Skidmore College
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

We offered two faculty development workshops in the summer of 2012 and 2013. Over 20 faculty participated in these workshops, representing over 10 different academic departments from across the campus. The workshop provided a stipend to faculty to spend two days working with facilitators on the development of a new or revised course that included sustainability in a fundamental way. The facilitators included the Associate Dean for Infrastructure, Sustainability & Civic Engagement; the faculty coordinator for the Human Dilemmas First Year Seminars; the Sustainability Coordinator; and lead facilitator Jack Byrne from the Sustainability Integration Office at Middlebury College. Through a partnership between our Sustainability Office and our Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning, we are now launching a series of lunchtime conversations around different sustainability topics to foster improved networking among faculty and course development ideas. The New Initiatives in Sustainability Fund was started in the 2012-2013 Academic Year with grant funding. This fund allows students, faculty, or staff to submit proposals that relate to sustainability in order to implement a project idea or attend a conference. Faculty have submitted successful proposals to this fund to allow for course development via the attendance at conferences or workshops. The Environmental Studies and Sciences Program has offered funding for course development from grants, and the Dean of Faculty's Office offers support to attend workshops and conferences related to sustainability and course development. These resources have been made available almost continuously through different grants and opportunities for the past 15 years. We also participate in a 6-college consortium, and there is inter-institutional support for teaching and research. For example, there have been grants available over the past two years for collaborations around sustainability and human rights.

The Faculty Development Workshops for Sustainability offer a $500 stipend for the faculty who attend the workshop and agree to revise or develop a new curriculum. The New Initiatives in Sustainability Fund provides up to $2500 for a project idea or for conference attendance. The Environmental Studies and Sciences Program has provided stipends for course development (between $2500-$3000) to faculty. The conference and workshop attendance funding provided by the Dean of Faculty's Office typically covers all expenses for the faculty member attending, but the amount of funding varies depending on the conference and location. Other course development funds have ranged from $500-$3000 depending on the source and year.