Portland Community College
AC-1: Sustainability Course Offerings

PCC has identified its sustainability-focused and related course offerings, and it shares the list of sustainability-related courses each semester via its Student Sustainability Hub.

We created a list of courses from our course catalog and our international programs office (these courses are not part of the course catalog).

Courses were determined to be sustainability focused or related based on the course descriptions used and the AASHE STARS definition. Courses were also added from our Sustainability Focus Award - this award determine sustainability courses through a review of the course outcomes. The International Programs office works closely with instructors and is able provide indepth information about the program content.

We removed departments that were determined to offer exlusively practice-oriented content such as language classes, medical and dental training, nursing, physical ed (but not exercise science) and hands-on trades departments such as architecture, landscape technology, music and sonic arts (but not music), paralegal, etc; although PCC does offer a significant number of sustainability courses in these departments (SEE IL-3).

This list contains the courses offered for the Academic Year 2024-2025.

Departments were defined by faculty department chairs: https://www.pcc.edu/about/administration/faculty-department-chairs/. In a few cases, the subject areas were unclassified by department, due to changes in the course catalog system between the spring of 2024 and the fall of 2025.

PCC has identified its sustainability-focused and related course offerings, and it shares the list of sustainability-related courses each semester via its Student Sustainability Hub.

Courses were determined to be sustainability focused or related based on the course descriptions used and the AASHE STARS definition. Courses were also added from our Sustainability Focus Award - this award determines sustainability courses through a review of the course outcomes.

This list contains the courses offered over the past four terms.

The Sustainability Department conducts an annual course catalog review. Classes are automatically included that are part of the focus award (these are classes where the instructors have applied and gone through a faculty review process to be included in the sustainability focus award); we also include other multidisciplinary courses through this list as support for our students interested in sustainability and related fields.

Participants receive a stipend (part-time faculty) for the sustainability in curriculum training and are provided support, through PCC’s Sustainability Practices and Resources for Curriculum (SPARC), a volunteer faculty council that oversees the integration of sustainability into PCC’s curriculum across all disciplines for the development of a new course, or the revision of a current course. Additionally, faculty can receive funding for conferences, training, and other professional development through PCC's Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, professional and oganizational development, or the faculty sustainability council, SPARC to sustainability-related training. We are also working with our Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs to prioritize professional development funding for faculty developing new courses or adding green outcomes to existing courses. In addition, PCC provides release time to a faculty member to coordinate SPARC.

One of our faculty also recently received an NSF grant for faculty to develop climate justice modules for Curriculum for the Bioregion. The Teaching and Learning department is providing matching stipends for five faculty each year for the next two years to develop these modules. The faculty may be part-time or full-time faculty. The modules will be available to faculty both in and outside of the college.

PCC’s Sustainability Practices and Resources for Curriculum (SPARC) is a volunteer faculty council that oversees the integration of sustainability into PCC’s curriculum across all disciplines. SPARC members include staff, administrators, and instructors from across the disciplines. SPARC facilitates sharing, design and development of all curriculum between faculty. This is done through workshops, meetings and conferences (see the website for events). It also serves as an advisory board for sustainability-related academic curricular and program development. As part of this latter work, SPARC coordinates the Student Sustainability Focus Award.