Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 71.76
Liaison Mike Versteege
Submission Date Oct. 10, 2014
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

University of Alberta
ER-17: Departments Engaged in Sustainability Research

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 6.00 / 6.00 Naomi Krogman
Academic Director of the Office of Sustainability
Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

The total number of academic departments that conduct research:
73

The number of academic departments in which at least one faculty member engages in sustainability research:
64

A list of academic departments in which at least one faculty member engages in sustainability research:

The of departments and faculty involved in sustainability research is available for download on the University of Alberta Office of Sustainability website at the URL indicated in this page.


The website URL where the sustainability research inventory that includes the departments engaged in sustainability research is posted:
A copy of the sustainability research inventory that includes the departments engaged in sustainability research:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

STARS provides a specific calculation for departments engaged in sustainability research. It is a ratio of the number of faculty doing sustainability research to the number of total faculty, the resulting number is multiplied by a factor of eight for the final score. The STARS technical manual indicates that a department is counted if it includes faculty that do sustainability research and that any level of sustainability research is acceptable to be counted. The total number of departments at the University of Alberta was acquired by counting each department as listed on faculty websites.

Campus St. Jean, Faculty of Extension, Nursing, Native Studies, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Physical Education, St. Joseph's College were all considered Faculty/Departments because they are organized differently than a traditional faculty with departments beneath it. St. Stephen's College was not included because they are an affiliate and they indicated it would not be appropriate to include them in the STARS assessment. For purpose of this credit the faculty/departments were included as departments.

To assess the number of departments doing sustainability research we used the list we made in ER-16 and counted the number of departments, each unique department was counted only once. Research units dependent on faculty housed in multiple departments were not counted in order to avoid double counting faculty (e.g., School of Forest Science and Management). At UAlberta some faculties are not divided into departments but their faculty members do conduct research, other faculties do not conduct any research. As such, we counted faculties with members who do research as a department, but did not include non-research conducting faculties or departments in the count of total departments.


STARS provides a specific calculation for departments engaged in sustainability research. It is a ratio of the number of faculty doing sustainability research to the number of total faculty, the resulting number is multiplied by a factor of eight for the final score. The STARS technical manual indicates that a department is counted if it includes faculty that do sustainability research and that any level of sustainability research is acceptable to be counted. The total number of departments at the University of Alberta was acquired by counting each department as listed on faculty websites.

Campus St. Jean, Faculty of Extension, Nursing, Native Studies, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Physical Education, St. Joseph's College were all considered Faculty/Departments because they are organized differently than a traditional faculty with departments beneath it. St. Stephen's College was not included because they are an affiliate and they indicated it would not be appropriate to include them in the STARS assessment. For purpose of this credit the faculty/departments were included as departments.

To assess the number of departments doing sustainability research we used the list we made in ER-16 and counted the number of departments, each unique department was counted only once. Research units dependent on faculty housed in multiple departments were not counted in order to avoid double counting faculty (e.g., School of Forest Science and Management). At UAlberta some faculties are not divided into departments but their faculty members do conduct research, other faculties do not conduct any research. As such, we counted faculties with members who do research as a department, but did not include non-research conducting faculties or departments in the count of total departments.

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.