Texas A&M University
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

The Institute for Sustainable Communities (IfSC) conducts research in 5 areas:

The Coastal Risk Reduction and Resilience Initiative of the Institute for Sustainable Communities seeks to provide solutions to today’s most pressing coastal issues through holistic research that explores the interconnections of the natural, built, and socio-political environments and engages communities to enhance local resilience.This initiative builds upon the work of the Texas Center for Beaches and Shores, driven by an interdisciplinary team of faculty, professional staff, and students with backgrounds in urban planning, geography, economics, ocean engineering, coastal ecology, marine biology, marine sciences, environmental science, coastal planning, and political science. The shared focus of this team is coastal hazard reduction and resilience with specific emphasis on coastal flooding. Coastal flooding driven by heavy precipitation, storm surge, and sea level rise is the most costly, disruptive, and life-threatening hazard worldwide. Therefore, it is imperative to research solutions to reduce flood risk and mitigate the negative impacts of storm events. The team dedicated to this initiative are tackling the issue of flooding by studying the association of hazard events, risk reduction, and public policy with the interaction of urban development, anthropogenic impacts, local economies, and community knowledge and culture. The findings of this research promote innovative approaches, both structural and non-structural, to mitigate coastal flooding. This work has been supported by numerous funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the Texas Sea Grant.

The Community Infrastructure area within the IfSC focuses on creating innovative ways for addressing infrastructure problems in local communities. Housed within the College of Engineering, our work is interdisciplinary in nature and spans across multiple infrastructure systems (e.g., water, stormwater, transportation, buildings). These systems are essential for the wellbeing of local communities.

The Water Security Initiative (WSI) seeks to provide data-driven, analytically sound assessments of water security based on consideration of the coupled natural-human systems. We develop and use effective metrics, models, and analytics of the coupled systems to improve society’s long-term water challenges. The Water Initiative targets key threats to water security, including poverty, climate change, governance and social marginalization, and we seek to understand the complex dynamics of coupled social and environmental systems impacted by challenges, such as decreasing supplies of potable water, in the coming years.
​
The Water Security initiative seeks to establish a robust, cross-regional comparative context in which to develop key analytics and standardized assessments to benchmark current water security situations at multiple scales. We also seek to develop water insecurity models and evaluate progress and performance of policy, program, and technical interventions and evaluate how these impact the natural and human systems. Critical to the goals of the initiative is to create a research and teaching community to support individual research water security interests and foster teams that can also address the coupled human and natural processes related to questions of water security for present and future sustainable needs based on a fundamental understanding of the hydrological cycle and their environmental impacts.

The Community Resilience (CoRe) Program of the Institute for Sustainable Communities seeks to generate and apply research on the impact of natural hazards to socially and physically vulnerable populations and neighborhoods and utilize said research to develop strategies to mitigate and adapt to disasters, with an emphasis on community engagement and participatory processes.

The program seeks to extend the mission of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center (HRRC) by exploring new and transformative directions to create and disseminate research findings to communities and practitioners to better mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters. It is comprised of faculty, professionals, staff and students with backgrounds in urban planning, landscape architecture, landscape ecology, urban hydrology and low impact development. Our work is strongly focused on issues related to land use change and urban development patterns, ecosystem services, water resource conservation, stormwater flooding and storm surge, green infrastructure and climate change and has been supported by many funders, including the Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation and Texas SeaGrant.

The Health and Environment Program of the Institute for Sustainable Communities seeks to link applied public health research and community engagement to the improved measurement of environmental variables to better understand interactions between individual level health outcomes and the built environment, health systems, and community level factors.

The Health and Environment Program is comprised of faculty, professional staff, and students with backgrounds in toxicology, epidemiology, public health, medicine, and food science. Our work is strongly focused on issues related to disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery and is supported by many funders, including the Department of Homeland Security, the National Academies of Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, and the Texas Department of State Health Services.

More information about IfSC can be found here: http://ifsc.tamu.edu/
Positive outcomes are discussed in the Annual Reports found here: http://ifsc.tamu.edu/About/Report

T3 Grants:

T3: Texas A&M Triads for Transformation is a multidisciplinary seed-grant program that is part of the President's Excellence Fund designed to further Texas A&M University's commitments to the three pillars of advancing transformational learning; enhancing discovery and innovation and expanding impact on our community, state, nation, and world.

T3 will foster new research and scholarship by moving excellent ideas from a vision to proof of concept. This program will enable interdisciplinary teams to develop long-term research and scholarship collaborations. T3 will fund 100 uniquely identified projects at a total of $30,000 each. The projects will be carried out by multidisciplinary teams of three faculty members. Additional funds will be available to support undergraduate student researchers.

Utilizing a web-based interface, project ideas are posted for all faculty to review. Tenured or tenure-track faculty from at least two different colleges/schools will be invited to form three-person interdisciplinary research groups, or Triads, to accomplish the proposed project in 12-24 months.


In 2019, nineteen grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Refine Microstructure In Renewable Carbon Fiber For Energy Storage Application
- Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis For Sustainability & Resilience Of Buildings Subjected To Eq & Wind
- Biodiversity Impacts And Social Dimensions Of Land Use In Tropical Montane Ecosystems
- Analytics For Renewable Energy Management In Microgrids
- Energy, Law And Policy - Creating A New Paradigm
- Framing Gun Control As A Suicide Prevention Measure: Influencing Health Education, Public Perception
- Online Local Environment Hazards Education For Young Adults Using A Social Media Platform
- Millennial-Scale Hurricane Activity On The Yucatan Peninsula: Climate Drivers And Cultural Impact
- Doctoral Programs At Predominately White Institutions: Shared Experiences From Women Of Color
- Validating Rainfall Parameterizations In Climate Models Using Predictive Empirical Analysis
- Socioeconomic Impacts Of Local Fracking Booms: A Comprehensive Interdisciplinary Perspective
- Social And Contextual Influences On Children's Development: Insights From Secondary Data Analysis
- Texas Freedom Colony Project Portal & Community Heritage Collaborative
- Engineering With Nature: The Fusion Of Coastal Engineering And Ecology
- Revitalizing Neglected Public Space With Recycled Plastics
- Theory-Guided Design And Development Of Metal-Organic Frameworks For Solar Energy Conversion
- Crowd-Biosensing Of Location-Based Physical And Emotional Distress For Walkable Built Environment
- Hydrocarbon Exposure And Public Perceptions In Shale Areas
- The Pragmatics Of Othering: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Cyberhate

In 2020, eighteen grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Closed-Loop Discovery Of Radical Biopolymers For Organic Battery Electrodes
- Still Separate, Still Unequal? The Impact Of Enduring Segregation On Educational Outcomes
- Unmanned Aerial Systems-Based Smart Precision Farming
- Environmental Disasters In The Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach
- Hydrologic Influences On The Ecologic And Sedimentary History Of Matagorda Bay
- Motivating Workplace Safety Through Evidence-Based Messaging
- Disentangling Effects Of "Stress" On The Avian Immune System - Hormonal And Environmental Factors
- Innovative K-12 School Design For Active And Healthy Students
- Carbon Parks As Climate Mitigation Measures
- Character Development Through Service/Volunteer Activities: Examining The Big Event
- Impact Of Climate Extremes On Gulf Coast Energy Industry
- Impact Of Drinking Water Contaminants On Cancer Rates In Texas
- Scalable Manufacturing Of Multifunctional Nanocomposite Membranes For Wastewater Treatment And Reuse
- Thinking Inside The Box: A Circular Economy Approach To The 30K Vertical House
- Intergenerational Social And Epigenetic Transmission Of Post-Trauma Stress In Holocaust Survivors
- Association Of Government Policies And Trade Agreements With Migration Flows In The United States
- Spatial And Temporal Air Pollution Mapping In Bryan/College Station Area
- Walk A Mile In Their Shoes: Using Virtual Reality To Increase Empathy And Improve Transport Safety

In 2021, 30 grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Short Term Electricity Demand Forecasting And Risk Management Using Machine Learning Methods
- Novel Superabsorbents For Efficient And Eco-Friendly Remediation Of Oil Spills
- Reconstructing Ancient Atmospheric Co2 Levels Using Fossil Leaves And Their Stable Isotopes
- Tracking Microaggressions In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics
- Optimization Of Food Production For Space Exploration
- 3D Printing Of Biomass-Based Materials For Construction
- Effects Of Travel To Natural Environments On Health & Wellbeing
- Reducing Emission By Using Connected Automated Vehicles In Large Urban Areas
- A Human-Centered Decision Support System For Improving Urban Resilience In Disaster Management
- Transference Vulnerability: Linking Social, Health And Built Environment Data With Covid-19 Exposure
- Feasibility Test Of A Smartphone-Based Smoking Cessation Program In Low-Income Maternal Women
- An Interface Design For Older Adults Living With Cognitive Impairments To Use Automated Vehicles
- Machine Learning For Monitoring Geothermal And Carbon-Sequestration Operations
- Diversity And Inclusion Through Role Models
- Pandemic And Recovery: Covid-19’S Effects On The Demand For Low Wage Workers In The United States
- Using Canine Olfaction To Predict Bovine Respiratory Disease And Promote Antimicrobial Stewardship
- Transmission Efficiency And Exposure Risks Of Covid-19 Through Aerosols: Prediction And Mitigation
- Novel Energy Saving Eco-Friendly Concrete Materials In Buildings
- Novel Energy Saving Eco-Friendly Concrete Materials In Buildings
- Where Do I Go From Here? Examining The Transition Of Graduating Undocumented College Students
- Understanding The Role Of Indigenous Lands And Peoples For Texas A&M University
- Tracing Texas Freshwaters Into The Coastal Gulf Of Mexico Using Isotopes
- Engaging Spanish Media And Latinx Consumers In Public Mental Health
- Microscale To Macroscale Phenomena Of Bioaerosol Transport In Smart Greenhouses
- Monitoring Of Uranium Hexafluoride Emitted To The Atmosphere From Nuclear Enrichment Activities
- Solar Thermal Desalination Of Oilfield Brines Using Nanogels
- Impacts Of Road Development On Biodiversity
- The Impact Of Covid-19 On Student Persistence
- Development Of An Autonomous Robotic System For Covid-19 Disinfection In Closed-Spaces
- Measurement Of Gamma-Rays Using Fast Pico-Second Detectors To Improve Nuclear Fuel Security

ARISE:

Students are encouraged to participate in ARISE. The program builds on the proposed projects that will lead to not only scientific discovery and new technology but also pedagogical innovation for training students to become the new interdisciplinary researchers in renewable energy. This will be accomplished through developments of new interdisciplinary curricula that not only train students broadly in the science and engineering required by interdisciplinary developments, but also teach them how these challenges will impact industry, global markets, and the ever developing energy needs of other countries.

X-Grants:

Part of the President’s Excellence Fund, X-Grants is an interdisciplinary program designed to bring faculty together across disciplines. The program’s goal is to unlock creative and imaginative ideas that will address important problems in areas that will significantly impact the most important challenges facing global society. Seven million dollars will be devoted to a mix of smaller-scale awards and larger-scale collaborative research awards.

In 2019, three grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Project X-CEL: Eliminating Bias in School Discipline through Teacher Training
- Digital Twin City for Age-friendly Communities: Crowd-biosensing of
Environmental Distress
- Mitigating Mental Health Stigma in Higher Education Through Complementary
Facilitated Dialogues

In 2020, two grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Disaster City Digital Twin: Integrating Machine and Human Intelligence to Augment Flood Resilience
- Developing a SmallSat Mission to Track the Global Movement of Water, Carbon, and Sediment across Lan

In 2021, six grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Understanding the Impact of Expansion of Health Insurance Coverage in Texas on Financial Well-being
- Mapping and Meeting the Directed Evolution of a Pandemic
- MitoX: Targeting Mitochondria to Improve Human Health
- Design and delivery of personalized, AI-assisted, accessible, positive-affect treatments for depression
- The Gulf Coast Heritage Preparedness Initiative
- Saving Babies Born with Birth Defects: Crafting Epigenetic Risk Scores to Reduce Racial Disparity in Infant Mortality

T3 Grants:

T3: Texas A&M Triads for Transformation is a multidisciplinary seed-grant program that is part of the President's Excellence Fund designed to further Texas A&M University's commitments to the three pillars of advancing transformational learning; enhancing discovery and innovation and expanding impact on our community, state, nation, and world.

T3 will foster new research and scholarship by moving excellent ideas from a vision to proof of concept. This program will enable interdisciplinary teams to develop long-term research and scholarship collaborations. T3 will fund 100 uniquely identified projects at a total of $30,000 each. The projects will be carried out by multidisciplinary teams of three faculty members. Additional funds will be available to support undergraduate student researchers.

Utilizing a web-based interface, project ideas are posted for all faculty to review. Tenured or tenure-track faculty from at least two different colleges/schools will be invited to form three-person interdisciplinary research groups, or Triads, to accomplish the proposed project in 12-24 months.

In 2019, nineteen grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Refine Microstructure In Renewable Carbon Fiber For Energy Storage Application
- Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis For Sustainability & Resilience Of Buildings Subjected To Eq & Wind
- Biodiversity Impacts And Social Dimensions Of Land Use In Tropical Montane Ecosystems
- Analytics For Renewable Energy Management In Microgrids
- Energy, Law And Policy - Creating A New Paradigm
- Framing Gun Control As A Suicide Prevention Measure: Influencing Health Education, Public Perception
- Online Local Environment Hazards Education For Young Adults Using A Social Media Platform
- Millennial-Scale Hurricane Activity On The Yucatan Peninsula: Climate Drivers And Cultural Impact
- Doctoral Programs At Predominately White Institutions: Shared Experiences From Women Of Color
- Validating Rainfall Parameterizations In Climate Models Using Predictive Empirical Analysis
- Socioeconomic Impacts Of Local Fracking Booms: A Comprehensive Interdisciplinary Perspective
- Social And Contextual Influences On Children's Development: Insights From Secondary Data Analysis
- Texas Freedom Colony Project Portal & Community Heritage Collaborative
- Engineering With Nature: The Fusion Of Coastal Engineering And Ecology
- Revitalizing Neglected Public Space With Recycled Plastics
- Theory-Guided Design And Development Of Metal-Organic Frameworks For Solar Energy Conversion
- Crowd-Biosensing Of Location-Based Physical And Emotional Distress For Walkable Built Environment
- Hydrocarbon Exposure And Public Perceptions In Shale Areas
- The Pragmatics Of Othering: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Cyberhate

In 2020, eighteen grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Closed-Loop Discovery Of Radical Biopolymers For Organic Battery Electrodes
- Still Separate, Still Unequal? The Impact Of Enduring Segregation On Educational Outcomes
- Unmanned Aerial Systems-Based Smart Precision Farming
- Environmental Disasters In The Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach
- Hydrologic Influences On The Ecologic And Sedimentary History Of Matagorda Bay
- Motivating Workplace Safety Through Evidence-Based Messaging
- Disentangling Effects Of "Stress" On The Avian Immune System - Hormonal And Environmental Factors
- Innovative K-12 School Design For Active And Healthy Students
- Carbon Parks As Climate Mitigation Measures
- Character Development Through Service/Volunteer Activities: Examining The Big Event
- Impact Of Climate Extremes On Gulf Coast Energy Industry
- Impact Of Drinking Water Contaminants On Cancer Rates In Texas
- Scalable Manufacturing Of Multifunctional Nanocomposite Membranes For Wastewater Treatment And Reuse
- Thinking Inside The Box: A Circular Economy Approach To The 30K Vertical House
- Intergenerational Social And Epigenetic Transmission Of Post-Trauma Stress In Holocaust Survivors
- Association Of Government Policies And Trade Agreements With Migration Flows In The United States
- Spatial And Temporal Air Pollution Mapping In Bryan/College Station Area
- Walk A Mile In Their Shoes: Using Virtual Reality To Increase Empathy And Improve Transport Safety

In 2021, 30 grants were approved to advance sustainability:
- Short Term Electricity Demand Forecasting And Risk Management Using Machine Learning Methods
- Novel Superabsorbents For Efficient And Eco-Friendly Remediation Of Oil Spills
- Reconstructing Ancient Atmospheric Co2 Levels Using Fossil Leaves And Their Stable Isotopes
- Tracking Microaggressions In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics
- Optimization Of Food Production For Space Exploration
- 3D Printing Of Biomass-Based Materials For Construction
- Effects Of Travel To Natural Environments On Health & Wellbeing
- Reducing Emission By Using Connected Automated Vehicles In Large Urban Areas
- A Human-Centered Decision Support System For Improving Urban Resilience In Disaster Management
- Transference Vulnerability: Linking Social, Health And Built Environment Data With Covid-19 Exposure
- Feasibility Test Of A Smartphone-Based Smoking Cessation Program In Low-Income Maternal Women
- An Interface Design For Older Adults Living With Cognitive Impairments To Use Automated Vehicles
- Machine Learning For Monitoring Geothermal And Carbon-Sequestration Operations
- Diversity And Inclusion Through Role Models
- Pandemic And Recovery: Covid-19’S Effects On The Demand For Low Wage Workers In The United States
- Using Canine Olfaction To Predict Bovine Respiratory Disease And Promote Antimicrobial Stewardship
- Transmission Efficiency And Exposure Risks Of Covid-19 Through Aerosols: Prediction And Mitigation
- Novel Energy Saving Eco-Friendly Concrete Materials In Buildings
- Novel Energy Saving Eco-Friendly Concrete Materials In Buildings
- Where Do I Go From Here? Examining The Transition Of Graduating Undocumented College Students
- Understanding The Role Of Indigenous Lands And Peoples For Texas A&M University
- Tracing Texas Freshwaters Into The Coastal Gulf Of Mexico Using Isotopes
- Engaging Spanish Media And Latinx Consumers In Public Mental Health
- Microscale To Macroscale Phenomena Of Bioaerosol Transport In Smart Greenhouses
- Monitoring Of Uranium Hexafluoride Emitted To The Atmosphere From Nuclear Enrichment Activities
- Solar Thermal Desalination Of Oilfield Brines Using Nanogels
- Impacts Of Road Development On Biodiversity
- The Impact Of Covid-19 On Student Persistence
- Development Of An Autonomous Robotic System For Covid-19 Disinfection In Closed-Spaces
- Measurement Of Gamma-Rays Using Fast Pico-Second Detectors To Improve Nuclear Fuel Security

The Institute for Sustainable Communities (IfSC) conducts research in 5 areas:

The Coastal Risk Reduction and Resilience Initiative of the Institute for Sustainable Communities seeks to provide solutions to today’s most pressing coastal issues through holistic research that explores the interconnections of the natural, built, and socio-political environments and engages communities to enhance local resilience.This initiative builds upon the work of the Texas Center for Beaches and Shores, driven by an interdisciplinary team of faculty, professional staff, and students with backgrounds in urban planning, geography, economics, ocean engineering, coastal ecology, marine biology, marine sciences, environmental science, coastal planning, and political science. The shared focus of this team is coastal hazard reduction and resilience with specific emphasis on coastal flooding. Coastal flooding driven by heavy precipitation, storm surge, and sea level rise is the most costly, disruptive, and life-threatening hazard worldwide. Therefore, it is imperative to research solutions to reduce flood risk and mitigate the negative impacts of storm events. The team dedicated to this initiative are tackling the issue of flooding by studying the association of hazard events, risk reduction, and public policy with the interaction of urban development, anthropogenic impacts, local economies, and community knowledge and culture. The findings of this research promote innovative approaches, both structural and non-structural, to mitigate coastal flooding. This work has been supported by numerous funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the Texas Sea Grant.

The Community Infrastructure area within the IfSC focuses on creating innovative ways for addressing infrastructure problems in local communities. Housed within the College of Engineering, our work is interdisciplinary in nature and spans across multiple infrastructure systems (e.g., water, stormwater, transportation, buildings). These systems are essential for the wellbeing of local communities.

The Water Security Initiative (WSI) seeks to provide data-driven, analytically sound assessments of water security based on consideration of the coupled natural-human systems. We develop and use effective metrics, models, and analytics of the coupled systems to improve society’s long-term water challenges. The Water Initiative targets key threats to water security, including poverty, climate change, governance and social marginalization, and we seek to understand the complex dynamics of coupled social and environmental systems impacted by challenges, such as decreasing supplies of potable water, in the coming years.
​
The Water Security initiative seeks to establish a robust, cross-regional comparative context in which to develop key analytics and standardized assessments to benchmark current water security situations at multiple scales. We also seek to develop water insecurity models and evaluate progress and performance of policy, program, and technical interventions and evaluate how these impact the natural and human systems. Critical to the goals of the initiative is to create a research and teaching community to support individual research water security interests and foster teams that can also address the coupled human and natural processes related to questions of water security for present and future sustainable needs based on a fundamental understanding of the hydrological cycle and their environmental impacts.

The Community Resilience (CoRe) Program of the Institute for Sustainable Communities seeks to generate and apply research on the impact of natural hazards to socially and physically vulnerable populations and neighborhoods and utilize said research to develop strategies to mitigate and adapt to disasters, with an emphasis on community engagement and participatory processes.

The program seeks to extend the mission of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center (HRRC) by exploring new and transformative directions to create and disseminate research findings to communities and practitioners to better mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters. It is comprised of faculty, professionals, staff and students with backgrounds in urban planning, landscape architecture, landscape ecology, urban hydrology and low impact development. Our work is strongly focused on issues related to land use change and urban development patterns, ecosystem services, water resource conservation, stormwater flooding and storm surge, green infrastructure and climate change and has been supported by many funders, including the Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation and Texas SeaGrant.

The Health and Environment Program of the Institute for Sustainable Communities seeks to link applied public health research and community engagement to the improved measurement of environmental variables to better understand interactions between individual level health outcomes and the built environment, health systems, and community level factors.

The Health and Environment Program is comprised of faculty, professional staff, and students with backgrounds in toxicology, epidemiology, public health, medicine, and food science. Our work is strongly focused on issues related to disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery and is supported by many funders, including the Department of Homeland Security, the National Academies of Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, and the Texas Department of State Health Services.

More information about IfSC can be found here: http://ifsc.tamu.edu/
Positive outcomes are discussed in the Annual Reports found here: http://ifsc.tamu.edu/About/Report


ARISE - The increasing consumption of petroleum deposits and the escalating air pollution problems caused by burning fossil fuels have driven the global research community to look for clean and renewable energy sources. Hydrogen, biofuel, and solar energy are among the most environmentally benign alternative energy sources. To build upon our strengths and to take the existing renewable energy programs on campus to the next level of international competitiveness, the Advanced Research Initiative for Sustainable Energy (ARISE) was chosen as one of the eight Initial University Multidisciplinary Research Initiatives (IUMRIs).

Texas is traditionally an energy state and Texas A&M University has been known as an energy institute as evidenced by our world class Petroleum Engineering and Nuclear Engineering programs. The energy emphasis is also reflected in the existing renewable energy programs in the University. The Advanced Research Initiative for Substainable Energy (ARISE) will build upon our strengths and take these existing renewable energy programs to the next level of international competitiveness. ARISE plans to connect the fields of technology development, academic research, commercialization, and the policy landscape in the renewable energy field. It will not only facilitate the collaboration among multidisciplinary researchers within the University, but will also help to attract funds from federal, state, and private funding agencies.

Faculty members should be recognized and rewarded for research, teaching, and service/engagement that contribute at the university or college levels in strategic multidisciplinary areas (which include activities in recognized interdisciplinary programs). Such contributions are as valued as disciplinary contributions, which we are accustomed to recognizing and rewarding. The procedures should not require that all faculty engage in multidisciplinary activities, but should recognize that such engagements may be in all three primary categories (teaching, creating new knowledge, or service/engagement).

The Texas A&M University Libraries (Libraries) supports and encourages sustainability research and learning by offering a large inventory of resources, services, and funding to the University’s faculty, researchers, clinicians, and students. Further, the Libraries actively supports the equitable access of information resources. For the past two decades, one of the Libraries’ goals has been to focus on providing access to information unbounded by the Libraries physical hours of operation. This includes providing a wide and deep collection of information resources, customizable subject and course support, and a diverse population of Subject Librarians that offer general and specialized expertise in the equally diverse aspects of Sustainability.
INFORMATION RESOURCES
Sustainability has become both a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary field of study. It has extended beyond a focus in the STEM disciplines into other fields such as law, public policy, international affairs, business, marketing, career opportunities, and the social sciences. Notably, there is a growing field of sustainability studies that centers around the humanities, not only in historical studies, but now into sustainability’s impact on literature and rhetoric.
The Libraries have an ongoing digitization program that targets print resources that are not available online. Digitizing these items makes them available to the world at large without the need to loan them through the mail or for others to physically travel to College Station for viewing. The Libraries have made available almost all of the publications from the Agricultural Experiment Stations and is beginning to look at Engineering Extension Services publications. These publications address past generations’ efforts in land use, conservation, energy, and transportation. The Libraries are also digitizing items from its Special Collections that are unique to us, making them available to the world. The Libraries are also working to preserve existing digital materials that would otherwise be lost because of technological obsolescence.
These digitized resources are deposited in various open access venues, such as the Texas Digital Library, HathiTrust, and the Libraries’ Digital Asset Management System. A major component of the DAME is the OAKTrust Repository, where most of the Texas A&M-produced research, such as the digitized Extension publications, reside. OAKTrust also accepts pre- and post-print articles currently published by faculty where publication policies allow and satisfies requirements by many granting organizations, including the NSF and NIH, that pre-publications and data sets be housed in open access databases. The Data Management Services unit also supports researcher needs to comply with these federal mandates.
A search for “sustainability” in the Libraries’ main search box results in over two million articles, books, and other resources, covering subjects ranging from philosophy to law to ecology, social aspects, architecture, engineering, agriculture, etc. Numerous library research guides and several librarian subject specialists are available to help find needed resources. The Libraries provides access to over 164,000 electronic journal titles, over 115,000 print journals, and nearly 1,500 databases. Over the last decade the Libraries have purchased many electronic journal backfiles that allow online access to older material and letting the Libraries remove the corresponding print volumes from the public shelves. This was accelerated in 2020 when the Provost gave the Libraries an additional $1 million for additional backfile purchases.
Like most academic libraries, in the past decade the Libraries have moved from trying to anticipate future needs, which involved buying large quantities of materials that saw little use, to a model that purchases fewer materials and relies more on patron requests for material they need now. The Libraries still proactively purchase a large number of books that seem likely to be used by our faculty and students and these purchases are actively monitored to cut down on purchases in areas that see little use one they arrive on our shelve. In an effort to control costs, the journals portion of the budget has been reviewed closely over the past few years, with the Libraries identifying titles that no longer see much use. The Libraries have culled the equivalent of 1% of journal costs per year over the past five years. In 2021 the print journals were examined and roughly half of those titles were cancelled or converted to electronic only, which will reduce the need for shelf space and costly commercial binding for preservation. The GetItForMe service allows the Libraries to borrow items from other libraries, rather than purchase items that may be of limited long-term value to our collections. In 2018 this unit reviewed its operations and implemented changes that both boosted services and saved money.
A major sustainability effort by the Libraries is its management of the Joint Libraries Facility (JLF), co-owned by the University of Texas and Texas A&M University Systems and located on the RELLIS campus. Both systems needed a long-term cost-effective solution to their space constraints in a manner that would avoid future campus construction costs. They adopted the concept of “Resources in Common” (RIC), which allows joint ownership of volumes deposited in JLF. Public shelf space in libraries is an expensive storage solution and few libraries have space to add shelves as collections grow. When an item is sent to the JLF by one library, any other JLF-member library that owns that title can claim that item and dispose of its physical copy. Several libraries may “own” the single item stored in JLF. As only low-use items are sent to JLF, this allows libraries across the two systems to dispose of older, seldom used volumes in a manner that allows them to still allow their patrons to use the JLF copy if it becomes needed. The JLF currently holds 1.18 million volumes, of which over 807,000 (68%) are RIC. In 2019 the JLF was identified as a designated participant in the NLM Medical Serials Print Preservation Program (MedPrint), providing storage for a nationwide network of medical libraries.

SERVICES FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES
As indicated previously, the Libraries is a strong advocate in theory and practice for the equitable access of information resources. The Libraries has designed physical and virtual learning and research information sources and services that can be utilized by users irrespective of any individual disabilities or disadvantages (https://library.tamu.edu/services/accessibility.html)

http://ifsc.tamu.edu/getattachment/About/Report/AR-letter-Print.pdf.aspx?lang=en-US - Institute for Sustainable Communities Annual Report (2017-2018) - Showcases the positive outcomes associated with the student and faculty research programs

Information about T3 Grants: http://t3.tamu.edu/

Information about X-Grants: https://president.tamu.edu/xgrants/index.html

http://arise.tamu.edu/research.html - ARISE