Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 70.27
Liaison Carolyn Shafer
Submission Date March 3, 2023

STARS v2.2

Pratt Institute
AC-1: Academic Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 13.88 / 14.00 Carolyn Shafer
Director
Center for Sustainable Design Strategies
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

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 2,237 757
Number of sustainability-focused courses offered 128 120
Number of sustainability-inclusive courses offered 432 209

Percentage of courses that are sustainability course offerings:
29.69

Total number of academic departments that offer courses:
34

Number of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
30

Percentage of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
88.24

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 :

During the 2016/17 academic year, The Provost’s office and the Center for Sustainable Design Strategies (CSDS) launched a new initiative called the Departmental Sustainability Coordinator (DSC). Each DSCs role is to promote sustainability in their home department, focusing on enhancing the curriculum and promoting the achievements of students and faculty.

As a group, the DSCs meet regularly to share resources and best practices. The DSCs represent departments in the Schools of Architecture, Art, Design, and Liberal Arts and Studies (the four largest schools). They have met monthly to determine which courses in each department are sustainability courses (having learning objectives specifically concerning social and environmental sustainability) and which courses have at least some sustainability content (this may include individual assignments, meetings, studio projects, or lectures within a course). In 2020/21, the DSC collected course data across participating departments for the 2019-20 academic year, counting each section offered as an individual course. In addition, the student research interns employed by the Center for Sustainable Design Strategies reviewed the courses offered in departments which do no have DSCs. They reviewed the master course list for 2019/20 provided by the registrar, and sorted the courses based on the course descriptions listed on the course registration portal. The numbers for "Sustainability-Focused Courses" and "Sustainability-Inclusive Courses" in the attached Excel inventory reflect the summary of this process. The overall course numbers reflect the total number of sections offered across the Institute at the Undergraduate and Graduate levels.

The enclosed Excel file provides a breakdown of each reporting department's totals.


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:
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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:

Data on courses collected by the individual departments through the Department Sustainability Coordinator initiative and CSDS student research interns. The 1st tab is the summary for Part 1 for AC-1 and the 2nd tab is the summary for Part 2.

The data for total courses was generated by the Registrar's office for every single course offered (including physical education, internships, special topics, senior theses, and related courses).

*** NOTE TO REVIEWERS:
Pratt counts courses for AC1 such that 1 section = 1 course. This is the way that the registrar provides us with the list of courses offered at the Institute so we keep this organization as we sort Sust-focused courses, Sust-inclusive courses, non-sust courses and excluded courses. When we create the inventory with descriptions, some of our faculty provide the descriptions for each section and some provide a list of descriptions for each course title. For example, in Foundation, there are 39 sections of a class and only a handful of sections that are sustainable - inclusive. The faculty member who reviewed the foundation classes provided the justification for those classes. For UG Interior Design, all sections of many of the classes are sustainability - inclusive and the faculty member provided the description for that class, not each section. This explains the discrepancy in using the descriptions tab to verify our summary of the class count.
The full accounting of our classes can be found in these 2 folders: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jy200kogCbhwWp-IbPTjX5f68wQmf_jl?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sm-OXRsSyYwUeFm0RKX5yqU54Oz9a3LY?usp=sharing


Data on courses collected by the individual departments through the Department Sustainability Coordinator initiative and CSDS student research interns. The 1st tab is the summary for Part 1 for AC-1 and the 2nd tab is the summary for Part 2.

The data for total courses was generated by the Registrar's office for every single course offered (including physical education, internships, special topics, senior theses, and related courses).

*** NOTE TO REVIEWERS:
Pratt counts courses for AC1 such that 1 section = 1 course. This is the way that the registrar provides us with the list of courses offered at the Institute so we keep this organization as we sort Sust-focused courses, Sust-inclusive courses, non-sust courses and excluded courses. When we create the inventory with descriptions, some of our faculty provide the descriptions for each section and some provide a list of descriptions for each course title. For example, in Foundation, there are 39 sections of a class and only a handful of sections that are sustainable - inclusive. The faculty member who reviewed the foundation classes provided the justification for those classes. For UG Interior Design, all sections of many of the classes are sustainability - inclusive and the faculty member provided the description for that class, not each section. This explains the discrepancy in using the descriptions tab to verify our summary of the class count.
The full accounting of our classes can be found in these 2 folders: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jy200kogCbhwWp-IbPTjX5f68wQmf_jl?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sm-OXRsSyYwUeFm0RKX5yqU54Oz9a3LY?usp=sharing

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.