Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 76.21
Liaison Lindsey Kalkbrenner
Submission Date May 5, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Santa Clara University
AC-1: Academic Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 14.00 / 14.00 Lindsey Kalkbrenner
Director
Center for Sustainability
"---" 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 3,449 1,211
Number of sustainability courses offered 108 5
Number of courses offered that include sustainability 889 113

Percentage of courses that are sustainability course offerings:
23.93

Total number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that offer courses (at any level):
43

Number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that offer at least one sustainability course and/or course that includes sustainability (at any level):
40

Percentage of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
93.02

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 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 :

Inventory was based on academic year 2015-16 course offerings list provided by the Registrar's Office.

Courses were identified as Including Sustainability (IS) or a Sustainability Course (SC) based on these steps:
1. Faculty Survey (FS)
2. Course attributes in the undergraduate Core Curriculum (I_... Or E_...)
3. Academic Pathways (PATH_...)
4. Earth Charter (EC)
5. Faculty Review (FR)

1. Faculty Survey (FS).
Faculty were asked to self-identify their courses in a campus-wide survey distributed in December 2013.
Unless we were told that all sections of a course include a sustainability component, we only tagged sections taught by the survey respondent.

2. Course attributes in the undergraduate Core Curriculum (http://www.scu.edu/provost/core).
If a course is part of the Experiential Learning for Social Justice (I_ELSJ) or Diversity (E_DIV), Civic Engagement (E_CIV), or Ethics (E_ETH) components of the core curriculum, it was automatically tagged as IS.
This was followed by further review of each course's title and course description to clarify an accurate tag. Many courses were "un-tagged" (UT) during this process because we didn't feel a strong case for an "Includes Sustainability" tag.

3. Academic Pathways (http://www.scu.edu/provost /core/pathways/)
Several of our academic Pathways are inherently related to sustainability. If a course is part of one of these pathways, it was tagged as IS:
Applied Ethics (PATH_AE)
Food, Hunger, Poverty, Environment (PATH_FHP)
Global Health (PATH_GH)
Human Rights (PATH_HR)
Law & Social Justice (PATH_LSJ)
Leading People, Organizations, & Social Change (PATH_LPOS)
Race, Place, & Social Inequalities (PATH_RPSI)
Sustainability (PATH_SUST)
Values in Science & Technology (VST)
This was followed by further review of each course's title and course description to clarify an accurate tag. Some courses were "un-tagged" (UT) during this process because we didn't feel a strong case for an "Includes Sustainability" tag.

4. Faculty Review (FR)
During the latter part of the inventory, faculty from each department were asked to review our inventory and provide corrections and/or further clarification regarding course tags.

5. Sustainability Challenges
Courses that weren't tagged during processes 1-4 but appeared to address a sustainability challenge (based on course title) were reviewed using the Earth Charter (EC) or the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Each course tagged IS according to these frameworks includes a rationale and identifies which Earth Charter component or Sustainable Development Goal it meets.

6. Removing cross-listed courses.
Several courses are cross-listed with others. Though both had been tagged originally, this part of the inventory process removed the tag from one of the course pairs so we didn't double-count section offerings.


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 (if different from the options outlined above):

All sections of a course were counted. However, cross-listed courses were noted to prevent counting the same course twice.


Are the following course types included in the inventory? :
Yes (included) or No (not included)
Internships Yes
Practicums No
Independent study No
Special topics Yes
Thesis / dissertation No
Clinical Yes
Physical education No
Performance arts Yes

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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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.