Prescott College
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

One of our faculty received a USDA grant as part of a Research and Extension Experience for Undergraduates (REEU). This grant supports 6 month fellowships for any undergraduate students to participate in an opportunity to transform food systems. The first three months include a traineeship program to help build competencies and capacities for students to complete a three month fellowship (post-training) with an organization. Students finish the fellowship by creating and presenting a policy brief for how their organization can enhance ecosystem services through their work. This is a new program and does not have any measured positive outcomes to describe at this time.

Prescott College does not offer traditional tenure-track positions. Rather, faculty are given short-term contracts and are assessed before renewing, negotiating, or extending a contract. Faculty are assessed on three main criteria: Teaching, researching, and community service. Thus, in order to be promoted or achieve a longer-term contract at the college, faculty are incentivized to engage in research (most of which intersects sustainability as it is infused in the mission of Prescott College).

Many programs and courses at Prescott College include a sustainability component including Sustainability Education, Sustainable Community Development, and Environmental Studies. The library provides student and staff a Sustainability Research Guide which includes an extensive list of resources to support sustainability research. There are free e-books, links to scholarly journals that publish sustainability research, web resources, databases for statistics, and search support for finding sustainability-related articles. In addition, students can schedule a one-on-one research support session with the head research librarian.