University of Minnesota, Duluth
IN-38: Sustainability Course Designation

Three credits in a Sustainability designated course is a liberal education requirement for all students at UMD. The Lib Ed Program is divided into three parts, and each part includes three to four category requirements.

Part 1: Language, Reasoning Skills, and Theorizing Power
Part 2: Knowledge Domains
Part 3: Key Topics

Each Lib Ed category has a distinct purpose and student learning outcomes (SLOs). Courses approved for the Sustainability category focus on developing an awareness of the interaction of the natural environment with societal needs and desires. Courses can come from a variety of disciplines, including interdisciplinary approaches involving two or more departments. Courses will examine ways in which the natural environment interacts with economic, social, and political forces in a local, national and/or global context. Students will develop the ability to understand and analyze the impact of sustainability in their lives.

Learning Outcomes:

SLO 1: Students will demonstrate knowledge of fundamental sustainability principles embedded within systems/contexts.
SLO 2: Students analyze practices or policies that impact human society and the natural environment using sustainability principles.

In the online course catalog, students are able to filter classes by each liberal education requirement, which includes sustainability. Once students select the Sustainability filter, the list of courses shows the course titles and then the lib ed requirement(s) the course meets (one course can meet multiple lib ed course requirements, e.g. Sustainability, Natural Sciences).