Macalester College
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

Environmental Studies Department's Learning Outcomes is available here: https://www.macalester.edu/academics/environmentalstudies/about/assessments/ESAssessmentReport2014.pdf The Environmental Studies Department has developed the following learning goals for our students: As an interdisciplinary program, the Environmental Studies program expects students to develop a holistic understanding of environmental issues occurring at the local, national, and global level. Students gain this understanding by using the tools and perspectives of the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences to analyze the causes and consequences of environmental problems and the knowledge to develop solutions. The Environmental Studies Department has developed the following learning outcomes for our students: • The ability to think systematically about complicated problems. • The ability to recognize and communicate with diverse kinds of specialists. • The ability to understand the premises of diverse disciplines. • The ability to appreciate the nature of scientific uncertainty and controversy. • The capacity for consensus building and appreciation of group dynamics. • The ability to appreciate the nature of our species, spirituality, aesthetics, and relationships and differences among cultures. International Studies Part of mission statement: Humans and their institutions emerge from the earth, but now exercise troubled dominion over it. In this context, and in the context of Macalester's internationalist commitments, we aim to educate cosmopolitan young people, across geographies and fields, strongly equipped and powerfully inclined to understand the world and seek positive change. Key concepts which animate our interdisciplinary venture include universalism, globalization, hybridity, diversity, and interconnection. (social, economic, environmental) Learning Goal 3: Knowledge of the diversity of human interconnections and the issues that arise from them (personal, cultural, political, economic, institutional, historical, geographical, legal, physical, environmental, and more) Outcome 3A: recognize and analyze the frameworks and linkages that shape key human interconnections - Outcome 3B: contribute to the debates arising from frameworks and linkages that shape key human interconnections Geography Goal: Can apply theories and skills to issues concerning people, places and environments at local to global scales. (social, environmental) Goal: Appreciate diversity of people and places, the integration of places on the surface of the earth, and the spatial processes that affect contemporary society (social, environmental, economic). Outcome: Understand how specific places experience large scale processes (social, economic, environmental). Outcome: Explain how different places are connected through particular geographic processes (social, economic, environmental).

The Sustainability Office found department goals and learning outcomes and identified departments that mention environmental, economic, and social language. Environmental Studies, International Studies, and Geography contain all three aspects in their learning outcomes.