Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 67.20
Liaison Megan Butler
Submission Date May 31, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Macalester College
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Paul Overvoorde
Associate Dean of Faculty
Provost Office
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Does the institution have an ongoing program or programs that offer incentives for faculty in multiple disciplines or departments to develop new sustainability courses and/or incorporate sustainability into existing courses?:
Yes

A brief description of the program(s), including positive outcomes during the previous three years (e.g. descriptions of new courses or course content resulting from the program):

In February 2014, Macalester College received a grant to promote academic sustainability initiatives. This program, called Educating Sustainability Ambassadors (ESA), provides two direct mechanisms to expand curricular offerings around themes of sustainability: course development grants to individual faculty members and a two-day curricular development workshop. As of July 2016, ESA has supported more than 25 individual faculty members through either course development grants (16 faculty) or through the Sustainability Curriculum Workshop (23 faculty and three organizers). Many faculty have reported that as a result of the resources, opportunity, and inspiration provided by the grant and by participating colleagues, they have integrated sustainability into more than just the one course they had originally proposed. In total, 18 new or revised sustainability courses have already been offered as a result of ESA support, and at least 16 further ESA-supported courses are scheduled to be taught within the next two academic years.

Additionally, in Year 2 ESA hosted a two-week Shared Value Practicum called the Macalester International Seminar to Denmark. This program focused on the theme of “Ownership and Transitions to Sustainability.” Fourteen faculty and staff and four students took part in the seminar. Faculty did not receive an incentive to participate in this workshop beyond the fact that all expenses were covered for the two-week trip to Denmark.

Some of the courses that have been created through ESA support include:
1. Art and Sustainability in Latin America (Olga González, Anthropology)
2. Economics of Sustainable Development (Amy Damon, Economics)
3. Economics of Public Policy (Sarah West, Economics)
4. Climate Talks (Roopali Phadke, Environmental Studies)
5. Food in France and the Francophone World (Joelle Vitiello, French)
6. Philosophy of Education – a course revision (Ruthanne Kurth-Schai, Educational Studies)


A brief description of the incentives that faculty members who participate in the program(s) receive:

Faculty participating in the ESA programs received funding for course development ($775 for a course revision and $1875 for new course development). Faculty who participated in the Sustainability Curriculum Workshops received a stipend in the amount of $1000.


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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