University of St. Thomas
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

The School of Social Work includes several sustainability learning outcomes (competencies) as part of its division-level Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards:

"Competency 3: Advance Human Rights and Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice Social workers understand strategies designed to eliminate oppressive structural barriers to ensure that social goods, rights, and responsibilities are distributed equitably and that civil, political, environmental, economic, social, and cultural human rights are protected.

Competency 5: Engage in Policy Practice
Social workers recognize and understand the historical, social, cultural, economic, organizational, environmental, and global influences that affect social policy."

While not specifically a learning outcome, the university's 2020 Strategic Plan also addresses sustainability in the following sections:

"Catholic-Inspired Community Engagement
The University of St.Thomas will promote practices within our community that reflect the university’s commitment to truth, justice and caritas (self-giving love), and that inspire community members to work for the common good of their communities in which they participate. We always have had a strong record of student engagement with various communities. With the rising complexity of the university, we need a more coordinated approach to community engagement. To effectively engage students in advancing the common good, we will build upon our strengths in ethics, sustainability, social justice, service learning, globalization and social entrepreneurship with diverse local and global communities. We will reconfigure a culture of “service” to those deemed “underprivileged” to a culture of mutual engagement that both transforms all participants and actualizes mutual respect through collaborative efforts and decision-making."

The Strategic Plan also includes the following goal:
"St.Thomas will cultivate an ethic of the care for God’s creation through curricular and co-curricular activities aimed at environmental stewardship and sustainability."

The following programs at the University of St. Thomas specify sustainability learning outcomes:
* minors in Sustainability Studies and Environmental Studies
* majors in Environmental Studies, Environmental Science, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Civil Engineering

Sustainability Learning Outcomes for Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering:
* An ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability
* The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context

Sustainability Learning Outcomes for the Environmental Studies Major:
* Students will be able to demonstrate a broad and general knowledge of environmental studies, including its history, methods of study, major applications, and ethical issues.
* Students will be able to demonstrate ability to write a research paper that provides a coherent summary and analysis of empirical literature devoted to a specific environmental issue.
* Students will be able to demonstrate ability to conduct appropriate research to investigate problems related to environmental problems and processes.

Sustainability Learning Outcomes for the Environmental Science Major:
Goal 1. Students will become acquainted with a broad range of concepts in biology, chemistry, earth sciences, and their relationship to environmental science.
Goal 2. Students will become proficient in scientific inquiry and analysis.
Goal 3. Students will effectively communicate environmental science-related issues in both oral and written forms.
Goal 4. Students will gain quantitative literacy and use it to solve environmental science problems.
Goal 5. Students will be able to identify common ethical issues in environmental science and will recognize ethical ramifications of their actions as a scientist.

Sustainability Learning Outcomes for the Sustainability Minor:
* Students should be able to describe the scope of environmental issues, both in terms of temporal and spatial scales, and describe what it means to live sustainably.
* Students will be able to demonstrate a broad and general knowledge of sustainability, including its history, methods of study, major applications, and ethical issues.

Sustainability Learning Outcomes for the Environmental Studies Minor:
* Students will understand environmental problems and their complexities,
* Students will demonstrate productive responses to those problems, both vocational and avocational

Course-level learning outcomes required for Social Work:
* SOWK 402 Large Client Systems: Community Assessment – Environmental Justice with Geo-mapping
Learning goals:
In a collaborative process, social work students will work with the geography department learn how to use GIS mapping software to understand neighborhood vulnerabilities in surrounding local communities, in regard to the physical natural and built environment as well as important contextual factors that contributed to observed racial disparities in these areas. These will help students understand community needs and challenges beyond basic social services.

* SOWK 380 Research Methods: Program Evaluation Needs Assessment
Learning goals:
1. Students will apply research principles to a practice situation regarding a real-life environmental justice
2. Students will select a real environmental justice community crisis to plan a research project (needs assessment) that includes all steps of the research process (advisory board, question development, selecting appropriate measures, choosing a sample, minimizing ethical risks to research participants, identifying a quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, identifying an appropriate research design (comparison groups, longitudinal/cross-sectional), and planning for data analysis.
3. Students will present the proposal orally and in writing to practice communicating with others regarding research.

* SOWK 340 Human Behavior in the Environment
Learning goals:
1. Recognize the intersection of global and local political and economic systems as they relate to social work issues surrounding social and environmental justice
2. Critically analyze and apply knowledge to understand person and environment.
3. Apply the multidimensional concepts of bio/psycho/social/spiritual/cultural to social work practice on the micro, mezzo, and macro levels and recognize the interface of these concepts in the process of generalist social work practice.

Course-level learning outcomes required for Environmental Studies Major:
* ENVR 151 - Students should be able to describe in detail (appropriate to a 100 level course) the scope of environmental issues, both in terms of temporal and spatial scales, and describe what it means to live sustainably.

* ENVR 212 - Students should be able to place the current environmental debate into its historical context and describe the evolution of environmental/sustainable thought and action through history.

* ENVR 401 Capstone - Students should demonstrate their ability to integrate techniques/methods and knowledge from humanities, social science and science disciplines to concretely address/solve an environmental problem. Students should create a usable product for client (e.g., sustainable solution, communication strategy, process, tool) or a proposal for specific action to address an environmental issue.

COMPETENCY AREAS
Public Policy (1 course)
Students should be able to explain how environmental policy is created, enforced, and revised.
ENVR 351/POLS 309 Environmental Policy
JPST 355 Public Policy Analysis and Advocacy
SOWK 391 Social Policy for Change

Ecological Literacy (2 courses)
Students should be able to clearly explain how the scientific method is applied to a range of environmental problems/issues. They should be able to analyze scientific data to form interpretations and hypotheses based on those data.
BIOL 102 Conservation Biology or BIOL 209 Biology of Sustainability
CHEM 101 Environmental Chemistry
ENGR 123 Energy and the Environment
ESCI 310 Environmental Problem Solving
GEOL 115 Environmental Geology or GEOL 162 Earth’s Record of Climate

Social Science Methods (2 courses)
Students should be able to utilize the methods of data collection and analysis used in their area of expertise.
ENVR 330 Social Science Research Methods
GEOG 321 GIS with Sustainable Communities Partnership
GEOG 331 Conservation Geography
PSYC 334 Psychology of Sustainability
SOWK 380 Social Work Research w/SUST

Entrepreneurial/Leadership Skills (1 course)
Students should be able to explain the role of organizational systems dynamics impacting environmental problems and solutions.
ECON 370 Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
ENTR 200 Foundations of Entrepreneurship
ENTR 490 Environmental Sustainability and Innovation
JPST 365 Leadership for Social Justice
PSYC 342 Psychology of Work with SUST
SOWK 430 Development and Fundraising for Social Service Agencies

Communication (1 course)
Students should be able to express themselves both verbally and in writing, with a central focus on an environmental issue.
COJO 100 Public Speaking with SUST
COJO 372 Environmental Communication
ENGL 202 Fictions of Nature
ENGL 304 Analytical and Persuasive Writing with SUST

University of St. Thomas Strategic Plan, pages 22-23: https://www.stthomas.edu/media/strategicplanning/documents/StThomasStrategicPlan1.15.pdf

Figures above represent graduates from spring 2015 through spring 2017.

A note about course-level graduate counts:
The School of Social Work adopted sustainability learning outcomes during the 2017-2018 academic year and will begin to apply them at the division level in the Fall of 2018. Prior to the application of the division-level learning outcomes, three individual courses required for the social work major included sustainability learning comes. The data reported above for number of students that graduated from programs that have adopted at least one sustainability learning outcome therefore include graduate counts for undergraduate students who took social work courses with sustainability learning outcomes.