Indiana State University
AC-10: Support for Research

The Institute for Community Sustainability employs one graduate student and four interns in sustainability. Here they work with a mentor and develop a resume while working toward a year long research project on sustainability. We also have students in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program with a focus on sustainability every summer. The ISUcceed program was available to students from the African American Cultural Center to conduct sustainability research in the summer time of 2014 and 2015. Students can now be Institute for Community Sustainability fellows and work on their independent sustainability research projects. Our ENVI 460: Conservation and Sustainability course has at least 30 students in it every spring and every one of those students must complete an individual research project in sustainability where they collect and analyze their own data. These students then aggregate into group projects that take the best individual research projects further and uses the disparate skills from each of these general education students to advance the group research project.

There is a sustainability fellowship that allows a faculty member to be listed as a sustainability fellow if they submit one sustainability related grant, give a sustainability related talk, or complete one sustainability project per year.

Excerpts from the College of Arts and Sciences Promotion and Tenure Documentation 3.0.0.0 General Considerations for Promotion and Tenure 3.2.0.0 Collaboration: The College values the role of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and/or collaborative work and recognizes that while solo work may be the primary means by which some individuals make scholarly contributions, a collaborative approach may be more appropriate for others, depending on the discipline. That being said, when a candidate is listing an accomplishment that is the product of a collaborative effort, it is incumbent upon the candidate to specify and document his/her own unique contribution to the endeavor. Conversely, departments must not discourage collaborative work merely to make evaluation of candidates easier. 3.3.0.0 Value of Community Engagement: The College recognizes and values the important contributions that community engagement activities offer to teaching, scholarship, and service , and it is very reasonable that such contributions be listed as accomplishments. To illustrate, one’s courses and pedagogy can incorporate community engagement. In addition, peer-reviewed scholarship can occur that focuses on, stems from, or is done in collaboration with the community. Similarly, service that links a faculty member’s courses, department, discipline, or the College with the community is also highly possible. When listing accomplishments that have a community engagement component, the candidate must be attentive to fully specifying and documenting details related to the accomplishment, regardless of the area in which these activities are aligned (teaching, scholarship, or service).

The Cunningham Memorial Library has a collection of sustainability journal and books. They have also developed a Sustainability LibGuide which is an overall guide to sustainability holdings at the library.