Northern Michigan University
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

While the current General Education learning outcomes do not use the word “sustainability” members of the Sustainability Advisory Council believe that some of the new learning outcomes support sustainability and include specific intellectual and practical skills that are critical for addressing sustainability challenges. The goal of the General Education program is “to help our students develop the skills necessary for becoming independent lifelong learners and effective citizens of a challenging and rapidly changing world.” One requirement that supports sustainability is the “Social Responsibility in a Diverse World” requirement. Other requirements that support sustainability are “Integrative Thinking,” “Scientific Inquiry,” and “Perspectives on Society.” For each of these categories, students chose from a list of designated courses, and many of those specific courses have been designated sustainability-related or even sustainability-focused.

Northern Michigan University began to review academic programs in 2012 and implemented an Assessment of Learning (AoL) system to systematically collect and review program learning outcomes in 2014. Currently, major degree programs report their learning outcomes and explain how they assess those outcomes. We used those reports to determine which programs have sustainability-related learning outcomes. We also used information from our faculty survey to identify which sustainability-focused courses were required for academic programs, including majors, minors and certificates. This information is recorded in the attached Excel spreadsheet. To track students from different programs, the Office of Institutional Research provided us data on Degrees Awarded by Department by Major for the academic year 2021-2022. They also provided the number of Degrees Awarded by Department by Minor for the academic year 2021-2022. To be consistent with NMU’s 2020 report and because we did not want to double-count students having both a major and a minor, we decided to only use number of graduates by MAJOR for the year 2021-2022.

English MA - Environment & Literature Masters in Administration of Nature Based Tourism College of Business Sustainable Business and Enterprise Creation Public Relations - Environmental Concentration Biology Biology Major (concentrations in botany, ecology, general biology, microbiology, physiology, and zoology) Biology Minor Fish & Wildlife Management Major Secondary Education Biology Major Secondary Education Biology Minor Medicinal Plant Chemistry Center for Native American Studies Native American Studies Major Native American Studies Minor Criminal Justice & Loss Prevention Management Wildlife Conservation Law & Policing Minor Earth, Environmental & Geographical Sciences Earth Science Major Earth Science Minor Earth, Environmental & Geographical Sciences Cluster Minor Environmental Science Major Environmental Studies & Sustainability Major Food, Environment and Society Minor Geographic Information Science & Technology (GIST) Major Geographic Information Systems Certificate Sustainability Minor Education, Leadership & Public Service Elementary Education Integrated Science Major Elementary Education Integrated Science Minor Engineering Technology Alternative Energies Minor Health and Human Performance Interpretation & Outdoor Education Minor Outdoor Leadership Minor Outdoor Recreation Minor Outdoor Recreation & Leadership Management Major Outdoor Recreation & Leadership Management Cluster Minor Individually Created Programs (ICP) Integrated Science Major Minors: Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science or Physics Technology and Occupational Sciences Indoor Agriculture Associates Indoor Agriculture Bachelors

We only used the number of majors from programs that included sustainability as part of their learning objectives. Then counted total undergraduate and masters graduates in 2021-2022 (1379) Learning outcomes are assessed both at the major, or programmatic level and at the university level (GEC = General Education Curriculum). We've included graduates from specific programs that have sustainability-related learning objectives for this count. However, ALL students complete GEC courses as part of their degree requirements. ALL of the Learning Outcomes reports for these courses are available here: https://nmu.edu/gec/assessment Departments own the learning outcomes assessments for each program, and we will begin to collect those from Department heads. Each program is on a different 2 or 3 year cycle for reporting; we hope to have a full inventory of all relevant AoL reports cataloged for future STARS submissions.