Goshen College
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

All incoming students are required to take Goshen Core curriculum classes with student learning outcomes described on this website: https://www.goshen.edu/core/student-learning-outcomes/
Two of these learning outcomes are explicitly sustainability-focused:
1. In our academic and campus life programs, students will develop knowledge of the natural world: the natural created order, including the earth and its systems.
2. In our academic and campus life programs, students will develop a sense of personal and social responsibility for living sustainably: working to create restorative relationships with the natural world.

In addition to these learning outcomes, the five core values of Goshen College guide student learning, including these objectives supportive of sustainability. (goshen.edu/about/mission)
A responsible understanding of stewardship for human systems and the environment in a multicultural world.
A commitment to diversity in all of its forms both conceptually and in practice.
An intercultural openness with the ability to function effectively with people of other world views.
A personal integrity that fosters the ability to resolve conflict and to promote justice.

Each year, the college compiles a list of the graduates from each major program. We gathered these numbers from that data set.

Agroecology Minor:
Understand how farms and food enterprises are part of complex coupled human-environmental systems. (SF)
Experience the power of food within communities through food access, food literacy, food cultures, and human health. (SS)
Network and hone communication skills by interacting with professionals from diverse sectors of the food system in multiple contexts. (SS)
Develop a personal ethic and the real-world skills to work towards individual and communal action for lasting change in food systems. (SS)

Environmental and Marine Science Major and Minor:
Discuss core ecological principles spanning levels of inquiry, including global ecology, ecosystem science, population ecology, community ecology, and physiological ecology. (SF)
Identify the biosphere’s most pressing environmental challenges and analyze the root causes of specific case studies using systems thinking. (SF)

Peace Justice and Conflict Studies Major/ Peace and Justice Studies Minor:
Identify, analyze and address various forms of violence, from interpersonal through structural. (SS)
Analyze the relationship of violence to conflict and develop and argue for nonviolent ways of responding to conflict. (SS)
Analyze the process of reconciliation at both interpersonal and structural levels, with particular attention to the complex interplay, and sometimes tensions, between justice, truth, and forgiveness. (SS)
Argue for a personal role in peace building and social change processes. (SF)
Analyze the role of religion in causing and nurturing violence and in promoting peace.

Social Work Major:
Engage diversity and difference in practice.
Advance human rights and social, environmental, and economic justice.

Sustainability Management Major and Minor:
Intentionally prepare for a career in sustainability management by taking 16 credit hours in the Sustainability Core.

Sustainability Studies Major and Minor:
Describe the ecological and social elements of a landscape and their interconnections.
Describe direct and indirect ways that they as individuals affect sustainable systems.
Develop an ethical framework for a career that fosters a sustainable future.
Communicate, collaborate and empathize with people who have multiple perspectives of sustainability toward the common good.
Be able to influence the policy process to create more resilient communities.
Articulate the role that economics plays in the design of sustainable systems and communities.
Practice skills of critical questioning and interpretation to facilitate multidisciplinary problem-solving. 8. Apply lessons learned to address challenges on multiple scales.

Sustainable Food Systems Major:
Recognize and analyze food system challenges as complex socio-ecological systems with the goal of anticipating future trajectories to build healthy, sustainable, and just communities.
Synthesize and apply knowledge of the natural world to enhance sustainability and resilience through the design of agroecological systems.
Develop relationships, hone communication skills, and collaborate with stakeholders holding varying worldviews and values.
Understand how social issues such as unequal access to education, healthcare, and nutritious and safe food contribute to vulnerabilities in food systems.
Develop personal ethics that motivate action to alleviate injustice and exploitation in food systems.
Demonstrate basic competency in skills, tools, and techniques for food production, food processing, and food marketing.
Explain how food policy is made, how policy and economics shape the food system, and how to engage in the political process.
Develop basic business skills and apply them to food-related enterprises.

Numerical data was combined over two academic years.

SF (sustainability focused) and SS (sustainability supportive) shorthand is used to recognize the category that each learning outcome belongs to. SF (sustainability focused) goals were determined by use of the examples in the STARS 2.2 Technical Manual and the 17 UN Goals for Sustainable Development which are linked below. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/

Learning outcomes and descriptions of each major were taken from the course catalog and websites describing each program of study.