Cal Poly Humboldt
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

During the 2018- 2019 Academic Year, the Integrated Curriculum Committee (ICC) worked hard to revise Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILO's) to add and incorporate one that would ensure all undergraduates obtaining degrees from Humboldt State University achieve competence in some level of knowledge about sustainability and one that would ensure all undergraduates obtaining degrees from Humboldt State University learn achieve competence in some level of knowledge about equity and justice.

Accordingly, ILO's #1 and #2 were the resulting new additions from this deliberation and revision process, and state (as listed at https://academicprograms.humboldt.edu/content/baccalaureate-student-learning-outcomes):
"The HSU curriculum ensures that all graduating students will achieve competence in the seven areas of concentration and assessment described below:
1. Equity and Social Justice: HSU graduates will be able to identify and evaluate systems of power and privilege and identify methods for creating diverse, inclusive, and racially just and equitable communities.
2. Sustainability and Environmental Awareness: HSU graduates will be able to explain how the functions of the natural world, society, and the economy depend on the resilience, sustainability, and conservation of ecological systems."

The actual wording of ILO's 1 and 2 is the product of robust collaboration between faculty, ODEI, and ICC. The chair of the ICC, Julie Alderson deserves credit for shepherding the concept from genesis to eventual senate resolution and adoption.

The adoption of these new ILO's will ensure that sustainability is implemented as a more robust element of curriculum in all undergraduate programs at HSU and will provide leverage and support for adoption and incorporation of sustainability elements in projects, assignments, discussion, and classes in the future. It will also provide a need for the University to assess and document progress in these areas in a more robust way and to provide stronger resources for faculty to learn to teach these concepts and incorporate them into curriculum.

Humboldt State University is committed to understanding and managing the impacts of climate change to our campus and within our community, and to preparing our students to be leaders in building resilient communities. HSU’s efforts to build a campus and community resilient to climate change are built upon three interrelated areas of focus - Planning, Curriculum & Research, and Student Leadership & Engagement - which allow us to more effectively plan for climate change while supporting others engaged in this important work.

Efforts to plan for resiliency to climate change go above and beyond business as usual by incorporating robust community engagement strategies, leveraging connections to the classroom and curriculum, and producing public reports so that partners and peers may follow along on campus progress.

In order to true up and produce data for STARS that reflected accurate information, the Office of Sustainability at Humboldt State worked hard to develop, distribute and deploy a methodological framework by which faculty and students could come to understand whether and to what degree their coursework or their research should be designated as sustainability related or focused. The methodological approach involved crafting a triple-venn diagram graphic, finding existing content examples, posting supporting resources online, and ensuring that consistent language is reflected throughout campus on webpages and in presentations given to relevant stakeholders.

The method that the Office of Sustainability crafted for this purpose aligns to the description we have given in AC 1 whereby any topic/course/research question involving intersections between at least two of the three dimensions of sustainability (economy, environment, and society) would be designated as sustainability related; any topic/course/research question involving intersections between all three dimensions would be designated as sustainability focused. We have received significant feedback that the triple venn diagram, examples and online resources have been immensely helpful for folks in understanding these connections. In addition, this methodological approach seems to have made it easier for folks to understand social dimensions of sustainability, and will provide leverage and discussion fodder for further refinement of the framework in the future.