University of Massachusetts Amherst
AC-1: Academic Courses

For the two semesters of academic year 2018/2019 we obtained from the registrar the complete listing of class offerings. The database obtained includes a separate record for every primary instructor, graduate teaching assistant and undergraduate classroom assistant for every section, discussion group, lab or colloquium of these courses. There were more than 12,000 records in total per semester. All courses were counted once, regardless of the number of sections or number of times the course was offered during the academic year. We choose not to include internships, practica or independent studies, even though UMass has a large number of students enrolled in that type of of sustainability immersive learning opportunity. Those opportunities are difficult to track or compare relative to the sustainability focused and inclusive metrics, so we opted not to include them. After removing those courses, the remaining courses were inventoried to identify sustainability courses (“Sustainability Focused”) and courses that contain sustainability (“Sustainability Inclusive”) per the definitions provided in the STARS 2.2 Technical Manual.

We maintain a database of known sustainability faculty, updated annually, whose courses have in the past met the criteria of being either sustainability focused or sustainability inclusive, and address one or more UMass sustainability learning outcomes. To develop the sustainability course listing for a given academic year (in the case of this current submission, Fall 2018 and Spring 2019), we go through a three-step process to build our sustainability course list:

1. Identify the courses offered during the 2018/2019 academic year that are already on our "living inventory master list" of sustainability courses (sustainability courses offered at least once during the previous 3 academic years).
2. Extract all classes taught by sustainability faculty members (339 at present, from 49 relevant academic departments) from the remaining courses; not all of those courses automatically meet our criteria, so we then assess course-by-course whether they meet the sustainability focused or sustainability inclusive criteria. Those courses that meet the criteria are added to the course list.
3. Review the remaining courses—which may be taught by new faculty, or by existing faculty members who had not previously taught a sustainability course—and add any additional courses that meet the criteria.

The data on courses for academic year 2018/2019, we obtained from the university registrar.