Overall Rating	Gold - expired
Overall Score	70.76
Liaison	Richard Johnson
Submission Date	Oct. 13, 2017
Executive Letter	Download

STARS v2.1

Rice University
AC-1: Academic Courses

Status	Score	Responsible Party
	9.14 / 14.00	Richard Johnson Director of Sustainability Facilities Engineering and Planning

"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1

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	3,047	1,827
Number of sustainability courses offered	89	43
Number of courses offered that include sustainability	280	127

Percentage of courses that are sustainability course offerings:

11.06

Part 2

Total number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that offer courses (at any level):

None

Number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that offer at least one sustainability course and/or course that includes sustainability (at any level):

Percentage of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:

70.77

Course Inventory

A copy of the institution’s inventory of its sustainability course offerings and descriptions:

AC1 Sustainability Courses Offered STARS 2.1.xlsx

Do the figures reported above cover one, two, or three academic years?:

Three

A brief description of the methodology used to determine the total number of courses offered and to identify sustainability course offerings, including the definitions used and the process for reviewing and/or validating the course inventory :

The courses were counted using catalog listings with language that is aligned with the Earth Charter, covering topics such as ecological integrity, social and economic justice, and democracy and nonviolence. Course descriptions that included terms like "environment," "sustainable/sustainability," and "energy" were counted as Sustainability-Focused courses, and the other courses that address a topic from the Earth Charter but are not centrally-focused on sustainability were considered Sustainability-Included courses.

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 (if different from the options outlined above):

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Are the following course types included in the inventory? :

	Yes (included) or No (not included)
Internships	No
Practicums	No
Independent study	No
Special topics	No
Thesis / dissertation	No
Clinical	No
Physical education	No
Performance arts	No

Optional Fields

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:

http://sustainability.rice.edu/courses/

Additional documentation to support the submission:

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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

The number of departments listed for this credit and included in the inventory - 65 - is greater than the number of departments listed in IC-3. This is because for the purposes of this credit, in order to determine the percentage of departments offering at least one sustainability class, we chose to look at each subject code with course offerings. So for example, subject code COLL (which stands for College Course) was included as a "department" since courses are offered with a COLL subject code, yet there is no actual "College Course" department.