Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 80.87
Liaison Megan Butler
Submission Date Jan. 26, 2024

STARS v2.2

Macalester College
AC-1: Academic Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 14.00 / 14.00 Megan Butler
Sustainability Director
Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Sustainability course offerings

Figures required to calculate the percentage of courses offered by the institution that are sustainability course offerings:
Undergraduate Graduate
Total number of courses offered by the institution 3,531 0
Number of sustainability-focused courses offered 355 0
Number of sustainability-inclusive courses offered 564 0

Percentage of courses that are sustainability course offerings:
26.03

Part 2. Sustainability course offerings by department

Total number of academic departments that offer courses:
39

Number of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
36

Percentage of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
92.31

Documentation

A copy of the institution’s inventory of its sustainability course offerings and descriptions:
Do the figures reported above cover one, two, or three academic years?:
Three

A brief description of the methodology used to complete the course inventory :
The Sustainability Office acquired a comprehensive list of all non-laboratory classes offered in the previous three-year period (Spring 2021-Fall 2023). We used “AASHE’s Suggested Keywords For Sustainability Course and Research Inventories” guide to identify all of the sustainability-inclusive and sustainability-focused courses according to course title. This guide was also used to identify which Sustainable Development Goals each course covered. The comprehensive class list acquired did not include course summaries, and thus we believe our list is likely an under-estimate of the sustainability-inclusive courses offered at Macalester. To help combat this, we referenced our previous submission to add courses which qualified last time and were offered again in the most recent three year period. This process was carried out by a Macalester Sustainability Office employee and the inventory was reviewed by the Director of the Sustainability Office.

How were courses with multiple offerings or sections counted for the figures reported above?:
Each offering or section of a course was counted as an individual course

A brief description of how courses with multiple offerings or sections were counted:
If a course was cross-listed within multiple departments, then the course was counted for its respective number of cross-lists (i.e. a class was cross-listed in the Environmental Studies, Geography, and Latin American Studies departments, then that course was counted three separate times). If the same course was offered several times in the same semester, the course was counted once for each section.

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the sustainability course offerings is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
Data from Course Catalog 2021-2023 (https://catalog.macalester.edu/index.php)
Google Spreadsheets copy of the course inventory (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uabFMnbk4cN7oVpPCQwfIfqzA17N5V9D1d-_Op0MuKY/edit#gid=705328304)

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.