Seattle University
AC-1: Academic Courses

METHODOLOGY FOR CREATION OF AY 19-20 COURSE INVENTORY WITH CATEGORIZATIONS SUSTAINABILITY-FOCUSED, SUSTAINABILITY-INCLUSIVE, NO SUSTAINABILITY (see attached Excel sheet):
The total number of courses offered by SU in AY19-20 were obtained from the Institutional Research database. The "sustainability-focused courses", "sustainability-inclusive" or “no sustainability” courses were extracted from this master list as follows:
o Review of the course descriptions by 1 staff and 2 students using the definition of sustainability-focused or sustainability-inclusive (including the definition of "sustainability challenge") as provided in the STARS technical manual. -> first categorization was made
o In summer 2020, a survey was sent to faculty for STARS credit AC9 (inquiring about sustainability research) which also included a question about teaching sustainability courses. We incorporated the responses in the course inventory and our initial categorizations were updated accordingly.
o We sent our list with categorizations to all program chairs of all schools/colleges at SU and asked to verify. We incorporated those responses in the course inventory and our initial categorizations were updated accordingly.
The final inventory of courses and their categorizations can be found in the attached Excel sheet.

EXPLANATION OF COUNTED OR EXCLUDED COURSES IN COURSE INVENTORY:
Courses that are excluded from the count are:
(1) Individually directed courses (independent study, internships, research projects, thesis/doctoral projects, study abroad, simulations, senior synthesis, capstones)
(2) Strictly practice-oriented courses (labs, practicums, field experience, studios)
(3) Duplicate courses - Duplicate courses refer to courses with multiple sections of the same course. For example, ACCT-2300 may have been offered twice in the fall, three times in the winter, and once in the spring. This means that there would be 6 total ACCT-2300 reflected in the data. Only one of these sections would be counted and categorized as sustainability focused/inclusive.
--EDPD courses were also not included because they are non-degree granting, non-credit courses or programs.
--Special topics courses with no course description or section short title were not included in the count. This is because they were unable to be differentiated from one another and therefore it is impossible to tell if they were duplicates or not.
NOTE 1: Cross listed courses were counted as separate courses, not duplicates, and received their own sustainability ratings.
NOTE 2: University Core (UCOR) courses were determined to be duplicates through the SEC_COMMENTS column. If courses had the same name in that column, any sections following the first would be considered a duplicate and would therefore not be included.

All duplicate courses were removed from the total list of courses. Duplicate courses refer to courses with multiple sections of the same course. For example, ACCT-2300 may have been offered twice in the fall, three times in the winter, and once in the spring. This means that there would be 6 total ACCT-2300 reflected in the data. Only one of these sections has been counted and categorized.
NOTE: University Core (UCOR) courses were determined to be duplicates through the SEC_COMMENTS column. If courses had the same name in that column, any sections following the first would be considered a duplicate and would therefore not be included.