Drake University
AC-1: Academic Courses

For this part of STARS, we limited our scope to 28 academic departments instead of 30 academic departments reported in Institutional Characteristics section of the report. We excluded the music and theater department.

This section was completed by Drake's Sustainability Intern. For this part of STARS, we limited our scope to 28 academic departments instead of 30 academic departments reported in Institutional Characteristics section of the report. We excluded the music and theater department. The registrar's office provided spreadsheets of all courses taught at Drake University for three years prior. Specifically, 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018. Each course catalog spreadsheet from the registrar contained information including instructor, enrollment, schedule, credit hours, term offered, course number, the course title, level of course, etc. In sorting this, the intern eliminated columns with information that were not applicable to the report. From there, each academic year was combined into a single spreadsheet and multiple sections of the same courses were filtered out. A separate course catalog with all course offerings and course descriptions was used to analyze the descriptions and determine whether the course met sustainability course criteria. Independent studies, internships, special topics courses, performances arts courses, clinical courses, and physical education courses were not included. The course inventory is uploaded as an Excel Spreadsheet. Sustainability courses and courses that include sustainability for this inventory were defined as follows: -Sustainability Courses: Sustainability Courses Sustainability courses are courses in which the primary and explicit focus is on sustainability and/or on understanding or solving one or more major sustainability challenge. Foundational courses in which the primary and explicit focus is on sustainability as an integrated concept having social, economic, and environmental dimensions. Courses in which the primary and explicit focus is on the application of sustainability within a field. As sustainability is an interdisciplinary topic, such courses generally incorporate insights from multiple disciplines. Courses in which the primary focus is on providing skills and/or knowledge directly connected to understanding or solving one or more major sustainability challenges. -Courses That Include Sustainability: A course that includes sustainability is primarily focused on a topic other than sustainability, but incorporates a unit or module on sustainability or a sustainability challenge, includes one or more sustainability-focused activities, or integrates sustainability issues throughout the course.