Cal Poly Humboldt
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

During this reporting period, Cal Poly Humboldt made significant progress with incentivizing faculty to incorporate sustainability into courses. Much of this work was by resourcing professional development programming in which faculty could opt in to learning opportunities for how they might incorporate sustainability more robustly to their curriculum. Below is a list (from most recent to oldest) of such programs:

• Fall 2022 Book Circle
o Book- Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez
o Goal: Build language and literacy around Latinx and Indigeneity of Central and South America within environmental discourse
o 24 faculty/staff participants from 16 departments
o What did the institution materially or financially invest in this program?: books purchased for participants; WTU time buyout for faculty facilitator via creation of ongoing Traditional Ecological Knowledge Fellow
o Led by faculty Dr. Kaitlin Reed

• Spring 2022 Faculty Learning Community on Climate Change & Resiliency
o CSU Systemwide collaboration (6 participating campuses, including Cal Poly Humboldt)
o Goals: With a focus on climate change & resilience, modify course curriculum, network with colleagues doing similar work, and design pedagogy that invokes solutions
o 6 Cal Poly Humboldt faculty participants; 61 participants total across CSU
o What did the institution materially or financially invest in this program?: Stipends for participants who provided required evidence of modifications to their course
o Led by Chico State Faculty Mark Stemen

• Spring 2022 Book Circle
o Book- Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, & the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
o Goal: Increase awareness of reciprocal relationships with human and non-human relatives via Indigenous ways of knowing
o 18 faculty/staff participants from 11 departments
o What did the institution materially or financially invest in this program?: books purchased for participants; stipends provided to guest speakers from Tribal nations
o Led by faculty Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy & Dr. Kaitlin Reed, and Sustainability Staff Katie Koscielak

• Fall 2021 Speaker Series
o Series Name: Decolonizing Sustainablity: Amplifying Indigenous Perspectives & Transforming Sustainability Discourse
o Goal: Increase literacy and understanding of Indigenous and decolonial sustainability perspectives
o 331 summative audience members attended on Zoom in real-time
o What did the institution materially or financially invest in this program?: stipends for guest panelists
o # of events: 4 (access recordings here)
o Led by faculty Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy & Dr. Kaitlin Reed, and Sustainability Staff Katie Koscielak

• Fall 2021 Book Circle
o Book- We Are the Land: A History of Native California by Damon B. Akins and William J. Bauer Jr.
o Goal: Foreground Indigenous history of place when teaching about land and resources in California
o 19 faculty/staff participants from 12 departments
o What did the institution materially or financially invest in this program?: books purchased for participants
o Led by faculty Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy & Dr. Kaitlin Reed, and Sustainability Staff Katie Koscielak

• Spring 2021 Book Circle
o Book- As Long As Grass Grows: The Fight for Indigenous Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
o Goal: Explore Indigenous Environmental Justice as a lens for environmental educators
o 19 faculty participants from 14 departments
o What did the institution materially or financially invest in this program?: books, mugs, Pomo acorn bites purchased for participants
o Led by faculty Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy & Dr. Kaitlin Reed, and Sustainability Staff Katie Koscielak

• Spring 2020 Faculty Learning Community on Integrating Sustainability
o Campus specific program
o What did the institution materially or financially invest in this program?: stipends for participants
o Led by faculty Jennifer Ortega and Sustainability Staff Morgan King

Positive outcomes from these programs include:
-positive feedback from participants in post-event surveys for book circles, along with anecdotal feedback that faculty have been working readings, speakers, videos, and lessons learned into courses

-for the faculty learning community at Chico State, participants modified courses as follows:
>Sarah Ray: ENST 205: Self-care for Social Change; Keywords: self-care, social change, contemplative pedagogy, mindfulness, inner activism
>Andrea Delgado: English 311: Environmental Writing; Keywords: Storytelling, Earthseed, Parable of the Sower, Getting in “right relationship” with the more-than-human world
> Jo Archibald: ENGR 440: Hydrology; Keywords: Water Resources, Hydrology, Watershed Modeling, Water Cycle
>Richard Alvarez: REC 471: Scientific Diving; Keywords: Drawdown, Solutions, Scientific Diving,
>Ben Graham: Psyc 489S: Community Psychology in Applied Settings; Keywords: Drawdown, Solutions, Community Organizing, Service Learning, Applied

For book circle programs, incentives included having the institution pay for the books so that participants did not have to purchase them. Some book circles have included small token gifts as incentives as well, such as mugs, food, and coffee/tea.

For faculty learning communities, participants were compensated by stipend for their time.