Stark State College
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Sustainability-focused courses concentrate on the concept of sustainability, including its social, economic, and environmental dimensions, or examine an issue or topic using sustainability as a lens. To be considered sustainability-focused, greater than 50% of the content must be devoted to sustainability and include 3 or more of the sustainability educational objectives listed below. Sustainability-related courses incorporate sustainability as a distinct course component or module, or concentrate on a single sustainability principle or issue. To be considered sustainability-related, include 1 or more of the sustainability educational objectives listed below. Sustainability Educational Objectives The goal of sustainability education is to provide students, regardless of their courses of study, the knowledge and skills to help create a healthy economy, society, and environment. In order to determine whether or not a course has this goal in mind, it is useful to ask whether or not a given course will help students to achieve one or more of the following. 1. Understand and be able to effectively communicate the concept of sustainability. 2. Develop and use an ethical perspective in which they view themselves as embedded in the fabric of an interconnected world. 3. Become aware of and explore the connections between their chosen course of study and sustainability. 4. Develop technical skills or expertise necessary to implement sustainable solutions. 5. Understand the way in which sustainable thinking and decision-making contributes to the process of creating solutions for current and emerging social, environmental, and economic crises. 6. Contribute practical solutions to real-world sustainability challenges. 7. Synthesize understanding of social, economic, and environmental systems and reason holistically.

Presentations with open dialogue focusing on sustainability integration to each academic division kicked off a campus wide survey which provided an initial inventory. Sustainability staff also reviewed all course descriptions to identify any additional courses that might have sustainability focused or related content. All identified courses and survey responses were followed-up responsible faculty members to ensure reasonable accuracy.