University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

The Office for Sustainability's Chief Sustainability Officer and two Program Coordinators provide educational presentations to the leadership of departments representing every AASHE STARS category, who become peer educators themselves when they disseminate the information to their colleagues and departments' employees. Leaders representing every academic college and managers of campus operations become peer-to-peer educators themselves after receiving their sustainability training and can form sub-committees to achieve sustainability goals. OFS peer outreach also includes monthly meetings with the leaders of UTRGV's Staff Senate, Faculty Senate, and Student Government Association. These leaders disseminate the information provided from OFS to their organizations, who share the information further with their peers, and implement it into their organizations.

The Office for Sustainability Sustainable Development Educational Outreach targets university leaders, and selects individuals already in such leadership positions regardless of how they attained that role; for example, members of UTRGV's Staff Senate, Faculty Senate, and Student Government Association are elected by their peers, while College Deans, their staff and other university operations managers become eligible for the peer-to-peer educational program upon their hiring.

The Office for Sustainability Sustainable Development Educational Outreach provides information in the form of a PowerPoint that covers the following to prepare peer educators to explain sustainability to their colleagues and enact sustainable development in their respective fields: -definition of sustainable development; -sustainable development goals as determined by the United Nations; -UTRGV's formal commitment to sustainable development; -AASHE STARS tracking and university goal-setting; -how sustainable development plays a role in every academic field; -how to integrate it further into their daily life and goals

Funding for the Office for Sustainability Sustainable Development Educational Outreach program comes from the Office for Sustainability's annual budget. Approximately $4,000 is set aside for promotional materials, while educational activities are covered by OFS staff annual salaries, as outreach is part of their job requirements.

87 faculty have so far been trained through Project Sin Fronteras activities, a two day workshop which instruct educators on incorporating sustainability into their class syllabus. The Office for Sustainability hosts the PSF training workshops, where faculty learn how to educate their colleagues on the information they received at the PSF event, and are able to assist their peers who did not attend in revising their class syllabus. In this way, one participant of PSF may affect their entire department. To date, PSF activities have resulted in classes that brought sustainability-related courses to over 5,000 students.

Employee Educators apply for the PSF program and are selected based on the viability of integrating sustainability into their syllabus, which they submit for review prior to the event. However, as the Office for Sustainability is committed to integrating sustainability into every field of study, no employee has yet to be turned away.

PSF activities include learning from presentations delivered by experts in sustainable education, group activities, and hands-on collaborative work with OFS staff on the syllabus itself. This hands-on, fast-paced workshop allows participants to develop a transdisciplinary framing of sustainability relevant to their discipline, and (re)design an existing or planned syllabus using a guided, hands-on process. Through this process, participants will walk away with a course makeover or a firm blueprint for completing one(depending on the scale of their course redesign), and an instructional design booklet with support tools and frameworks developed by Creative Change Educational Solutions. One-on-one time with the resident expert, Chief Sustainability Officer Marianella Franklin, ensures that each employee educator understands exactly what the goal of PSF is and that each participant is committed to spreading the information to their department.

Networking is an incentive; International faculty, and faculty from across the nation, are invited to join local, state, national, and global participants, providing international experiences while opening a range of collaborative and networking opportunities for all. Participation across all academic disciplines is encouraged. The cost for registration ($500 USD) is waived for UTRGV faculty, and includes two full days of training, instructional materials, activities, and food (continental breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks).

UTRGV’s employee educators program works towards the sustainable development goal of strong institutions, sustainable cities, and partnerships by administering ongoing staff/ faculty peer-to-peer sustainability outreach programs.