Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 78.45
Liaison Emma Blandford
Submission Date May 15, 2012
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

Georgia Institute of Technology
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 3.00 Marcia Kinstler
Sustainability Director
Office of Environmental Stewardship
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution developed a definition of sustainability in the curriculum?:
Yes

A copy of the institution's definition of sustainability in the curriculum?:

Georgia Tech’s 2010 Strategic Plan outlines a vision for where Georgia Tech aspires to be in the year 2035, the Institute’s 150th anniversary. http://www.gatech.edu/president/

Vision: Georgia Tech will define the technological research university of the 21st century. As a result, we will be leaders in influencing major technological, social, and policy decisions that address critical global challenges.

Mission: Technological change is a fundamental to the advancement of the human condition. The Georgia Tech community – students, staff, faculty, and alumni – will realize our motto of “Progress and Service” through effectiveness and innovation in teaching and learning, our research advances, and entrepreneurship in all sectors of society. We will be leaders in improving the human condition in Georgia, the United States, and around the globe.

• Our students are taught to be collaborative, innovative, interdisciplinary, and global.
• They operate at the intersection of technology, policy, business and sustainability.

Georgia Tech is a leader in research in fields of energy, climate change, nanotechnology, biomedical technology, engineering, management, public policy, transportation and logistics, health information technology, and material science engineering, economic development and tech transfer.

To stimulate cooperation in emerging areas of education and research, Georgia Tech has established a network of more than 100 centers that cut across traditional academic disciplines. Drawing upon human and technical resources throughout the university, the centers provide an interdisciplinary setting for addressing basic and applied problems of interest to government and private enterprise. They also provide a mechanism for interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate education.

Approximately 45% of tenured/tenure track faculty participated in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program in 2009-2010. Tech is among the nation’s top producers of women and minority engineers. Tech has research centers, educational program partnerships, and business and economic development partnerships and centers globally.

GTRI is the largest research entity at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and has developed a reputation as one of the world's premier university-based applied research and development organizations. GTRI and Georgia Tech are world-class institutions that combine the best of both applied and basic research to solve the innovation equation on behalf of clients. This combination provides unsurpassed expertise, capabilities and know-how in solving some of the toughest problems facing government and industry.

Georgia Tech’s definition of sustainable research spans many subject areas of Service and Progress:

1. Improving the Human Condition, Social and Individual Transformation, Education, Outreach, Lifelong Learning
2. Energy, Materials, Water, and Environment
3. Health, Food, Nutrition, Nanomedicine, Medical Engineering
4. Innovative Technologies, Complex Systems, Sustainable Systems, Systems Thinking
5. Technology Transfer, Economic Development, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Economics, Business
6. Global Technologies, Collaboration, Policies
7. Partnerships between Private/Public, Profit/Non-Profit, Government/Non-Government Organizations
8. Logistics, Sustainable Manufacturing and Design


Has the institution identified its sustainability-focused and sustainability-related course offerings?:
Yes

A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the inventory:

This list sustainability Focused courses was developed working through the Academic Deans of each College's Departments with input from faculty.
http://www.stewardship.gatech.edu/images/courses.pdf

Lists of sustainability related courses and degrees are also available online.

This definition of sustainability is from the Georgia Tech Strategic Plan. For nine months, several hundred students, faculty, administrators and staff, researchers, alumni, and supporters joined together to contribute their time and ideas about how to transform Georgia Tech. The process was comprehensive and inclusive.

More than 1,200 ideas were submitted. In addition, the Tech community participated in 70 town hall type meetings, focus groups, and “Days of Engagement.”

http://www.gatech.edu/vision/the-planning-process


Does the institution make its sustainability course inventory publicly available online?:
Yes

The website URL where the sustainability course inventory is posted:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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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.