Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 68.39
Liaison Sam Lubow
Submission Date June 29, 2012
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

Stanford University
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 3.00 Jiffy Vermylen
Sustainability Coordinator
Sustainability & Energy Management / Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution developed a definition of sustainability in the curriculum?:
Yes

A copy of the institution's definition of sustainability in the curriculum?:

Stanford's Sustainability Working Group (SWG) is a volunteer organization composed of staff, faculty, and students, that prepares sustainability policy and program recommendations to the administration. The group developed the definitions below for sustainability courses at Stanford:

(1) SUSTAINABILITY-FOCUSED classes are solutions-focused and consider the problems, knowledge, tools, technologies, and approaches that will enable society to achieve the goal of sustainability (to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs). Sustainability-focused classes incorporate the interaction of human and environment or resource systems.

(2) SUSTAINABILITY-RELATED classes incorporate aspects of sustainability into the course material, but do not need to focus on solutions and/or address all components of sustainability.


Has the institution identified its sustainability-focused and sustainability-related course offerings?:
Yes

A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the inventory:

For many years, the Earth Systems Program within Stanford's School of Earth Sciences has compiled and published a list of environmental courses (http://pangea.stanford.edu/programs/esys/academics/undergraduate-program/undergrad-courses). This list served as the starting point for the sustainability course inventory. Staff went through each course on the existing list and determined whether it was sustainability-related, sustainability-focused, or neither. Next, staff audited the entire 2010-2011 course bulletin and identified (based on course descriptions), whether or not courses should be added to the sustainability course inventory. The new list, consisting of only sustainability-related and sustainability-focused courses has been uploaded to the Sustainable Stanford website.


Does the institution make its sustainability course inventory publicly available online?:
Yes

The website URL where the sustainability course inventory is posted:
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.