University of California, Santa Barbara
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

The figure above is the sum of graduates from degree programs that require an understanding of the concept of sustainability in their official learning outcomes. A degree program qualified if one or more of its learning outcomes directly related to understanding the concept of sustainability.

Environmental Studies BA and BS (2)
“Identify the societal (social, political, economic, cultural and ethical) agents and structures that contribute to environmental change.”
“Analyze efforts to solve environmental problems from multiple perspectives, including sustainability, equity and social justice.”

Hydrological Sciences and Policy BS:
“Identify the societal (social, political, economic, cultural and ethical) agents and structures that contribute to environmental change.”
“Analyze efforts to solve environmental problems from multiple perspectives, including sustainability, equity and social justice.”

Geography BA:
“Explain how geography, the study of Earth as the home of humanity, integrates biophysical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and humanities.”
“Describe the interrelationships of physical, biological, socio-cultural, and economic components of the Earth system.”
“Demonstrate an understanding of the role of geography in today’s world.”

Global Studies BA:
“Explain the basic contours of contemporary global social, cultural, economic, environmental and political issues.”

History of Public Policy BA:
“Compare and contrast how broadly similar historical developments in public policy (i.e., state formation, domestic and interstate conflicts, economic and social welfare development, cultural promotion and incorporation, urbanization, migration, environmental use and mitigation) have been experienced in varied times and places.”

Earth Science BA and BS (2):
“Describe the broad attributes and interactions of the Earth System, as well as its geological history, how and why it is changing today, and how those changes impact society.”

Environmental Science and Management MESM:
“Demonstrate broad knowledge of environmental science and management including competency in ecology, earth system science, biogeochemistry, microeconomics, environmental economics, statistics, environmental law, business and the environment, and environmental politics and policy.”

Environmental Science and Management PhD:
“Demonstrate knowledge of environmental science and management through completion of core courses and written and oral exams. All Bren PhD students are required to take three core courses that focus on innovative approaches to interdisciplinary environmental research, and proposal and manuscript writing for professionals in interdisciplinary environmental science.”

Global Studies MA:
“Graduate students will acquire a basic understanding of major ideas and writings that have influenced the definition of the field of global and international studies and acquire an in-depth knowledge of the kinds of subjects, issues, and problems that constitute the three broad interdisciplinary specializations that comprise our M.A. curriculum: global political economy, sustainability and the environment; global culture, ideology, and religion; global governance, civil society, and human rights. This learning will provide students with a general orientation to the field of global studies itself and an advanced introduction to three distinctive but diverse ways of addressing and analyzing particular, interlinked components of the field.”

We focused on program-level learning outcomes because this was the level where we had the most complete set of information.

The above calculation includes the number of students who graduated from a program with at least one sustainability learning outcome over the one year period 2019-2020. We chose 2019-2020 because it is the most recent academic year within the 3 year reporting period.

We likely double-counted on double-majors, due to the difficulty in separating that data out. Double majors were however counted the same in the numerator and the denominator.

Learning outcomes were mostly pulled from the Assessment of Student Learning, completed as part of the WASC Accreditation process (https://www.assessment.ucsb.edu/learning-outcomes). We used the WASC outcomes to justify undergraduate learning outcomes.

We could not find specific program-level outcomes at the Graduate level; the WASC outcomes were more general and did not adequately address each specific program. For this, we used information from credit AC 4 (Graduate Programs). More information about the PhD and MESM in Environmental Science and Management can be found below, respectively:
http://bren.ucsb.edu/academics/phd.html
http://bren.ucsb.edu/academics/MESM.html

In reporting, we ensured that we only included degree programs with learning outcomes that addressed all three components of sustainability: environment, economy, and society, or that at least included environmental issues and broadly addressed “impacts to society” (which we counted as the social/economic side). We did not include degree programs that only addressed one or two of the three components of sustainability.