Southern Illinois University Carbondale
AC-1: Academic Courses

The following steps were taken to identify a list of "Sustainability Courses" and "Courses That Include Sustainability:" 1. A graduate student reviewed processes used by other universities and reported them to the Sustainability Coordinator. The following process was agreed upon by the Sustainability Council as the most appropriate for our university at this time and was followed. 2. A graduate student identified and created a list of sustainability keywords. These keywords were reviewed by the Sustainability Council. The Council made suggested changes to the list and the finalized list was voted on and approved by the Council. This keyword list is at the bottom of this section. 3. A graduate student searched the course directory catalog for the 2015-16 school year using the keyword list above to identify a list of sustainability courses. 4. The graduate student reviewed the course descriptions and completed an initial coding process for each course to identify it as a "Sustainability Course" (coded as "F" ) or a "Course That Includes Sustainability" (coded as "R"). 5. A team of 4 individuals (the 3 faculty members from the Sustainability Council and the Sustainability Coordinator) met to review the list created by the graduate student. (This list included the Department, Course Number, Course Title, Level, and Catalog Description.) The team of 4 reviewed the STARS definitions V 2.0 for "Sustainability Courses" and "Courses That Include Sustainability." The team discussed the definitions and, as a team, coded some courses together. 6. The entire course list was divided into 4 groups. Each of the 4 members of this small team was responsible for reviewing a list of 150-200 courses. Even with the definitions offered by STARS, it was not always clear what category the course should fall into. As such, the team used evidence in the course description and any personal knowledge of the course to determine if it should be a "Sustainability Course,” a "Course That Includes Sustainability," or if it should be removed from the list. If the majority of words included in the course description were sustainability terms, the course was coded as a "Sustainability Course." If the keywords identified courses that could not be coded as a "Sustainability Course" or a "Course That Includes Sustainability," they were deleted from the list. The attached course list uses the coding of "F" and "R," which we recognize references the STARS early version of coding for this credit. Please note, however, that the Version 2 credit criteria was applied during the course identification process. Sustainability Keywords Agriculture Alternative Awareness Balance Behavior Change Biodiversity Bioenergy Biomass Carbon (to detect Carbon offset) Change Climate Communit (to detect “community”, “communities”) Conservation Conserve Collaboration Culture Social responsibility (to detect “social responsibility”, “social responsibilities”) Democra (to detect “democracy”, “democratic”) Diversity Drought Development Design Deforestation Economy Ecolog (to detect “ecology”, “ecological”) Ecosystem Eco-system Energ (to detect “energy”, “energies”) Environment (to detect “environment”, “environmental”, “environmentally”) Engage Entrepreneurship Equality Equit (to detect “equity”, “equitable”) Farming Finance Flood Food ( to detect foodchain, food systems, foot prints) Future Gender Geothermal Global Governance Green Growth Human (to detect Human conditions, Rights, Environment) Innovat (to detect innovation, innovative) Indigen (to detect “indigenous”, “indigene”) Intergenerational Inter-generational Invest Justice Land Landscape LEED Life Local Marine Minority Modernization Movements Multidisciplinary Natural Systems Nature Nutrition Outreach Planning Policy Poverty Public Prosperity Pollut (to detect “pollution”, “polluting”) Resilien (to detect “resilience”, “resiliency”, “resilient”) Resource Race Recycle Renewable Resilience Rights Rural Scarce Scarcity Sustainab (to detect “sustainable”, “sustainability”) Solutions Stakeholder Social Stewardship System thinking Systems thinking Triple bottom line Technology Transdisciplinary Transformation Transit Transparency Undeserved Urban agriculture Urbanization Waste Water Welfare Wealth Wildlife Wind Women

The attached course list uses the coding of "F" and "R," which we recognize references the STARS early version of coding for this credit. Please note, however, that the Version 2 credit criteria was applied during the course identification process.