Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 50.74
Liaison Catherine Lockhart
Submission Date Sept. 23, 2019

STARS v2.2

Lawrence University
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 4.00 Jeff Clark
Professor
Geology
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have an ongoing program to encourage students in multiple disciplines or academic programs to conduct sustainability research?:
Yes

A brief description of the student sustainability research program:

There are many avenues related to funding sustainability work and research at Lawrence.
1. The provost's office funds undergraduates to carry out research projects with faculty over the summer and some of these projects relate to sustainability, e.g. in the biology department a number of students were employed to carry out research on invasive species in the Fox River and Lake Michigan.
2. There is $75,000 a year for students to complete their senior experience projects, any senior can apply for funding therefore students in the environmental studies program and the natural sciences are supported in doing sustainability research. Alex Tempe (LU'18) used this to look at the potential effects of global warming on copepods in Green Bay.
3.The Cook Fund is for students to do field based research over the summer in northern Wisconsin. Last summer a student studied bee diversity in different land use types.
4.The student sustainability fund has funded over 20 projects related to sustainability research, activism, and community engagement in the past 2 years. A landscape management plan was developed for our northern campus, and a preliminary study on carbon sequestration for a land conservation easement was completed.


Does the institution have a program to encourage academic staff from multiple disciplines or academic programs to conduct sustainability research?:
Yes

A brief description of the faculty sustainability research program:

We run a faculty sustainability seminar which provides stipends or course releases for faculty to research and discuss a particular sustainability topic. This is a way to explore something in common and often leads to new research directions. We just finished our first seminar, so it is early to report on outcomes at this point.


Has the institution published written policies and procedures that give positive recognition to interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary research during faculty promotion and/or tenure decisions?:
No

A copy of the promotion or tenure guidelines or policies:
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The promotion or tenure guidelines or policies:
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Does the institution have ongoing library support for sustainability research and learning?:
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s library support for sustainability research:

The ENST department has a library budget that allows us to subscribe to journals and to get materials needed to support student and faculty scholarship.


Website URL where information about the institution’s support for sustainability research is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Since we are a liberal arts institution, the primary responsibility of faculty is teaching, not research.


Since we are a liberal arts institution, the primary responsibility of faculty is teaching, not research.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.