University of Colorado Colorado Springs
IN-3: Innovation 3

In the last 3 years, UCCS has made the decision to add Sustainability as a requirement in its General Education Requirements for all students. All students entering the university as first year students in academic year 2015 are required to fulfill a sustainability requirement before graduation. The UCCS GE Goals approved in include the following: "Goal 3) Act and Interact. Students will cultivate self-awareness and understanding of their impact-locally, nationally, and globally. Students will be prepared to participate effectively in a society that encompasses diverse experiences, perspectives, and realities. This area includes [among others]: Sustainability-understanding the interaction between human development and the natural environment" In order to achieve the terms of this goal, students will learn about key principles of sustainability including social equity, environmental protection, and economic development, among others. The sustainability GE goal will be achieved by integrating teaching about sustainability within discipline-specific coursework and/or other GE components, or in general elective courses. Integrated content and/or courses will vary across disciplines and will examine the integrative nature of the sustainability concept to their disciplinary work. Ideally, students will gain knowledge about how to promote sustainability in their community and/or place of employment (e.g. support diversity, environmental activities such as recycling, reduction of waste, etc.). Many schools have numerous sustainability course offerings but few have sustainability as a requirement for graduation.

Initial outcomes from development of this requirement are increased numbers of sustainability courses being offered. There is an obvious incentive to include sustainability in a faculty member's course as it will increase the chances of that course filling.It will be listed in the course catalog as meeting the sustainability requirement. Also there have been several educational seminars offered this year to help faculty incorporate sustainability into their particular coursework. The goal will to be to hold at least 2 curriculum workshops each year with the goal of giving faculty more tools for incorporating sustainability.