Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.91
Liaison Lindsay Walker
Submission Date Oct. 24, 2019

STARS v2.2

Humber College
EN-6: Assessing Sustainability Culture

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 1.00 Lindsay Walker
Sustainability Manager
Facilities Management
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution conduct an assessment of sustainability culture?:
Yes

Which of the following best describes the cultural assessment? The assessment is administered to::
A subset of the campus community or a sample that may not be representative of the entire community

Which of the following best describes the structure of the cultural assessment? The assessment is administered::
Longitudinally to measure change over time

A brief description of how and when the cultural assessment(s) were developed and/or adopted:
The sustainability cultural assessment was developed as a continuation of the SLA by the Sustainability Office and the Institutional Learning Outcomes team. We researched what other institutions had done and reflected on our goals for the next few years and how we would measure that using sustainability culture. We focused on attitude, behavior and perceptions and built a survey that can help us measure the sustainability culture in Humber students overtime.

A copy or sample of the questions related to sustainability culture:
A sample of the questions related to sustainability culture or the website URL where the assessment tool is available:
Uploaded the SLCA with literacy and cultural assessment questions.

A brief description of how representative samples were reached (if applicable) and how the cultural assessment is administered:
There are two surveys that are administered twice every academic year: in September (pre) and in April (post). Our first post survey was administered in September 2019 to a random sample of diploma students (predominant student body). All diploma students must take a class of WRIT100 or ESOL100 in their first semester, the questionnaire was sent out to all WRIT 100 and ESOL100 classes via. digital announcements recruiting participants.

For the post survey in April, we are choosing a capstone project (final year) class form each of the 78 diploma programs, and following the same announcement procedure from the pre-survey. Since every single final year class will get an announcement, this sample is representative. Both samples was representative as it was a random sample and every student had an equal chance of participating in the survey.

Pre and post surveys will be done every year to monitor the difference in sustainability culture when the same cohort of students are starting and finishing their program, as well as to see the change in sustainability culture in all students over time.

A brief summary of results from the cultural assessment:
From the cultural assessment, the preliminary data shows that sustainability is important to the students. On a scale of 1-5, 1 being not at all and 5 being extremely, the average result was 4.
44.93% agreed that it is important to live in a way that minimizes impact on the environment.
45.37% agreed that Humber College is committed to fostering a sustainability mindset within the community.
40.09% said they sometimes look for locally grown organic or Fairtrade food when shopping
41.59% said they sometimes prefer buying from brands that support community development and sustainability, even if it’s a little more expensive.
89.19% indicated environmental aspects of sustainability is what they have learnt about in classes
Sustainable development and tourism, reusable items, lack of economic sustainability globally, and sustainability in unique sectors such as the beauty sector, are a variety of common topics participants learnt in classes.

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the assessment of sustainability culture is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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