identifying graduate courses related to sustainability

In contrast with the inventory of undergraduate sustainability courses (realized as part of the Sustainable Curriculum Project), the identification of graduate sustainability courses was done using the simplified method described below.

1. As graduate courses are often designed for research graduates in mind, some courses cannot be related to sustainability either because they are not related to any specific topic (e.g. practicum) or because the topic varies by the nature of the course itself (e.g. special topic courses). As such, the following types of courses were not included in the inventory:
a. Thesis presentation courses (topic cannot be imposed)
b. Seminar courses (topic always change)
c. Special topic courses (topic always change)
d. Practicum courses (not topic related)
e. Internship/stage credits (topic cannot be imposed)
f. Examination/Exam credits (not topic related)
g. Non-credit courses (usually part of requirements external to academic programs)
h. Fieldwork (not topic related)
i. Essay courses (topic cannot be imposed)
j. Directed study courses (topics always change)
k. Research paper courses (topic cannot be imposed)
l. Methodology courses (not topic related)

2. Courses have been filtered based on their title and their courses description using an excluding process and a list of keywords.
a. When a course’s title and description did NOT include a single keyword from the list (detected as NEGATIVE), the course was considered not to be related to sustainability and was not further reviewed.
b. When a course’s title and description included one keyword or more from the list (detected as POSITIVE), a review of the course description was done to avoid False Positive results.
c. Courses detected as neither NEGATIVE nor False Positive were included in the final inventory of sustainability-related courses.
d. For graduate courses only, no distinction was done between sustainability-focused and sustainability-related courses. All included courses are considered “sustainability-related”.

3. The list of keywords was created with an excluding process mindset. If none of the keywords are present in neither the course’s title nor the course’s description, it is safely assumed that the course is not related to sustainability.
Based on some keywords of the Sustainable Curriculum Project and discussions with sustainability staff at the University, the following 38 keywords were used to exclude courses if none of these were present:

- aboriginal
- carbon
- climate
- communit (to detect “community”, “communities”)
- conservation
- social responsibility (to detect “social responsibility”, “social responsibilities”)
- democra (to detect “democracy”, “democratic”)
- diversity
- drought
- ecolog (to detect “ecology”, “ecological”)
- ecosystem
- eco-system
- energ (to detect “energy”, “energies”)
- environment (to detect “environment”, “environmental”, “environmentally”)
- equality
- equit (to detect “equity”, “equitable”)
- flood
- food
- global
- indigen (to detect “indigenous”, “indigene”)
- intergenerational
- inter-generational
- pollut (to detect “pollution”, “polluting”)
- resilien (to detect “resilience”, “resiliency”, “resilient”)
- resource
- scarce
- scarcity
- sustainab (to detect “sustainable”, “sustainability”)
- system thinking
- systems thinking
- triple bottom line
- urban agriculture
- waste
- water


- Methodology for identifying graduate courses related to sustainability

In contrast with the inventory of undergraduate sustainability courses (realized as part of the Sustainable Curriculum Project), the identification of graduate sustainability courses was done using the simplified method described below.

1. As graduate courses are often designed for research graduates in mind, some courses cannot be related to sustainability either because they are not related to any specific topic (e.g. practicum) or because the topic varies by the nature of the course itself (e.g. special topic courses). As such, the following types of courses were not included in the inventory:
a. Thesis presentation courses (topic cannot be imposed)
b. Seminar courses (topic always change)
c. Special topic courses (topic always change)
d. Practicum courses (not topic related)
e. Internship/stage credits (topic cannot be imposed)
f. Examination/Exam credits (not topic related)
g. Non-credit courses (usually part of requirements external to academic programs)
h. Fieldwork (not topic related)
i. Essay courses (topic cannot be imposed)
j. Directed study courses (topics always change)
k. Research paper courses (topic cannot be imposed)
l. Methodology courses (not topic related)

2. Courses have been filtered based on their title and their courses description using an excluding process and a list of keywords.
a. When a course’s title and description did NOT include a single keyword from the list (detected as NEGATIVE), the course was considered not to be related to sustainability and was not further reviewed.
b. When a course’s title and description included one keyword or more from the list (detected as POSITIVE), a review of the course description was done to avoid False Positive results.
c. Courses detected as neither NEGATIVE nor False Positive were included in the final inventory of sustainability-related courses.
d. For graduate courses only, no distinction was done between sustainability-focused and sustainability-related courses. All included courses are considered “sustainability-related”.

3. The list of keywords was created with an excluding process mindset. If none of the keywords are present in neither the course’s title nor the course’s description, it is safely assumed that the course is not related to sustainability.
Based on some keywords of the Sustainable Curriculum Project and discussions with sustainability staff at the University, the following 38 keywords were used to exclude courses if none of these were present:

- aboriginal
- carbon
- climate
- communit (to detect “community”, “communities”)
- conservation
- social responsibility (to detect “social responsibility”, “social responsibilities”)
- democra (to detect “democracy”, “democratic”)
- diversity
- drought
- ecolog (to detect “ecology”, “ecological”)
- ecosystem
- eco-system
- energ (to detect “energy”, “energies”)
- environment (to detect “environment”, “environmental”, “environmentally”)
- equality
- equit (to detect “equity”, “equitable”)
- flood
- food
- global
- indigen (to detect “indigenous”, “indigene”)
- intergenerational
- inter-generational
- pollut (to detect “pollution”, “polluting”)
- resilien (to detect “resilience”, “resiliency”, “resilient”)
- resource
- scarce
- scarcity
- sustainab (to detect “sustainable”, “sustainability”)
- system thinking
- systems thinking
- triple bottom line
- urban agriculture
- waste
- water

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.