University of Arizona
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

The University of Arizona includes sustainability as one of seven major competencies within its 100% Engagement initiative. As part of the initiative to ensure 100% of UA undergraduates complete an experiential course or other activity before they graduate, the Office of Student Engagement offers incentive grants throughout the university for faculty who desire to incorporate experiential learning into their courses so that the students can receive "engaged learning" credentials on their transcripts when they graduate. The incentive grants are for up to $10,000, and are granted through a competitive internal proposal process. The selection committee seeks to ensure representation across the seven areas of competency in the collective pool of grants given. Sustainability is therefore a significant presence in the overall pool of funded grants. In addition, Thanks to the support of the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environmental and Social Justice, $20,000 of the total $45,000 available for investment will be awarded to engaged learning experiences that combine Community Partnership activity with the Sustainability competency. Broadly defined, an engaged learning activity focused on building the Sustainability competency in provides an opportunity in which: Students gain an understanding of the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of conditions or practices that make society vulnerable and unsustainable over multi-generational time scales. Through the exploration of issues from a sustainability perspective, students develop potential solutions to these challenges through the use of systems thinking to improve the quality of life for all--environmentally, socially, and economically--both now and for future generations. The Haury grant opportunity is new, so there are no new courses or activities available yet from this funding incentive. However, there is a track-record of general funding toward sustainability engagement experiences, including: Hardin, Mary "DDBC Residence 7" (Professional Development - Sustainability) James, Keith "Tohono O’odham Traditional Building Project Internship" (Entrepreneurship - Sustainability) Marshall, David "People, Place & Food: Mapping Stories of Tucson’s Foodways" (Community Partnership - Sustainability) Austin, Diane "Fostering Student Engagement in a Binational Collaboration" (Community Partnership - Sustainability) Eldenburg, Leslie "Eller Economic Development (EED) Consulting Program" (Community Partnership - Sustainability) Wilder, Margaret "UA FoodJustice Lab: Engaging Students in Food Justice Research with the Southern Arizona and Borderlands Community" (Community Partnership - Sustainability)

Faculty receive recognition for these efforts by their departments in promotion and tenure, according to departmental priorities for securing external funding, and for improved teaching. Under the University of Arizona's new "responsibility-centered management" budget model, departmental funding is based on the amount of total enrolled students in departmental courses. So, departments have strong incentives to increase the quality of their course offerings to be more competitive in attracting students to their courses. And faculty that are successful in attracting these students will be attractive to their departments.