HEC Montréal
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Currently, the rising demand for sustainable development (S.D.) classes at HEC Montréal from the students has led to an increase in the courses offering, the hiring of new professors and the creation of new programs. Nevertheless, the main challenge for faculty members is the integration of S.D. concepts within existing courses. Even if faculty members(lecturers and professors) are well aware of the S.D. challenges in today’s world, they were not provided with any form of support, cross-learning activities or exchange platform to promote S.D. in existing courses, until recently.

In collaboration with the Université de Montréal and École Polytechnique de Montréal, a new initiative, called the CLAD innovation lab (Construire l’avenir durablement - Building a sustainable project)was created in 2019 to promote and encourage sustainability initiatives, research and teaching on the campus. One of its technical groups (GT6) has been mandated to identify opportunities and needs to integrate SD within the teaching curriculum across the three campuses, including regular and continuing education. The goal is to determine conditions and requirements to achieve this integration, based on evidence, to make recommendations to develop and deploy training and teaching in SD and support their success. The group also aims at disseminating knowledge among the broader community within the three campuses, as well as for decision-makers and the broader public.

At present, the group is focusing a part of its work on promoting the integration of SD within non-SD-focused courses. It is conducting research to identify the various innovations and initiatives in teaching SD on the campus, to list all the courses on SD and to identify all faculty that integrate SD within their regular courses. This is leading to the creation of a “SD teaching toolbox” that will include, among others, practical advice by faculty members from three campuses who have integrated SD in their teaching. The toolbox is aimed as an evergreen website that will promote peer-learning across three campuses.

A “summer school workshop” was planned on May 1st 2020, called “Enseigner à l’heure des enjeux planétaires : stratégies pour intégrer le développement durable à ses cours” (Teaching in the Context of Global Challenges : Strategies to Integrate Sustainable Development in Courses). The summer school consisted in an official launch of the “toolbox”, and a series of experiential workshop aimed at sharing innovative pedagogical approaches to integrate SD in courses across the campus. This series of workshop were designed to foster peer-learning and experimentation with innovative pedagogical approaches that have proven effective to integrate SD in courses that are not focused in this topic. Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the first edition of the summer school was postponed and will be rescheduled when the pandemic is over. In the meantime, HEC Montreal and Université de Montréal are planning a recording a series of short interviews with different lecturers and professors willing to share their experiences with pedagogic innovations to integrate SD in their practice. It is foreseen that these short videos will be disseminated during the 2021 spring and summer through a soft launch of the “SD teaching toolbox”.

Faculty participating in the summer school will engage in a series of workshops designed to learn from their peers from three neighbouring universities (Université de Montréal, HEC Montréal and École Polytechnique de Montréal), by sharing tools, insights and advice to integrate SD in courses that are not focused on this topic. Moreover, a new toolbox, containing references, recordings and teaching materials will be published online and constantly updated, as a complement to this workshop aimed at supporting participants in the integration of SD in their work.