Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 72.08
Liaison Aaron Klemm
Submission Date March 6, 2020

STARS v2.2

San Jose State University
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Debbie Andres
Utilities & Sustainability Analyst
FD&O
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have an ongoing program that offers incentives for academic staff in multiple disciplines or departments to develop new sustainability courses and/or incorporate sustainability into existing courses? :
Yes

A brief description of the incentive program(s):

The 'Sustainabilty Across the Curriculum Workshops" will be offered to faculty to focus on cross-disciplinary discussions and helping like-minded faculty connect with colleagues in other departments and colleges. Participants will come away from the session with an idea for a sustainability-themed assignment or activity they'd like to develop for one of their courses. The program aligns the California State University’s long-standing commitment to sustainability with the fundamental goal of preparing students for the workforce.

One positive outcome of this CSU program is that in academic year 2015/2016, a faculty member in the Journalism/Mass Communications department created a student advertising agency team to promote sustainability to both the campus and the surrounding community. The team is comprised with six individuals who report their efforts on a weekly basis to the entire class. The project this past year (August-May) has two phases, with the first phase being the promotional campaigns and the second phase being the designing of the campus sustainability annual report submitted by FD&O.
​Budgets were proposed and approved. A variety of contests, campaign awareness materials, promotional giveaways and behavioral changes were implemented.
​During the development of these campaigns, the team has had numerous meetings with the campus sustainability board, FD&O, PG&E, Sustainability Circle, the campus marketing team and campus housing.
​A major contest between the residence halls was initiated in saving energy by promoting the turning off of lights and unplugging unused electronic devices. The contest will take place from March 7th to April 30th. We’ve already seen an overall 82% decrease from all the buildings.
​During this promotional period, the team has made weekly updates to SJSU’s sustainability website. This entire program has been structured to be an ongoing multiyear program. That will be executed by DB&H Communications as funding permits.
​A new team is being hired for next year, which will develop and implement additional ideas and campaigns.

In 2013 and 2014, SJSU faculty and the Sustainability Board created and shared transferable curriculum modules that can be utilized by all faculty using campus features and local partnerships to teach sustainability.
Specifically, we achieved these program objectives:

1) Developed maps and lists of sustainability features at each campus;
2) Produced teaching modules for nine sustainability features that any instructor can access for their courses;
3) Developed a learning community of instructors from the three campuses who are using Campus as Living Lab features in their classes to link sustainability and course principles.
Further Program Description can be found here: http://www.sjsu.edu/sustainability/livinglab/description/index.html


A brief description of the incentives that academic staff who participate in the program(s) receive:

The ‘Sustainability Across the Curriculum Workshops' Program will provide funds for faculty to incorporate into their course(s) elements of sustainability. Stipend of $500 will be available to faculty who
1. Attend the a kickoff workshop
2. Participate in a Faculty Learning Community which will meet once per month during a semester via "Lunch and Learn" sessions sponsored by the Center for Faculty Development
3. Develop and incorporate a sustainability themed unit or module into one of their courses
4. Report on the results.
5. Commit to using the sustainability themed unit or module for 2 academic years.


Website URL where information about the incentives for developing sustainability course content is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Program will begin in Fall 2020.


Program will begin in Fall 2020.

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