Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 76.32
Liaison Karen Oberer
Submission Date Dec. 11, 2020

STARS v2.2

McGill University
AC-1: Academic Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 13.25 / 14.00 Karen Oberer
Sustainability Officer
McGill Office of 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 2,661 932
Number of sustainability-focused courses offered 279 57
Number of sustainability-inclusive courses offered 445 114

Percentage of courses that are sustainability course offerings:
24.91

Part 2. Sustainability course offerings by department

Total number of academic departments that offer courses:
94

Number of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
74

Percentage of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
78.72

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?:
One

A brief description of the methodology used to complete the course inventory :
Analysis, Planning and Budget compiled the list of active courses in the 2018-2019 e-Calendar.

Non-credit courses offered by the School of Continuing Studies, specialized courses in Postgraduate Medical Education and Postgraduate Dental Education, and any course with fewer than five students enrolled were excluded. Credit courses from the School of Continuing Studies was also excluded, as they are listed in EN-12.

Courses for the following activities were included only:
- Lectures
- Seminars
- Field courses (GDEU, DEPT)

To eliminate the possibility of duplicates, courses were counted only once, regardless of the number of sections offered.

A list of 114 sustainability keywords were run against the resulting list of courses. A course for which the long titles and/or course descriptions contained two keywords was classified as sustainability-focused. A course for which the long title contained at least one keywords was then reclassified as a sustainability-inclusive course. Results were spot-checked to validate course relevance to sustainability.

From this list, each course was manually reviewed in order to categorize it as either sustainability-focused or sustainabiilty-inclusive. For the first 50 courses, I have highlighted key words and phrases which I believe act as a rationale for inclusion on the list. Occasionally, I include a brief statement on the rationale.

Here are the topic criteria I used in order to categorize these courses:
- environmental concerns and challenges (SDGs 13, 14, 15)
- Indigenous culture (SDG 10)
- social justice issues (gender, race, 2SLGBTQIA+, migrants, disability, religion, class, etc.) (SDGs 1, 5, 8, 10)
- globalization
- the developing world (esp. Africa, east Asia)
- human rights (SDG 16)
- labour rights (SDG 8)
- major climate-related challenges (ozone layer, acid rain, extreme weather, etc.) (SDG 13)
- social/environmental determinants of disease and poor nutrition (SDGs 2, 3, 6)
- impact of technology on society (SDG 17)
- the environment and systems thinking
- interdisciplinary approach to social, economic, and environmental problems

How were courses with multiple offerings or sections counted for the figures reported above?:
Each course was counted as a single course regardless of the number of offerings or sections

A brief description of how courses with multiple offerings or sections were counted:
Each course was counted as a single course regardless of the number of sections.

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the sustainability course offerings is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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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.