University of Denver
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

The DU Grand Challenges Urban Sustainability Cohort is one of DUGC’s four collective impact cohorts in which faculty, staff and students partner with community leaders from the public, private, and civic sectors to improve daily life, now and in the future. Each cohort aims to increase the number of faculty, staff, and students engaged in community-based scholarship, increase the number of community partners actively engaged with DU, and increase the strength of existing community-university partnerships.

The Urban Sustainability Cohort builds on DU’s long history of building community partnerships to advance the public good with a focus on five key prototype initiatives, each intended to contribute to one unifying result:

• Metro Denver Nature Alliance (Metro DNA): Collective Impact for Healthy People & Place

  Metro DNA (metrodna.org) is a growing coalition of non-profit, government, research, and private sector partners seeking to align nature-based efforts to ensure more equitable access to nature and to promote healthy people, communities, and natural places. Long before Metro DNA’s official launch in 2018, DU Professor Susan Daggett and other faculty, staff and students have played a crucial role in the alliance's development.

• Photovoice: Amplifying Community Voices in Public Policy

  Achieving a just and sustainable future requires meaningful, inclusive participation in decision-making. The Center for Community Engagement to advance Scholarship and Learning (CCESL) has developed and facilitated three photovoice workshop series to amplify community voices in public policy formation. Photovoice is a process by which project participants document their lived experiences through photography revolving around a project topic or theme. By exhibiting their photographs at events attended by public officials and other community leaders, participants help decision-makers understand community issues through the eyes of the people who live there.

• Measuring Human & Ecological Wellbeing (HEW)

  The overwhelming dominance of GDP-based measurements as a proxy for economic success in public consciousness, media, and policy-making has perpetuated economic development focused on profit, too often at the expense of people and planet. As US Presidential Candidate Bobby Kennedy suggested in 1968, GDP “'measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.” Urban Sustainability Cohort leaders are working with partners in the Denver region (and more broadly in Colorado) to develop a consensus set of measurable indicators of human and ecological wellbeing that can be used to support an economy in service of life and wellbeing for all.

• Interdisciplinary Sustainability Clinic

  Promoting sustainability in our community often requires collective action and collaboration from many disciplines.  Currently, the law school operates the Environmental Law Clinic and Community Economic Development Clinic, which meets some of the legal needs of community members and organizations working to advance environmental justice and sustainability.  However, faculty in these programs have identified needs from their community partners for expertise from many disciplines to help empower communities to improve their own sustainability and to advocate for their interests at the state and local level.

• Institutional Hub for Just & Sustainable Futures

  All of the pilot projects are designed to contribute to a just and sustainable future for the Denver region - but what are the institutional structures that can offer long-term support for reciprocal community-university partnerships that promote just, inclusive and thriving communities where people and nature flourish? Urban Sustainability Cohort leaders are working to expand the institutional infrastructure to support a knowledge hub for Interdisciplinary, collaborative, place-based,  research and curricula. The hub will support faculty and students while building long term relationships with community partners. As the backbone to these projects, this hub will provide an operating framework to develop and enhance interdisciplinary research and curricula for a just and sustainable future.

  This work builds on the curricular and research strengths of the Colleges and Schools of DU, and is focused on addressing the unique sustainability challenges facing the Denver metro area and the Front Range.

The University of Denver offers a variety of service learning courses in a diversity of academic departments in partnership with the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL).
This program has provided funding for students, faculty, staff and community partners, providing interdisciplinary, community based research opportunities. This has led to key partnerships with Denver Public Schools looking at sustainability education in k-12 education, as well as operational and research support of the Metro Denver Nature Alliance, a consortium of nonprofits and government agencies using a collective impact approach to address regional greenspace planning with a focus on equity and access.

Partners in Scholarship (PinS) provides a unique opportunity for students to collaborate on a project with a faculty member. Students should work with the faculty partner to develop a detailed project plan. While most partnerships involve one-to-one work with a faculty member, students can work with multiple faculty members or with other students. If working with other students, each student must submit an application stating his/her personal contribution to the project and is eligible to receive $1,500. 

The DU Grand Challenges Urban Sustainability Cohort is one of DUGC’s four collective impact cohorts in which faculty, staff and students partner with community leaders from the public, private, and civic sectors to improve daily life, now and in the future. Each cohort aims to increase the number of faculty, staff, and students engaged in community-based scholarship, increase the number of community partners actively engaged with DU, and increase the strength of existing community-university partnerships.

The Urban Sustainability Cohort builds on DU’s long history of building community partnerships to advance the public good with a focus on five key prototype initiatives, each intended to contribute to one unifying result:

• Metro Denver Nature Alliance (Metro DNA): Collective Impact for Healthy People & Place

  Metro DNA (metrodna.org) is a growing coalition of non-profit, government, research, and private sector partners seeking to align nature-based efforts to ensure more equitable access to nature and to promote healthy people, communities, and natural places. Long before Metro DNA’s official launch in 2018, DU Professor Susan Daggett and other faculty, staff and students have played a crucial role in the alliance's development.

• Photovoice: Amplifying Community Voices in Public Policy

  Achieving a just and sustainable future requires meaningful, inclusive participation in decision-making. The Center for Community Engagement to advance Scholarship and Learning (CCESL) has developed and facilitated three photovoice workshop series to amplify community voices in public policy formation. Photovoice is a process by which project participants document their lived experiences through photography revolving around a project topic or theme. By exhibiting their photographs at events attended by public officials and other community leaders, participants help decision-makers understand community issues through the eyes of the people who live there.

• Measuring Human & Ecological Wellbeing (HEW)

  The overwhelming dominance of GDP-based measurements as a proxy for economic success in public consciousness, media, and policy-making has perpetuated economic development focused on profit, too often at the expense of people and planet. As US Presidential Candidate Bobby Kennedy suggested in 1968, GDP “'measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.” Urban Sustainability Cohort leaders are working with partners in the Denver region (and more broadly in Colorado) to develop a consensus set of measurable indicators of human and ecological wellbeing that can be used to support an economy in service of life and wellbeing for all.

• Interdisciplinary Sustainability Clinic

  Promoting sustainability in our community often requires collective action and collaboration from many disciplines.  Currently, the law school operates the Environmental Law Clinic and Community Economic Development Clinic, which meets some of the legal needs of community members and organizations working to advance environmental justice and sustainability.  However, faculty in these programs have identified needs from their community partners for expertise from many disciplines to help empower communities to improve their own sustainability and to advocate for their interests at the state and local level.

• Institutional Hub for Just & Sustainable Futures

  All of the pilot projects are designed to contribute to a just and sustainable future for the Denver region - but what are the institutional structures that can offer long-term support for reciprocal community-university partnerships that promote just, inclusive and thriving communities where people and nature flourish? Urban Sustainability Cohort leaders are working to expand the institutional infrastructure to support a knowledge hub for Interdisciplinary, collaborative, place-based,  research and curricula. The hub will support faculty and students while building long term relationships with community partners. As the backbone to these projects, this hub will provide an operating framework to develop and enhance interdisciplinary research and curricula for a just and sustainable future.

  This work builds on the curricular and research strengths of the Colleges and Schools of DU, and is focused on addressing the unique sustainability challenges facing the Denver metro area and the Front Range.

The University of Denver offers a variety of service learning courses in a diversity of academic departments in partnership with the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL).
This program has provided funding for students, faculty, staff and community partners, providing interdisciplinary, community based research opportunities. This has led to key partnerships with Denver Public Schools looking at sustainability education in k-12 education, as well as operational and research support of the Metro Denver Nature Alliance, a consortium of nonprofits and government agencies using a collective impact approach to address regional greenspace planning with a focus on equity and access.

The Interdisciplinary Research Incubator for the Study of (In)Equality (IRISE) provides the support and structures that empower students to turn their big ideas regarding a research project on inequality into reality. Each scholar will follow a project structure that includes: research; development of a project plan in conjunction with faculty mentor, IRISE colleagues, and other DU students; and implementation, documentation and evaluation of their public project. IRISE inequity Scholars will receive a $2,000 annual fellowship for their work between February 1 and June 30 of each academic year. In addition, each scholar is eligible to receive a $1000 annual project stipend to implement community work. Faculty mentors will receive funding in recognition of their intensive mentoring role.
http://www.du.edu/irise/research-grants/undergrad-student.html

The University of Denver is committed to academic excellence as determined principally by teaching, scholarly research and/or creative activity, institutional self-governance, and service.

Both promotion to a higher academic rank and reappointment are primary ways for recognizing such excellence in performance. Decisions about the promotion of a faculty member must be based upon high departmental standards to ensure that the candidate possesses qualifications which meet current departmental and University expectations.

Scholarly output and creative activity is defined as: including publications, creative work,
consultation, presentations in public media, public performance, exhibitions, and interdisciplinary and community-engaged research, and other activities promoting the public good.

The mission of the DU Libraries Sustainability Committee is to help University of Denver students, faculty, staff, and others find the information they need to create a community of clean water and air, vibrant ecosystems, locally sourced food, strong economies, and healthy, productive individuals.

The Sustainability Committee promotes sustainability by adopting policies and practices committed to environmental justice, social equity, and economic sustainability, in alignment with IMPACT 2025 and ALA’s Resolution on the Importance of Sustainable Libraries.

The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver-certified Anderson Academic Commons, home to the Main Library, offers features that create an environment of wellness and supports sustainable practices. The university installed LED lighting in the AAC in 2019 and solar panels on the AAC roof in 2020.